Apple – My Point Exactly

Apple is World’s Most Admired Company for the third year in a row!

I’ll just cut and paste nuggets from the the CNN Money posting of the Fortune Magazine report, which you can find at http://bit.ly/aNWVRi

“What exactly does it mean to be admired? Whether you call it a sterling reputation, integrity, or trust, this aspect of a company’s DNA can seem like an imprecise concept in the numbers-driven world of business. But for the companies on the list, trust and integrity are not just vague terms: They’re durable assets with a financial payoff. And in 2009 trust took center stage. As Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express (No. 29), puts it, “The competitive advantage of trust has never been more important or more valuable.”

So which company does business admire most? Even among this select group there is a clear leader: For the third straight year Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) takes the No. 1 spot — this time by the highest margin ever, according to Hay Group, the management consulting firm that collaborates with Fortune on the list. Indeed, in 2009, 51% of corporate leaders surveyed said they admired Apple, an unprecedented majority.

Says Norbert Reithofer, CEO of BMW (No. 22): “Apple’s customers are more than customers — they’re fans.”

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) comes close to achieving that kind of trust and brand loyalty too — after all, businesses and consumers trust that Google will tell them exactly what they need to know simply because they ask it to — so it’s fitting that the search giant notched up to claim the No. 2 spot.”

It’s not easy to get onto this list. But it’s also not easy to get a consistently nasty reputation over several years either. You have to try really hard, or tolerate incompetence across many parts of a company.

With both Apple and Google already offering mobile telephony products, and very much entrenched in the Internet/network world and combined, holding numbers 1 and 2 on this Most Admired list, maybe we’ll see a competitive product from one or both of them in a year or two. It would make a lot of sense from a brand extension standpoint. Now wouldn’t that be a nice alternative to consider. Google Voice is one toe in the water already.

Slingbox Media (www.Slingbox.com) can let you watch your own television programming (cable service channels + DVR recordings + you can set DVR recordings) from any networked computer in the world, or even from your iPhone or Blackberry (and yes, it’s easy to set up, and it works!!).

Serious network based telephony competitors will surely spring up in the near future if Slingbox can do what they do. In the mean time, just monitor your credit cards for extra charges.  :)

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