1. Apple SVP Scott Forstall

In August, we declared that Apple is the new Microsoft :

Apple is now the wildly profitable owner of the dominant iPod platform and rapidly-becoming dominant iPhone platform, which are really one in the same. Unlike any other competitor in the industry, moreover—including the still PC-centric Microsoft—Apple has managed to link the two big personal computing platforms together, through its software and resurgent Mac business.

As Apple extends its lead as the mobile computing platform of choice—calling the iPhone a "phone" misses the point—Apple's dominance of this enormous opportunity will increase. This dominance should put Apple in a position to generate an extraordinary share of the value in the this industry over the next decade, just as Microsoft did with desktop computing.

There's plenty of credit to go around for Apple's rise to the top, but one name that doesn't get mentioned enough is Scott Forstall's, the SVP behind Apple's iPhone software.