…and it isn’t even a year old.

Steve Lohr at the New York Times tries to get his head around just how successful Apple is at this moment. The once “60 days from bankruptcy” company now introduces products that are bigger, by themselves, than most companies could ever hope to be. iPad, the latest Apple creation is on track to deliver almost $20 billion in revenues in its first year.

How does Apple do this? Well, Lohr goes into an “Apple as a platform” theory…

“Apple has hit that magical combination of gradually shifting from a product to a platform strategy,” says Michael A. Cusumano, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. and author of “Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World” (Oxford University Press, 2010).

..which is kind of the “halo effect” on steroids. You buy an iPhone and you want an iPad, and then you want a MacBook. Then you want to buy your wife an iPod touch and your kid a nano and because you are a fanboy, your friends get into it.

I think Apple would simply argue that it makes great products.

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