Business Insight Zone

Today’s Company of the Day is Apple Inc.

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Maybe you’re familiar with the rule of thumb from the semiconductor industry called Moore’s Law. The basic idea is that microchips get twice as fast every 18 to 24 months. For the past several years, Apple has been hewing to something similar — call it “Jobs’s Law” — in the realm of consumer electronics: Apple products get twice as cool every 18 to 24 months. Apple CEO Steve Jobs did it again yesterday, when he rolled out a raft of new products in the company’s blockbuster electronics lines, especially iPods. The iPod, which has sold more than 110 million units since it debuted in 2001, now comes in even more flavors, ranging from the tiny, clip-on iPod Shuffle (now in red), larger capacity 160 GB iPod “Classic” (now in an all-metal casing), and the new flagship iPod touch. The new iPod touch looks and acts very much like the iPhone, except it’s thinner, has WiFi connectivity, and is available with up to 16 GB of memory. This round of product evolution comes just a couple of months after Apple’s groundbreaking iPhone launch, which earned the company roughly a billion headlines.

It’s nothing new for Apple to dominate headlines, despite its small size relative to Sony, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and its other top competitors. Indeed, one of the great gifts of Steve Jobs is to understand how best to position Apple’s products for the biggest public impact. For years, though, Apple’s product focus meant it was stuck: despite its reputation for great design, which stretches back to the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, the company held such a small slice of the computer market that no amount of good presentation could put it on par with the dominant players. That all changed with the iPod, which reinvented the market for digital audio players. Jobs and friends look to be achieving similar success with the iPhone, which is likely to sell its millionth unit this month. For all the company’s struggles to grow in the computer business, it’s doing quite well as a purveyor of the coolest consumer electronics around — and doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon.

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For more on the success of the iPhone, see this item from Good Morning Silicon Valley. For an aftermath-check from the same source, look here.