Four Reasons Apple iPad Can't Miss

Here are four reasons why the Apple(AAPL) iPad is a guaranteed success.

1. The stores. The stores are Apple's main weapon. Anyone else can make a tablet for Web surfing, book reading, movie viewing, whatever: Dell (DELL), H-P(HPQ), Acer, Google(GOOG), Amazon(AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) or Lenovo. But none of those companies have the stores. There are two reasons why this is important.

First, this is the kind of product that people need to see and feel in person, in order to decide whether to take the plunge -- it's a new category of product, after all. Second, Apple has already paid for the stores, and they can easily fit several more products, which means that it is almost a guarantee that any product Apple launches will become an incremental financial success for Apple. People who walk into the Apple stores may or may not buy an iPad right away, but those who don't buy an iPad may walk out with something else under their arm -- a MacBook or iPod Touch, for example.

2. iTunes. Nevermind that iTunes works on a PC of any kind -- including tablet PCs from companies such as Dell and Lenovo or that it synchronizes with every BlackBerry. The public associates iTunes with Apple, and every new product building on the iTunes ecosystem has an automatic head start against the competition.

3. The AT&T(T) deal. Apple did three very smart things with its choice of wireless options:

A) An unlimited plan for $30. This is extremely significant, because wireless carriers such as Verizon Wireless have recently been viewed as unlikely to offer any more unlimited-anything plans. In fact, this may have just been the reason why Verizon didn't get the iPad deal.