In fact, you'd have to go back to the introduction in 1984 of the Macintosh personal computer to find a machine as game-changing as this one.
Of course, back then, the Mac grabbed only a small share of the huge PC market. But what it did do was establish Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) as the sector's clear technical leader. It also gave birth to desktop publishing.
This time around, however, Apple has turned the tables on its rivals in two ways...
- First, it came up with a breakthrough approach and the ideal screen size. At nearly 10 inches diagonal - very close to the size of a piece of paper - this format feels natural to most users.
- Second, it's a runaway success, boasting 70% of the market share.
You see, the PC industry is going into a long decline. It's already started. Ditto for newspapers, magazines, music distribution, and lots of other physical products that will get transformed into software.
So says Michael Saylor, author of the hot new book "The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything." As I told you yesterday, I tracked Saylor down to talk about how mobile computing fit into the Era of Radical Change. (You can read the first of my three-part series here.)
His is hardly an academic view. See, Saylor also serves as the CEO of MicroStrategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR), a leader in business intelligence.
He believes five billion people will use iPads or a comparable device within a decade. That's roughly 75% of the population of Earth. No doubt, he admitted to me, that's a bold prediction. He added this:
"It's a prediction upon which you can make a lot of money if you're an investor. Because if I'm right, then you will have beaten the crowds to that conclusion. And the reason I believe that is - we've reached an inflection point, where it's now cheaper to learn to read on a tablet than it is to learn to read on paper. And I think that's a very, very meaningful thing."
Naturally, I wanted to know just what investors need to do to make money off this trend, so I could share the information with you.Saylor answered by sharing four key facts every investor needs to know about this market-dominating device.
Here they are...