1) The iPad is not a no-brainer. Far from it. Apple is a public company, with billions of dollars of revenue and many short-term focused investors it needs to satisfy. The same pressures of "profit maximizing resource allocation" apply to Apple that apply to Microsoft. If apple sells iPads entirely at the expense of Macs, it could go out of business. Someone very well could have made the argument that it would destroy the company.
2) Disruption is about building "more convenient" but "not as good" innovations that target low margin segments of the market. It's not about the % of the market that the largest incumbent holds. You can disrupt an industry with 9 players with 10% of the market just as easily as you can disrupt an industry with 1 player with 90% of the market. For Google to sell netbooks is a no-brainer (they don't disrupt any of Google's existing businesses). For Apple to sell iPads is gutsy.
Your point (1) is wrong. From 2010, before the iPad:
"A report in the Wall Street Journal notes that in the 2010 Apple fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 26, iPhone and related product revenues came to $5.6 billion, 36 percent of Apple’s revenue total. That compares with $4.45 billion for total computers and $3.39 billion for iPods. The iPhone, clearly, is largely responsible for doubling Apple’s sales over the past three years. Even though computer sales are up sharply at Apple, iPod sales have been roughly flat over the same period.
The associated increase in gross profit margin is even more impressive. The iPhone carries higher margins than do other Apple products, so the gross revenue of the company has increased from 31 percent to 48 percent over that same three-year period. "
Apple only made 33% of their revenue from their computers. And even moreso, as noted in that article, the iPhone carried much higher margins than their other products. I don't think its any stretch to believe that margins on the iPad are similarly large.
IOW, even if the iPad cannibalized all of their Mac sales, they were on solid ground, because its clear their revenue and margin growth was not the Mac, but the iPhone and eventually the iPad. It was obvious that iOS was their key platform, not OSX. Nothing is a sure shot in business, but this was about as easy a call as it gets.
On (2) we were explicitly not talking about disrupting an industry. We were talking about Apple disrupting itself.
I don't think it was at all gutsy for Apple to sell iPads. The market math just made too much sense. WebApps are gutsy for Apple now, since it undermines their huge app ecosystem. New devices that build on their iOS platform are not gutsy nor disruptive (unless they do something like give iOS away for free and make money just from the appstore).
Disrupt Office with what? A cheaper, but significantly higher margin version of Office that has broader appeal? That's not disruptive. That's a smart business move.
Or is it a free web version of Office that has no current revenue model? Also, what is the trajectory of Office revenue? Is it a growth area or stable? In the case of OSX it is a MUCH lower percentage of revenue as compared to 3 years earlier.
Disruption requires the cannibalizing product to impact the bottom line negatively. The iPad has had the complete opposite effect from the first day.
If MS shipped a product that on day 1 resulted in higher earnings than Office, that's not disruptive.
But I think we can agree to disagree about if the iPad was a bold gutsy move. I think it was a natural progression from the iPhone and cannibalizing a product that couldn't really grow even during the Vista years wasn't really a concern. You think otherwise.
1) The iPad is not a no-brainer. Far from it. Apple is a public company, with billions of dollars of revenue and many short-term focused investors it needs to satisfy. The same pressures of "profit maximizing resource allocation" apply to Apple that apply to Microsoft. If apple sells iPads entirely at the expense of Macs, it could go out of business. Someone very well could have made the argument that it would destroy the company.
2) Disruption is about building "more convenient" but "not as good" innovations that target low margin segments of the market. It's not about the % of the market that the largest incumbent holds. You can disrupt an industry with 9 players with 10% of the market just as easily as you can disrupt an industry with 1 player with 90% of the market. For Google to sell netbooks is a no-brainer (they don't disrupt any of Google's existing businesses). For Apple to sell iPads is gutsy.