So Apple rolls out a slew of product improvements, namely, the MacBook Air. It’s a sexy-thin, full keyboard laptop. As I would describe it any way.

My purpose is not really to tout the MacBook Air, but to highlight Apple’s ability-or rather guts-to change the hardware requirements of an industry.

They did it with the floppy and now they’re doing it with the CD-ROM/DVD. The MacBook Air doesn’t have either [sic].

Apple built the MacBook Air to be a wireless machine. How do we install software 90% of the time? By download. How are movies (on a laptop) going to be “consumed” within the next 6 - 18 months? By download (you can do it now, through another announcement of Apple’s movie rental through iTunes, live as of yesterday).

Apple decided what the purpose of the machine was going to be (wireless connectivity), they looked at current trends and helped move that trend along by not trying to be all things to all people. When companies are everything to everyone, they can’t make progress. Apple has proven to take a stand on its product development (simple interface for the iPod, no floppy, no CD-ROM) and people gripe, whine and complain for about 6 weeks, and then they realize they can live without the unnecessary appendages.

Question: What’s your company’s floppy drive? What are you continuing to support at the sake of progress? Take a page from Apple’s book and sacrifice for the short term so you can have long-term progress. And the funny thing is-it’s for your customers, not you.