“The one and only time I met Steve Jobs was back in 1991,” Alan M. Webber writes for The Christian Science Monitor. “I was managing editor of the Harvard Business Review (HBR), and I’d made the trip from Boston to Silicon Valley to see for myself what was going on. I’d just wrapped up a presentation in one of the classrooms at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., when Mr. Jobs materialized and started a conversation.”
“‘That was a great article,’ he told me. ‘One of the best things I’ve ever read. It’s absolutely right. It’s not computers. It’s computing,'” Webber writes. “He was talking about an article that we’d just published in the July 1991 issue of HBR, a piece written by Andy Rappaport and Shmuel Halevi called ‘The Computerless Computer Company.’ …The future isn’t in computers. It’s in computing. ‘Defining how computers are used, not how they are manufactured, will create real value – and thus market power, employment, and wealth – in the decades ahead,’ the authors wrote. ‘A computer company is the primary source of computing for its customers.'”
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“The future, in other words, is a verb, not a noun. That insight, it seems to me, is at the heart of Apple today. The computer is a thing, but what people want is not a thing, but to do things,” Webber writes. “Armed with that strategic insight, Jobs has turned Apple into the most admired company in the world, according to Fortune magazine, for four years running. He has made it the world’s favorite entertainment hub, listening hub, reading hub, watching hub, you-name-it hub.”
Much, much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
…PornHub?
but of course, porn drives everything
No sex, no consumers.
This is worthless without pics.
“‘Defining how computers are used, not how they are manufactured, will create real value…’ the authors wrote.”
Funny – today, Apple is doing BOTH!
Loved the article.
However, I am not quite sure I agree with the last sentence.
“”Apple has always had a rebellious culture, even as it’s grown in size and success,” McKenna says. “But it has always rebelled in a way that makes it a corporate model based on style and class and design. That also makes them uniquely American, a company that reflects the style and character of this country.”
A country that is so bent on destroying itself from within. Unlike Steve Jobs or Apple.
Apple is a typically American company? That’s news to me. If you wanna see typical, just look at Apple’s competition. Slashing, burning and copying their way to *urp*… success.
*cringe
Make freaking reliable hardware. That’s it. Some freaking American companies can learn from this fact. No secret to Apple’s success. Make hardware that is super reliable.
Word.
just pulled Mac SE out of the closet… After 20+ years it still boots up!
My 512k Fat Mac, although a little yellowed with age, still works beautifully, and the screen is absolutely pristine with NO burn-in whatsoever. Hell, even most of the floppies that I have from that era are still readable!
I remember when I upgraded my SE from 1MB to 4 MB of RAM, plus a 100MB hard drive. The tech who did it said in hushed, awed tones, “Man, that is one hot box.”
Later, I used that machine to begin my long tradition of giving away my old Macs to windows sufferers, who all subsequently became raging Mac fanatics.
It
I miss Steve.
I miss Steve too, but he’s done his bit. Time to give him a break and let his people carry the baton.
That’s right it’s time to move on. Let’s see what the new crew can do. Go long AAPL on Monday. Some in the money calls for Nov. and Dec.. But you should have them already. You should be positioned already. Very little time left to really rack up some wins. Monday. It’s easy money. Nothing wrong with AMZN and a little EBAY to round out things.
Don’t follow Wall Street’s wisdom and advice. That is the hallmark of Apple’s success against the rest of the 99.99% militant zealots of Wall Street, who love to rant against Apple for breaking rank from their orthodoxy of greed, laziness and mediocracy.
The very last word in your post sums up Wall Street’s mentality perfectly… mediocrity.
well as a recent convert Id say its quality of the hardware and the attention to detail, and small details.
perfect example, go to add a font in Windows, the dialog box that comes up is the same one from windows 3.1. you would not see something like that on the mac, its just refined… I like it.
Plus they have a Limey designer.
Plus………………it’s made a lot of us a whole lot of money. And that’s not bad.