“It wasn’t simply a matter of the illness that had sidelined him for half the year before, leaving him severely emaciated and eventually requiring a liver transplant,” Waters and Menn report. “Little more than a decade earlier, both Mr Jobs’ career and Apple, the company he had co-founded, were widely considered washed up, their relevance to the future of technology written off both in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street. By the start of this year, however, the rebound was complete.”
Waters and Menn report, “Now, three decades on, he has secured his place in the foremost ranks of the West Coast tech titans who have done so much to shape the world around the turn of the millennium.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “JES42” and “GetMeOnTop ” for the heads up.]
@ C1
Kindred spirits, yo!
Glad to see you all have boners for steve…
@ iWill
We’re on the bus.
Lenovo battery is on http://www.usbphoneworld.com/ibm-t61-43r2499.html
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What Steve Jobs has done to lead Apple is remarkable enough. However, what he did (and continues to do) more covertly to manipulate the rest of the industry in Apple’s favor is equally remarkable.
One obvious example is how Apple gained control of e-content distribution for music, through the iTunes Store. And through that entry, Apple is now the top music retailer, period. It’s amazing how Steve Jobs out-manuevered an entire entrenched industry, to gain an advantage for Apple that is incredibly powerful.
Another example is the careful “manipulation” of Microsoft. A decade ago, Microsoft was a huge threat to Apple. Yet (after Apple was no longer in danger of bankruptcy or acquisition) it was Apple that goaded Microsoft with the “Get a Mac” marketing. I’m sure Microsoft’s execs were annoyed, and they were embarrassed that the latest version of Windows (XP) was so “antiquated.” So Microsoft abandons the overly-ambitious “Longhorn” project and does a rush job to release Window Vista. When Vista itself became embarrassing, Microsoft throws “everything” at Windows 7.
While Microsoft practically ignores Windows Mobile (because they are focused on Windows Vista and the Windows 7), Apple secretly works on iPhone. When Apple releases iPhone in 2007, Microsoft first goes into denial mode, but then panics and fixates on what became Windows Phone 7. But while Microsoft is (again) misdirected and focused (this time) on Windows Phone 7, Apple secretly works on iPad, which is the REAL prize of this new decade.
So after a decade of work, Microsoft has a “good enough” PC OS and an incomplete first-edition smartphone OS, with nothing in between that is suitable for an iPad competitor. Tablets (as re-defined by Apple) will be the fastest growing segment for personal computing, and Microsoft has NO answer. That’s amazing… And what’s even more amazing is that Microsoft has been working on the “tablet PC” for the past decade, and was initially a leader in smartphone software too.
The latest example may be Android. Common sense says that Android gaining market share is bad for Apple. But I think Steve Jobs actually wants Android to take over as the “other” smartphone OS. When iPhone was released in 2007, Apple had to contend with Palm, RIM, Nokia, those using Windows Mobile, and others; Android was not even in the picture. Today, it’s basically iPhone and Android; everyone else is gone or fading. By staying off Verizon and still selling as many iPhones as it could make, Apple let Android to do the “dirty work” to marginalize the rest of the competition. Soon, Android will be the only viable way to compete with iPhone.
And I think Apple feels pretty confident it can successfully manage competition with a single fragmented platform where the primary software developer (Google) makes no direct profit from sales of Android devices, and the many hardware developers are mostly fighting each other (and not iPhone). It’ll be just like Apple’s recent Mac success, except NO Microsoft with double (Windows and Office) cash cow, and NO real pricing advantage for the other hardware makers. Advantage to Apple.
I haven’t read the full article yet, but I hope that Joseph Menn doesn’t do his usual trick of throwing a snide, weaselly, backhanded put down of Apple.
If he is genuinely onside today, then I will raise a glass, because it is another little signal that yesterdays world view of Apple is really, genuinely, changing.
Hooray
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Why don’t we let Steve turn the economy around. Let him be the “Business Zsar” of the USA…
Merry Christmas to all here @ MDN (yes, even Zune…)
The Chief
@ken1w
This is probably the longest comment I have read from you. I always appreciated you and KenC for the valuable insights you tend to often share with us. I won’t ask you to start a blog, though I feel it would be more insightful than the often attention trolling blog that claims to be from outside the RDF (as if that’s a mantra to live by or means something significant).
Anyway, just wanted to say, I appreciate these, and season’s greetings to all.
MDN MW: ‘and.’ That’s all I had to say I guess.
My first was a powerbook 170 also, what a magical little box. I wanted a 180c, but at least with the 170 we got active matrix screens. I now have a 27″ i7 iMac, and I got used to a 27″ screen pretty quickly.
@ken1w, great read, thanks.
Steve has down the Chinese insight of how perseverance furthers.
Mac 512K.
January ’85.
You betcha baby! Steve Jobs is the man!
Wish there was an Apple Store in my town, I’d apply for part time there, just to roll around in all things Apple and help everyone.
Stinks that you have to register to read the full article.
@Mr. Reeee
Same here. I was a college freshman when I got the 512K.
I was just talking to a friend about Apple and mentioned it was now the second largest company in the United States. He didn’t believe me so I had to go online to show him Apple’s market cap. He was amazed.
Yeah, give him credit for making billions of dollars ….
But not for inventing the PC, introducing GUI, laser print, etc. etc. etc, inventing the smart phone, taking computing mobile, forcing millions of brainsless lemmings out of M$ slavery while kicking and screaming.
Maybe, just maybe, it is not yet capped.
Great insight from Ken1w.
Always wondered why S.J. went balls-to-the-wall with the fanboy sites wholly dedicated to leaking rumored Apple products. He went so far as threatening to subpoena ISPs’ records just so they could reveal email addresses of the sources of those leaks within Cupertino itself. Imagine the thrumming palpitations in the hearts of those insiders at 1 Infinite Loop. Now I know. What a heckuva product pipeline Steve had all these years back. Imagine if those sites had so much as “rumored” about an iPhone or an iPad in the pipeline? The surprise would not have been this complete, especially for Apple’s copycat competitors.
Once again, props to the big cajuna at Apple.
Cool Yule, y’all.
Shmerls : Apple TV is not going to replace your cable. I have Apple TV it’s ok it’s a novelty but that’s about it. As Jobbs says ” it’s a hobby”. May be something some day but not much to it for now. Then, I’m no fanboy just an honest adult.