As a founder of a new company and the son of a lawyer lawsuits are certainly something I think about. It seems all companies that become well known eventually face lawsuits. While it sucks and you never want to face one, many know it is a cost of doing business. You also find people who want to attack a company seeing a big dollar sign in front of them. Plus lawyers might earn hundreds of millions or dare I say billions if they win a case from a company like Facebook or Google.
...but those millions may take years to win. Every lawsuit has an opportunity cost. Yes if you get to a certain level that is the cost of doing business, but if you are just out of the gate and have X dollars and Y hours in the day that may be a poor investment. Also there's a difference between a disruptive cost in upsetting an old industry (say a YouTube or Napster) vs. fighting a single companies' walled garden. At the end of the day building a company on top of another companies walled garden is a high risk to begin with, so it could be better to just move on.
It appears that Apple is doing great with Ipad 2. There are even organized groups of people on line to buy and resell in China. This tells me the demand is extremely high in Asia. Since they are the real growth story it appears Ipad 2 will be a success. My brother just called to tell me he is going back to study App development. I think the creation of Apps are a huge niche for designers. While it might be difficult to have fortune 50 companies hire you eventually local businesses such as diners, clothing stores and more will need an app for their business. I smell a new cottage industry for those who have app design abilities.
