Cringley this week writes about the 80-20 rule.
In every business there is some version of the 80-20 rule that says 80 percent of the business comes from 20 percent of the customers. Smart businesses do whatever they can to play to that powerful 20 percent.
…
There's another kind of company, however, that applies the 80-20 rule in a different manner and Apple is one of those companies. They aim everything they do at that top 20 percent and ignore the rest. Sometimes you hit a home run and get 75 percent market share, like Apple did with the iPod and iTunes, but I can guarantee you the business plan was aimed at taking 20 percent, tops, and making a good living with that.
There are other companies that take a similar market approach to Apple, but few of them are in the computer business. BMW and Porsche are good examples.
The 80-20 rule is known as the Pareto principle. Before this I knew it only in software programming context: 80% of software program is written in 20% of the time.
I don't know how many of Cringley's predictions come out to be true. But some of his analogies (like this one) just seem fitting.