Submitted by “In the street’s imagination, Apple is Jobs. Or perhaps the other way around: Jobs is Apple. Whatever. This theory is still all about Jobs cracking the whip in Cupertino and speaking the Mac gospel to the public at the annual Macworld Expo and Apple Worldwide Developer Conference keynotes. But is that right? Is this personal identification necessary for the continued success of Apple?” Elsewhere, Apple’s top five business decisions.
take the whole mac on intel thing. For years Apple was saying how much better ppc was, megahertz myth, risc vs cisc, those horrible PC’s, Think Different, etc. We remember.
Then Steve comes along and says “we’re making the switch.”
oh. OK! yeah let’s go Steve!
Well, maybe it wasn’t *that* well received. My point is, if Steve wasn’t the one making that decision, I’m sure the Apple community wouldn’t go for it at all.
Of course they need him. All you have to do is compare the lame Apple of the 90’s with the Apple of today to see the difference the guy makes.
Without Steve, Apple employees would be Jobless.
Without Steve, Apple employees would be Jobless.
Very good
I agree that having someone with job’s Charisma helps improve the company’s public image. Bill Gates has worked as hard building his software company and all he got was a pie in the face a few months/years back.
>If Steve wasn’t the one making that decision, I’m sure the Apple community wouldn’t go for it at all.
The success on the switch is choosing the perfect moment. That’s what Jobs is good about. Now Mac OSX is far beyond Windows XP.
Is Mac going to resist Vista? I don’t know. I haven’t seen Vista, but I think Time Machine or Virtual Desktops are killing possibilities Vista is not going to have.
So
“take the whole mac on intel thing. For years Apple was saying how much better ppc was, megahertz myth, risc vs cisc, those horrible PC’s, Think Different, etc. We remember. ”
um… are we talking faith? or religion? or dogma? i dont think so! this is BUSINESS. and smart businesses…. SUCCESSFUL businesses take opportunity when it happens… and make changes that will ultimately lead the SURVIVAL of their company!
SO…. that being said… can i remind YOU that WE also remember when intel was all about megahertz…megahertz…megahertz…megahertz…! and here is it 2006… and their “worlds best processor” just happent to be running at HALF the clock speed of their penitum 4 processors!!!!
so… looks like INTEL is just as guilty APPLE is at MARKETING JARGON!
you remember?!??!?!? my ass…. you people have a selective memory!
um… are we talking faith? or religion? or dogma? i dont think so! this is BUSINESS.
While it is business to Apple it is religion to many of Apples customers. Steve Jobs has successfully remembered this and managed to use it to his and Apples advantage.
Regarding the piece on Apple’s top business decisions, I can’t believe that the acquisition of NeXT (and therefore Steve Jobs) isn’t given it’s own “top business decision” designation. Instead, it’s lumped under the hiring of Gil Amelio.
The act of getting Jobs was more important than anything else done at Apple since Jobs’ departure. Amelio started the negotiations, but he certainly didn’t have any idea exactly how things would play out…Amelio’s press release about the NeXT acquisition actually mentioned that Jobs would be reporting to him!
Found it: http://web.archive.org/web/19970301070347/live.apple.com/next/96122…
Edited 2007-01-03 23:31
Amelio gets bashed a lot but he could have turned Apple around–if he had three to five years like he had at NEC. Apple didn’t have three to five years left to live and Amelio was simply incapable of moving fast enough to save Apple but he bring Steve Jobs back which an act of itself saved Apple.
As much as I don’t like certain things about Steve Jobs’ character, there’s no denying that he has been absolutely vital in defining what Apple are about since he came back to the company.
Without him, Apple would have had a succession of ex sugar water executives who didn’t have the faintest idea what business they were in, what direction they should be going in or what direction they wanted to go in. In short, Apple would be in very serious trouble today. If not actually dead, then very nearly probably dead.
I will mention something that Joel Spolsky and Eric Sink have mentioned on many occasions. A software or IT company that does not have a programmer, or someone who has been in the technology business and fundamentally understands it, at the helm is going to be an unmitigated disaster. The truly terrible time that HP had with Carly Fiorina and the current debacle that Novell has with its executives not having the foggiest about the software they actually use, or the deals they sign, are cases in point.
Edited 2007-01-03 23:51
If it’s not for Jobs, Apple would die.
And the industry would come to a stand still. Like it was pretty much before Mac OS X.
yeah…Microsoft wouldn’t know who to copy anymore.
Then again, it also takes a Jobs to decide that there are some things Apple needs to copy.
The only thing Apple never copied was the market share …
“The only thing Apple never copied was the market share …” > Well the tide is turning but very slowly, first the consumer market in the US… At some point the enterprse sector will get embarrased..
But indeed it will not happen overnight.
I don’t think the enterprise will be embarassed. My impression is that Jobs doesn’t even care. Look at the ads. PC’s are for boring work so get a mac for fun. (of course many use PC’s for killer games which the mac doesn’t have…)
Apple may be in a bit of a crisis in the corporate sector because Microsoft Office won’t be totally compatible with the Windows version. That may not be such a big deal for a home user who uses mac office for a school paper but it might kick the macs out of the design and marketing depts.
>(of course many use PC’s for killer games which the mac doesn’t have…)
>Apple may be in a bit of a crisis in the corporate sector because Microsoft Office won’t be totally compatible with the Windows version.
You forget about something that next release of Mac OSX is surely going to have: Crossover’s Wine!!!
You drank that koolaid pretty quick, didn’y ya? In this industry, everybody copies everybody, do you think that Apple came up with gadgets first? Every heard of Konfabulator? Do you think that time machine is something new? Filesystem snapshots are as old as Unix. Frankly, there is nothing new in Mac OS X that hasn’t been done by somebody else at some point.
Apple has always had its “community”. Even in its darkest days, that community remained lowyal and vocal. Also, contrary to anti-mac crowd, Apple does support OSS, much more than simple tokenism (we OSS types tend to disagree about at least as much as we agree on, if not more). There is strong support for Apple among the OSS community.
I have no doubt that Apple has sufficiently learned that attempting world domination is ultimately a path to failure. While there will never be another Steve Jobs, the drive and spirit with which he drives Apple will not leave when he retires (if he retires). I also have no doubt the Steve will appear at MacWorld even after he is departed this mortal coil.
Some years ago, Steve made a comment during an interview about “herding cats”. This little piece of philosophy at the core of his management style is key. Empower your people, celebrate their creativity, and apply sound business principles when needed will provide for continued success.
Apple will thrive for a long time to come, no doubt after learning from some horrible mistakes. The core of what Apple is will live, long after Steve Jobs, and long after Apple.
apple are morons, and they certainly arent too well liked in the opensource community, some may like them, but ill bet most dont
There are quite a few Linux and opensource “purists” who revel in their effete snobbery of it must all be open or nothing.
oh…. i can not resist this…. NO YOU ARE A MORON!!! proove me wrong!
Apple will thrive for a long time to come, no doubt after learning from some horrible mistakes. The core of what Apple is will live, long after Steve Jobs, and long after Apple.
Yup. Just look at number of folk who still use OS/2 and the AmigaOS
I write this to ask, with most sincere intentions and not with irony and sarcasm (though some might react as if I do. English is not my native language, but I’m trying to pinpoint my perspective somehow.), what you Apple users here at OSAlert appreciate the most with their products. What are *the* special things with Apple products? How can these features generate such “loyalty/faith” among consumers?
I understand that the Apple suit of hardware and software brings an overall level of integration and consistency to the table. As a FOSS buff myself, I too expect good integration, but have since long given up on consistency
But most products themselves are hardly “revolutionary” or unique. To me as a non-Apple user, inspecting each product individually, I see (what I consider) nicer alternatives every here and there that very well outshine Apple products. I know many Apple users who would never, ever consider running another desktop system, who do not even bother looking at other portable music players before buying a new ipod or even try alternatives to the “default” software suits. Its almost as if it is a bit painful to some to not be able to buy an iPhone when they need a new cell phone. Others walk around with a smug smile after seeing Jobs present something at the Macworld Expo, as if they themselves had helped conceiving the product or have seen the light Jobs is spreading, laughing a bit at us poor souls who can’t see it.
In many cases I can see no reason why they should look elsewhere, its not that I think Apple stuff is poor quality, I am just surprised that so many users happily let Apple define to such extent how they use their computer. Most Windows users I know of install a gazillion of different third-party programs and play mp3s on everything ranging from portable players, cell phones, cameras and pdas of any brand. FOSS users are even “worse”
Apple seems to be very magical in the tech industry, I’m just not getting it I guess. To me, they are pretty much good at making the easy stuff very easy, while the hard stuff is just as hard as on any system, if not harder. So please, spare some words on the killer features. It must be much more than dragging an icon to the Applications folder instead of dubble clicking it or selecting it in an application installer list.
You state: ‘I think Apple stuff is poor quality’. Reply: I am a Mac user for four years now and I am very, very satisfied about Apple’s quality, Mac users are the most demanding users, if we come across a ‘flaw’ in an initial release we make a hell of a noise, as a consequence Apple always gets it right. Steve is a perfectionist as is a large part of the user-base.
What I like: Apple walks perfectly ‘on the middle of the road’ if it comes to combining the strength of open-standards (Unix, file-formats and communication-protocols) and propriety software (Apps., Gui and a number of core services), this is the main reason for the revival. With this strategie Apple has made itself the perfect company to combat the lock in pratices of MS.
Mac OSX is the perfect combination of ease of use/stability/maintainabilty and performance (incl. multitasking).
I’ve just lately gotten into ‘macs’. I LOVE OSX. ‘cept for my original SE 30, I have hated every previous MacOS Classic release. Horrid, but OSX has hit a sweet spot for me. It has been, in my experience, very stable and fast and works well.
It is really the only thing Apple puts out that I have any interested in at all. Could not care less about the iPod or what not.
You state: ‘I think Apple stuff is poor quality’
as in: ‘its not that I think Apple stuff is poor quality’
With this strategie Apple has made itself the perfect company to combat the lock in pratices of MS.
Of course, because you can install MacOSX on any piece of Intel kit, and I can play my iPod tunes on any other player …
… Hang on a minute …
I think your intuition is correct in some respects. Taken individually, not much that is OS X would be considered unique or earthshaking — and most of it you could conceivably get from third parties.
But what you miss is what you glossed over: it’s more than just integration and consistency, but in HOW that integration and consistency is implemented. Macs are well-engineered and the interface is well-designed. That’s a start. What Apple has also done is take applications that are “nice”, that the average user would like to have, but probably would not bother to go to the trouble of assembling for himself, and bring them together in one coherent whole.
Then, instead of just supplying a bunch of independent applications, Apple bundles them and redesigns them so that they work together seamlessly.
It’s a risky thing to do — if you don’t do it right, you may fail spectacularly. Apple did it right.
You’re right that they make the easy stuff very easy, but you’re wrong that the hard stuff is just as hard. In my opinion, Apple has helped redefine “easy”, and made stuff that used to be hard much easier.
They aren’t perfect, and in all honesty I still prefer my Linux, but in just as much honesty one must give credit where credit is due.
Linux is as good as it is in large part because of the high standards Apple has set with OS X, and the impetus for excellence that it has provided.
I don’t think I’ll ever buy another Apple system, but I hope they stick around and keep making excellent hardware and software. It may be Windows that Linux competes with, but it’s Apple that inspires it.
Linux is as good as it is in large part because of the high standards Apple has set with OS X, and the impetus for excellence that it has provided.
(…) It may be Windows that Linux competes with, but it’s Apple that inspires it.
I really doubt that’s true.
First, for most Linux users and developers, Apple’s hardware is/was something to port Linux to, not to inspect for excellent features of the software that was on it when bought, to copy – well, maybe a few window themes. A big part of the reason why Apple’s hardware’s interesting was that its PPC architecture was different from the now ubiquitous x86, and in that quality alone worth porting to.
Second, Linux is typically/first of all an x86 OS, although it has been ported to a lot of architectures. That means, cheap, middle of the road, hardware is the primary target for Linux. Linux is “runs on everything, and your toaster”, OS X is not even available officially without specific Apple hardware. That does not inspire ‘Linux’.
Third, Linux, Red Hat, Slackware, Debian (Ubuntu’s Daddy
), SuSE, KDE, you name it, were out there (way) before Apple started using its Unix-based OS X. Only when the latter thing happened did a few Unix/FLOSS types think it would be interesting to check out the OS itself on Apple machines, in stead of getting rid of Mac OS as soon as possible.
Now there may be some cool things about Apple’s hardware-software integration and GUI that may inspire Linux/FLOSS. My guess is BSD folks are more into Apple than Linux-ers. But on the other hand, Apple has quite some catching up to do too. No “window always on top”, way too mouse-oriented (alt+[letter] any time here), no virtual desktops; and wasn’t it Apple that adopted KDE’s browser engine?
I’m sorry to break the party mood, but I don’t think that what Apple does is that relevant to Linux/FLOSS. And I have to mention Apple’s terrible environmental track record.
As for Jobs being indispensible or not, it’s good to have a perfectionist in the house – although he certainly is not a perfectionist when it comes to the environment. But one might as well think that the designer of the iPod is indispensible, or the designer of the iBooks, or… It’s hard to know if you don’t work at Apple.
In any case I think the Jesusification of Jobs is a bit silly. It’s hardly Gandhi or ML King or someone like that. But hey, everyone his own idol.
Edited 2007-01-04 10:54
“Now there may be some cool things about Apple’s hardware-software integration and GUI that may inspire Linux/FLOSS. My guess is BSD folks are more into Apple than Linux-ers. But on the other hand, Apple has quite some catching up to do too. No “window always on top”, way too mouse-oriented (alt+[letter] any time here), no virtual desktops; and wasn’t it Apple that adopted KDE’s browser engine?”
I should have been more specific. It’s Apple’s user interface that seems to be the inspiration for a lot that happens in both Gnome and KDE. I don’t think that inspiration goes as deep as the Linux kernel. But Apple’s integrated GUI has inspired a lot of work towards making Linux GUI’s just as user friendly and powerful, as well as nice to look at. (and just as mouse-friendly if not more)
As far as Apple “borrowing” Konqueror, yes they’ve used that engine for Safari, and they’ve also enhanced it and given it back, and Konqueror is a fantastic and robust browser in part for that reason. Whatever criticisms others may have of Apple’s OSS behavior (and I have my share as well) that’s one area where they’ve been quite responsible.
And for your other criticisms, I tend to agree with you. Those are part of the reasons why I won’t be buying any more Apple products. But that is a totally separate issue from the quality of their machines and their software.
We’ll from my standpoint, and this is as someone who lives in Linuxland for his work, runs Windows at home, and currently has three Macs (all collecting dust at the moment), I think you’re onto to something.
Originally, I suspect the fierce loyalty you refer to came from being somewhat of the underdog in the computing industry. Being a niche tends to make folk get attached to their “differentness” (even if everyone in said group are doing/using the exact same thing). Also however, there’s the price question. Yeah, it’s a little better now in that regard, but historically Macs _have_ been considerably more expensive than what you could get on the PC platform. Not only the hardware, but even the software (identical titles will often be somewhat more expensive in their Mac versions.) I think folks tend to assign more value to something they’ve paid more for, even if a similar quality (even better) product which is cheaper exists.
Having played around in Macworld for a little bit, I can say that from my perspective, it’s a decent platform sure, but think about this. People will often claim that with OSX you get the best of both worlds, the open source UNIX end + the commercial software availability. Actually, I think what you get is mediocrity on both ends. That is, if free UNIX-based software is what you really want, you can’t beat a decent Linux distro, no question to me there. However, if you want commercial software (such as the umpteen games out there), well it’s Windows all the way. With OSX, you get (to me) a somewhat lacking and limited implementation of the UNIX end (just compare running, installing, maintaining, etc. some UNIX app on OSX to say a Debian box for instance with all its apt-goodness), and drastically less selection (with a rather higher price tag to boot) on the commercial end.
Sure, the desktop may be pretty and well integrated, etc., but really who cares about that at the end of the day? It’s the apps that run an OS for, not the other way around…
Bingo!
At my university department we depend on scientific software to do bioinformatics and statistics etc. Most Windows users manage quite fine to install software, perhaps even cygwin, configure it, run it – even “obscure” stuff that needs a terminal.
Mac users on the other hand tend to be dismayed by the fact they need to open a terminal, change location so that the executable and input data match and run a program from the command line. If its not pointy-clicky-draggy-droppy GUIs with bubbly icons, but a more traditional small GPLed UNIX program – even an X one, their attitude is like “this open source stuff sux! this is what you get when you deal with Linux geeks! you get what you pay for…” and so on, not even considering the fact that the code was free, portable and perfectly up to the job.
And to some extent I can give them credit for their critique. The UNIX shell and filesystem on OSX is extremely poorly integrated into the graphical surface that most OSX users normally deal with, often making CLI tasks much harder to accomplish on a mac than on a linux box. In addition, small things like the lack of a keyboard with Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Delete and a sign where to find for instance the “~” or that the Terminal by default can not open X apps (which often are not even installed) or that you need to locate a copy of the freakin Developers Tools to be able to compile some small program in two seconds, do not help either.
OSX may make one of the nicest desktops, but it is certainly the weirdest and poorest UNIX platform I’ve ever enountered.
Just by way of analogy – Beos certainly ain’t dead long after Jean-Louis Gassée (and Beos also included a switch from PPC to Intel architecture…. again thanks in part to Jobs…;-).
The point being that while Jobs certainly is a guru as far as Apple the company is concerned (with all that comes with this, positive and negative) I guess that even if Apple folded tomorrow, the community would carry the OS forward, or re-ceate it, etc. in multifarious ways, as we have seen with Beos.
(and this from a recent switcher to Macs – a Crimbo present to myself…:-o!)
It isn’t in the street’s imagination. Steve Jobs is Apple. Without him, they are something entirely different. That guy oozes vision (and I don’t even own a Mac).
If you all want to get a little more nostalgic, then go here: http://www.folklore.org/index.py
Just look at the history of the company when Jobs was not there, it was a downward spiral.
When Steve Jobs leaves apple the company is finished, it will just be a matter of time.
Apple’s success can be attributed to the perception of change, good management, and a few bits of good luck.
Let’s not forget that Apple was consistently described as a dead dog before the arrival of Jobs. The loss of money and good people, a slipping hold on the market, and consistently delayed projects all led to that somewhat legitimate conclusion. Of course, bad press didn’t help the situation. Who wants to buy into a loser after all? The return of Jobs and the financial backing of Microsoft helped to improve Apple’s image of stability. The announcement of a unique product line gave the impression of further positive change, which gave customers and investors more confidence in the company. It wasn’t Jobs per se that did that, but a combination of factors that any new corporate leader could have implemented.
But Apple wasn’t out of the hole. It took three or four years to get the new operating system out, and the operating system was far from finished. That didn’t fix the outward appearance of getting products out on time. It took several successive releases of Mac OS X to do that. But even that wasn’t enough because Apple was just coasting along and there wasn’t much confidence in their future.
The iPod/iTunes wasn’t a quick-fix either. While it was popular enough among Mac users, that market was pretty much handed to Apple on a silver platter because Mac users didn’t have many viable options in that area. But Apple did start gaining the attention of the rest of the world with the iTMS. With a bit of good design and a lot of luck, Apple has a fad product on their hands and is shooting up like a rocket.
Even then people still had doubts about Apple computers. Perhaps they still do, because I stopped paying attention to them a year ago. But at least the Intel transition has the potential to get rid of another albatross: the perception that Apple is technologically behind. Maybe they needed Jobs’ RDF to pull that last one off. I don’t know. But I’m confident that any manager with both foresight, luck, and a bit of goodwill from the outside world could have pulled off a similar turnaround. Let’s not forget that Jobs has had almost a decade to pull a 30 year old company through. It’s not trivial, but very few people in Apple have had similar opportunities.
Oh, and please stop criticizing the sugar water peddler. He did a very good job for Apple during much of his tenure.
If the strengh of Apple is in it’s products, and not just media hype/trends, then they should be able to continue in that direction regardless of who is heading the company.
Obviously they might not come up with the new products, or be able to sell them as well, but they have a very solid base with OSX, and an incredible cash cow in the iPOD, so they should be good for a long while.
Unless mp3 player prices keep dropping, and they turn into what portable cd players are now (i.e. so incredibly cheap, that they’re pretty much disposable).