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by Catherine Woods - Friday, 21st September 2007

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A lot can happen in a day, as Tom Dudderidge knows all too well.

As the founder and CEO of Gear4, a company that manufactures accessories for iPods and other digital devices, Dudderidge’s market changes in an instant when Apple revamps its iPods.

“The moment that happens, the market for older products just disappears,” he says. “We’re forced to create new products just to stay in the competition.”

Less than a month ago, Apple unveiled its iPod touch and introduced the latest iPod nano and iPod classic. Ten days before Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, made the announcement, Dudderidge got wind that something was up and started putting the wheels in motion.

“Within hours of Steve Jobs’s announcement we had decided exactly what our strategy was going to be,” he says. “We already had people in the factories, designing new products.”

Now, just over two weeks later, they’ve designed 48 different cases for the new iPods. “Of those cases, five have already been shipped or will be shipped to retailers this week. The rest will be shipped in the next couple of weeks.”

Speed is key, especially given that the lifespan of an iPod is a mere 12 months – if it takes you three months to design a product, you only have nine months to sell it. “If we were to take that long now, we’d miss out on the most critical sales season: Christmas,” Dudderidge points out.

Speed is also important when you’re operating in as competitive a market as Gear4 is. Dudderidge says competitors are “appearing on a daily basis” and that they now include consumer electronics giants such as Sony and Philips.

Gear4 has been established for nearly four years. Turnover after the first year was £1.8m. This year, Dudderidge expects turnover to top £20m.

Tags: apple, ipod, tom dudderidge, gear4, steve jobs,