This year's CES was very interesting. I had felt for the past few years that CES was sorely lacking in the innovation department. But this year it looks like things have changed in the technology industry. Technology companies have realized that to reach the consumer the pace of innovation needs to accelerate, and this year's CES was a start in that direction.  Several things stuck out that I'd like to highlight:  

One of the primary things about being an effective technology industry analysis firm is that we have to clearly communicate our perspectives about the technology industry as a whole to our clients. This requires more than just the regurgitation of information as we gather it in the field. It requires explaining more fundamental elements of what is happening and why. It is because of this that we seem to get one question common to many of the companies that we speak with and provide services to. That question is: "Why is Apple doing so well and what can we do to compete?"

Particularly of interest to many is why Apple appears to be recession-proof while many others in the hardware business had a rough 18 months or so. There are more reasons then I have time to go into in this article as to why Apple appears to be unstoppable, so I will highlight just a few. I am a big picture strategic thinker by nature and I love thinking about and strategizing around competitive advantage and differentiation. That is why I love analyzing Apple, because they play the strategic game extremely well, particularly when it comes to developing strategies to defend their competitive advantage. There are three key areas that stick out to me as particularly defensible for Apple.