With the iPad available for pre-order from today and to start shipping on April 3rd, the tech industry has been all a-whirl since the recent unveiling of the gadget. The iPad is a new device that falls conveniently between an iPhone and a netbook. Many compare the iPad to a gigantic iPhone. What’s most different about it is it’ll directly compete with eBook devices like the Amazon Kindle, while allowing users to surf the Internet, check email, and enjoy apps just like an iPhone, but far fewer. The iPad may sound like a fantastic development on the company’s part, but some iFan’s are worried that Apple is taking too big of a bite into consumer freedom.

Monopoly is not a new concept in business. The marketplace has embraced many meager companies that eventually grew to become gigantic, greedy, loathsome monsters – making a way for a model more customer-focused and just and innovative to take a bite out of their market share.

Some would say an example of this would be Microsoft which, for all its benefits, spawned the inevitable underdog Apple. There was a time when over 90% of home computers ran off of a Microsoft operating system. But with the advent of Apple and others, Microsoft found its giant status challenged.

Lessons to be Learned

Instead of learning from Microsoft, Apple now seems to be running the risk of becoming the very same thing it opposed in the beginning.

With its new iPad, Apple restricts users from downloading any program that doesn’t come through its own market place. This will prompt freedom junkies to wait for a copycat device to come along, one with fewer restrictions at a lesser price.

Apple’s early business model is a definite plan for any small to medium-size business to follow. Where the business model derails is the precise moment when the powers that be at Apple decided to monopolize the marketplace and decimate its competition by imposing strict rules on its use.

When you deny today’s consumer customization choices and control, you diminish your brand’s likability. Consumers may use your service, but begrudgingly – anxiously awaiting for the next big thing that “gets” their needs. Cross consumers one good time and the loyalty you thought they had for you can become a thing of the past.

Over the years, Apple’s consumer community has wholehearted embraced its convenient applications and innovative technology. If Apple hopes to keep its core customer, it’ll have to remember that consistent delivery of those core concepts is crucial.

With the new iPad, Apple seems to have turned its back on a few key basics. It has shockingly imposed customization barriers when previously, they wrote the book on how to win hearts and minds by powering their market with plenty of the “I” factor, a universe of answers to WIFM (What’s In It For Me?).

Apple has taken a step back in time with its strategic platform for the iPad, and it’s a time warp that Apple loyalists find dizzying. For many, the new iPad has debuted as an apple lacking color. With the power of choice removed in the extent to which you can customize it, iFans feel like they’re being asked to buy something akin to a black and white TV.

What’s the Moral of This Apple Case Study?

The goal for any small or medium sized business should be to fill a void in the marketplace. Accompanying this should be impeccable customer service, an eye for detail, and consistent delivery of what’s deemed valuable about what you sell.

Then, once you’re hovering at the apex of your business circle or niche, stay true to the values that got you there. Insist on consistency from yourself. You know what your loyal customers have come to expect. Giving them anything less, even once, is risky business.

Remember, the next little company is always right around the corner, just waiting to pick up your slack, and your profits.

What’s your thought on this? Leave your comments below.