Apple's physical supply chain was praised after the 11 July release date of the new iPhone 3G for having enough handsets in place when the phone went on sale, despite some problems lurking behind it.
It has been reported that one million iPhone 3Gs were sold over the weekend, a great success considering that even the original iPhone took 74 days to hit the million mark.
However, despite all Apple did to ensure numbers on shelves, it was still let down somewhat by their software that allows users to synchronise their iPhones with their music collection on their computers.
Many users had to wait hours to be able to register their phones in order to take advantage of the online aspect of the handset.
"To me, the physical supply chain is working just fine," said Kevin O'Marah, the chief strategy officer at AMR Research.
"But the pioneering position they have taken in the digital supply chain is showing how tough it is to compete in this new realm."
The IT company took the top spot in 2008's award for AMR's Supply Chain Top 25, beating all other technology companies and even Wal-Mart with its "intoxicating mix of brilliant industrial design, transcendent software interfaces and consumable goods that are purely digital".
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