“The idea that Jobs could one up the great George Lucas on such a scale is unimaginable. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. In an era where film studios prefer to produce quantity rather than quality, Pixar has taken the opposite approach. Toy Story 3 is Pixar’s 11th feature film and its 11th number one hit at the box office. The reason why other studios can’t emulate such success is simple; they don’t know which movies will stick,” Schwarz writes. “It’s the same as a phone company that doesn’t know which phone will stick so they come out with multiple models. Why? Because they lack vision. They’re blind to what happens next.”
“There is no greater gift. Athleticism? No way. Intelligence? Sorry. The greatest God-given gift is the ability to see life as it really is and to know of things yet to come. Steve Jobs is a committee of one. Compare his results to the hundreds and thousands of focus groups at Palm or Microsoft,” Schwarz writes. “The difference between seeing and not seeing is exponential.”
Schwarz writes, “Now let me tell you what I see. I see decade 2010 turning into a Steve Jobs revolution of market share euphoria. Apple has hit a tipping point… Without a holiday shopping season, Apple would beat estimates and sell 10 million iPads this year. With a holiday shopping season, they’ll sell 20 million in 2010 alone. The growth is relentless thanks to the gift of Steve Jobs.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Now there’s an iPad unit sales estimate!
I think it goes beyond Steve Jobs being able to see what’s next. He knows how to CREATE what “next” is!
Again, if Apple can only get “20 million” iPads made this year than that is all they will be able to sell. Does someone see Apple inventory stacking up on a shelf somewhere? No!
Only if Apple can produce 20 million iPads in 2010, can they sell 20 million ipads.
“a seer is greater than a prophet”
Hi NCIceman, wasn’t Next the name of Steve Jobs company that he built that was picked up by Apple and is the core OS to OS X and iOS? Yes. He even got the name wright.
You can argue all kinds of things about how good, or bad, Apple products are. You just can’t argue with the success they’re having in the market place.
There’s a reason he started NeXT computer and NeXTSTEP OS that is the heart of all that iPhone/iPad/iPod touch are today.
I would be surprised if there were enough supply to support 20 million IPad sale this year.
nomoremsbs, now that all that manufacturing resources are freed up from building last years netbooks (that no one wants now), Apple can take their billions and ramp up the worlds production capabilities to manufacture the products that people really want. Apple products.
Varth Dader, you forgot the Mac OS X that is also based on the NeXT OS.
Vision is the most vital quality of leadership, and yet the least credited. It is also completely unexamined in business schools.
Can’t Steve Ballmer see how desperate people are for a decent personal tablet computer?
Steve has the ability to stay true to himself despite all the screaming, criticism and commotion directed at him. Strength of soul is another vital component that nobody examines. Steve is a rare giant among men because he KNOWS what is right. Not infallible but basic instincts are in tune and he holds the course. Thank God the Lord has graced earth with Steve Jobs. Very happily typed on my iMac.
Great cartoon and even greater marketing genius for his gadgets. But, “gifted visionaries’ don’t blunder into the kind of a mindless deal that has given ATT a fortune they could have never earned. And, why?
That’s not visionary – that’s blind stupidity.
Meanwhile, Ballmer has reached his cow tipping point and is holding on to Microsoft to keep him up.
Now they are both falling…
Among the many visionary qualities possessed by Mr Jobs is his understanding of the tyranny of too many choices. Steve totally gets this.
“Steve Jobs sees things that nobody else does”, does he see dead people too ?
20 Million by Christmas? MDN, iCal that puppy!
I predicted 20 Million iPads sold this year a month ago.
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Methinks Disney is slowly phasing out the Pixar brand. TS3 is labeled as being from DISNEY Pixar. Sad, but true.
Lucas was going thru a divorce and had to raise some cash, so he sold his CG animation group to Steve.
Endangered, actually Pixar films have always been branded Disney/Pixar, starting with the first Toy Story. Pixar is far too valuable to be phased out and is now basically the face of Disney animation.
George Lucas is way too overvalued.
If he was lacking vision and execution so much so that he unleashed those loathsome prequels to the worls, he can be believed to also sell the golden goose Pixar to Steve Jobs.
@M159
Our entire educational system has been focused on educating just half our brain, the left side. The vision, creativity, and magic of a Steve Jobs is rooted in both right and left brain intelligence, literacy, and education. The mix of and equal respect for art with science is what is lacking in Apple competitors.
It’s more than just Steve Jobs. He has the idea, but he also has a team of visionaries who know how to make those ideas a reality. People have talked for years about tablet computers, video chat, and the like, but it took the folks at Apple to find a way to not only create but to put it in the hands of ordinary people. Imagine when (not if) Face Time comes to the iPad when future iPads also get the forward facing camera; companies could take videoconferences out of the sterile boardrooms and into the Real World. It’s more than likely that iPhone 4 is a proving ground for what we’ll be seeing in iPad 2.0, from the retinal display on forward.