Strategy by Evolution

It's interesting how the iTunes and iPod history altered my view of strategy formulation:

A first glance at the strong interlocking of the different pieces of Apple's strategy puzzle makes you marvel at how well thought-out their strategy seems to be. The iTunes store forms a strong platform serving two sides - users and developers - while simultaneously acting as a loss leader for the iPod and iPhone, where they earn most of their revenue. And all the while, the iTunes store is able to capture vast amounts of valuable data on customers' purchase preferences. Presented with this picture, I have been awed at Apple's foresight and mastery of strategy.

But the history of iTunes and the iPod painted a slightly different story - one of strategy as an evolutionary, even somewhat serendipitious process, rather than simple follow-through of an already formulated view. For instance, I had always assumed that Apple created the iPod and iTunes as simultaneous, complementary products. I was interested to learn that not only was the iPod a later development, it was as a way a response to a need pointed to by iTunes.

I guess what this has taught me about strategy is this: strategy formulation is not like painting a picture, where you have, in advance, an idea of where all the different components fit in, with full control of how elements interact with each other. Rather, it's more dynamic, like a chess game, where each move draws a response which opens up possibilities, and each possibility leads to a different outcome. Does anybody have a different view of things? I'm curious to see how this class helps me develop an ability to evaluate the strategic possibilities that each potential move might have...