Five rules of cool

There are that must be followed in order to imitate Apple's enormous success, according to one columnist. They include a collective of well-known loyal customers that avidly defend the company on a whim, as well as the company's seemingly impervious reputation, according to a column from The Age. The first rule is that excellence trumps everything; "your products had better be as good as Apple's," the columnist says. Second, decide on your story, then stick to it; "say what you are. Stick to it, again and again." The third rule is to choose your friends well; "what's unusual to the point of singularity is Apple's chutzpah in claiming the imprimatur of notables who died before the PC existed."

Fourth, choose your enemies better, "the company [Apple] unveiled the first Macintosh during the peak of IBM's dominance of the computer market, and its implicit portrayal of Big Blue as a tyrant convinced many individual computer buyers." Finally, let your allies play bad cop, "Apple rarely bashes its competitors directly [...] Why bother to attack when surrogates can do it so much more effectively?"

by MacNN Staff