Apple CEO Steve Jobs “is going Hollywood, as the single biggest shareholder of the most iconic of Hollywood studios: Disney,” Jack Gruber reports for USA Today. “Disney said Tuesday it is buying Pixar — the animation studio Jobs runs — for $7.5 billion and giving Pixar CEO Jobs a seat on the board of directors… Questions about Jobs’ involvement in Disney are numerous. Even with just a 4% market share for computers, Apple is one of the great comeback stories — with its packed retail stores in major cities, red-hot iPod media device, and a $64.3 billion market cap that’s a good deal larger than Disney’s $50 billion.”
“Tech analysts say it is unlikely Jobs will abandon the company he co-founded in 1976, put on his sunglasses and start spending most of his time at Disney headquarters in Burbank, Calif. More likely, he will continue to spend most of his working energy on Apple, devoting one day a week to his other love, Pixar,” Gruber reports. “Charles Wolf, a longtime Apple analyst who covers the company for equity firm Needham & Co., says Jobs is emotionally attached to Apple. ‘It’s his heart and soul, it’s kicking ass all over the world and becoming a huge brand. He would be really reluctant to leave it now.'”
“After being ousted by Apple’s board of directors in 1985 after an internal power struggle, Jobs started the computer company NeXT and bought Pixar from Star Wars director George Lucas for $10 million in 1986. He returned to Apple in 1997, first as interim CEO, when it bought NeXT,” Gruber reports. “Richard Doherty, an independent analyst for the Envisioneering Group, says Jobs’ biggest accomplishment upon returning to Apple was bringing his ‘zeal’ back to the company, and asking the right questions. ‘At the board meetings, Steve asks questions nobody would dare bring up, and you better have an answer,’ says Doherty. ‘At Apple, he asked these amazing questions, and the company started to transform.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “sailfish” for the heads up.]
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FYI – I have 3 girls, and a boy. They have loved everything Pixar has put out. It’s the quality of the writing.
The other Steve –
“• Having the balls to risk the wrath of 3rd party developers by creating programs that already had well established (and windows friendly) programs such as Safari, iTunes, Final Cut Pro, Keynote, Automator, and Dashboard. Microsoft was pissed about Sarfari, Keynote, Mail, Address Book, iCal, and Pages, all Microsoft competitors. Adobe was very pissed about Final Cut Pro and, hopefully, Aperture. That’s what they get for not supporting Core Image.”
I agree they do have some serious balls for doing this, but competing with their own software developers has in a lot of ways isolated and hindered Mac growth in general. Adobe really helped keep the Mac alive in an indirect way (during Apple’s “dark years”). I think they have a legitimate reason to gripe. I’m not saying Apple doesn’t come out with good things, ’cause they do, but distancing yourself from MAJOR(or any) developers can never be a good thing…
Although to be fair, Microsoft does do the same thing to their competitors as well……..
Correction: Although to be fair, Microsoft does do the same thing to their DEVELOPERS as well……..
One last thing……….
I personally think Apple needs Adobe more than Adobe needs Apple. Take a look at their site/product lineup – see a “come out with a Windows version upgrade first” trend there? I do.
Wow, have you people watched any Pixar films?
It’s not about the toys, fish, bugs, or superheroes. It’s about the story. Pixar is a peerless storyteller. So what, if girls don’t like cars as much as boys, it’s not about the vehicles, it’s about the story that goes with it.
As for the Cars trailer, I kind of like the newest one. And, if you asked me about the first Nemo and all of the Incredibles trailers I saw, I’d tell you they stunk. Now, I trust Pixar to produce a great film, regardless of how I feel about the trailer. Having watched some of the extras included in the various DVDs, I realize that the trailers are made so early in the story process, that the early trailers have almost no relationship to the eventual movie. It’s almost as if, the earliest trailers are a proof of story concept. I mean, the first Nemo trailer only showed water! And, the Incredibles trailer showing Mr.Incredible buckling his belt over his gut was only mildly amusing. Neither of these trailers were remotely comparable to the eventual films.
But, Murder Junkie, if the story is true, Adobe turned away from Apple first. After SJ came back, he asked Adobe to develop a piece of software for the Mac but Adobe said no. I think it was Adobe Elements. In any case, it was a wake-up call to Apple. And Apple started developing its own stuff.
Queezie is “part right” meaning that Queezie is also “part wrong”. I reckon that Queezie is more wrong than right, more ignorant than informed, and more short-sighted than imaginative.