iPhone Duo launch is a massive success, but Apple has a problem

Apple’s iPhone Duo launch shows that strong product innovation and marketing can create substantial demand even for a very high-priced device, validating the business case for premium, differentiated hardware. But the rapid sellout and multi-month backlog also highlight a strategic failure in supply planning and manufacturing readiness, signaling lost revenue, frustrated customers, and a need for IT and operations leaders to treat launch execution, forecasting, and production scale as core competitive capabilities.