"Apple is the next Microsoft"

[wizwor]

I don't think Jobs is germane to this conversation. He is gone and will have no impact going forward. Cook is no Steve Jobs...

Addressing he NCPPR representative directly, [Cook] said: “If you want me to do things only for ROI [return on investment] reasons, you should get out of this stock.”

Since taking the helm at Apple in 2011, Cook has made notable improvements to the company’s use of renewable energy, increasing the use of solar, wind and geothermal resources used to power Apple’s offices from around a quarter of its total energy use to more than 75 per cent.

The 53-year-old has also committed millions of dollars of Apple’s money to various good causes – in contrast to his predecessor Jobs, who reportedly once told colleagues that giving money to charity was a waste of time.

Cook has also taken action to improve the conditions at the Foxconn plants in China where iPhones and iPads are made, after widespread criticism about high rates of worker suicide and claims of exploitation.

If he means what he says, the shareholders are in for a ride.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

That is certainly true. Without a great visionary at the top who gives them direction, who understands marketing, design, and technical matters, who is as obsessed about the tiniest details and who makes the right decisions when necessary the best team of people would not have been getting to where Apple got to. And part of being a leader like Steve Jobs is to recognize talented people and get them to join your team.

The point being --- the same support team without Steve and nobody would ever have bothered. But Steve could easily have assembled a different team and that team would have gone to do similar things. He was the driving force, the one who had the final say on everything. Not to mention the great show he put up at product introduction.

I think that this is complete nonsense. If Jobs would have never existed the talented people would have just been hired by someone else.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I think that this is complete nonsense. If Jobs would have never existed the talented people would have just been hired by someone else.

Apple would never have become the world's biggest company without Steve. But Steve would still have done similar things with a different group of talented people. And yes, the talented people would have done fine at other companies. But doing mediocre things and nobody would even know they existed, without Steve, the marketing genius of the 21st century. People here tend to underestimate the importance of leadership, planing, and strategy. What did the Apple team do before Steve jobs came back? Apple had to be rescued by Microsoft.

Not all CEOs are overpaid greedy people who contribute little.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Apple would never have become the world's biggest company without Steve. But Steve would still have done similar things with a different group of talented people. And yes, the talented people would have done fine at other companies. But doing mediocre things and nobody would even know they existed, without Steve, the marketing genius of the 21st century. People here tend to underestimate the importance of leadership, planing, and strategy. What did the Apple team do before Steve jobs came back? Apple had to be rescued by Microsoft.

Not all CEOs are overpaid greedy people who contribute little.

If Apple wouldn't have been on top some other company would have. And you talk about "nobody would even know they existed"? Seriously? What are the names of Apple's employees that get the ideas and put them in practice? And at the top of the Apple vs. Samsung legal battle you had Apple customers talk about how Apple makes better displays than Samsung completely oblivious to the fact that Samsung was making the screens for Apple's devices as well.

Jobs had the magical talent of taking credit for other people's work.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

If Apple wouldn't have been on top some other company would have. And you talk about "nobody would even know they existed"? Seriously? What are the names of Apple's employees that get the ideas and put them in practice? And at the top of the Apple vs. Samsung legal battle you had Apple customers talk about how Apple makes better displays than Samsung completely oblivious to the fact that Samsung was making the screens for Apple's devices as well.

Jobs had the magical talent of taking credit for other people's work.

I am no fan of Apple, but the "magic" was Steve Jobs' vision, and marketing genius. I am definitely not arguing that Apple products are superior (I don't like them), but rather that Steve Jobs was the one who made so many believe they are. In the end, who can argue against Steve Job's strategy, given his unbelievable success. And as for him taking credit for other people's work --- the real work was creating the brand image, the walled garden, the image of ease of use and perception of security. There are no great technical ideas at Apple, but they managed to convince tens of millions of people that there are. And that is what brings in the bacon.

[Prestidigitweeze]

It's important to differentiate between Jobs' talents and successes, his failings and limitations, and his moral ambiguity. All three aspects are not interchangeably bad or good.

Hans' point is merely logical: Jobs would have found other creative people to galvanize, bully, steal from and improve upon. Those same creative people would likely not have found another Jobs. To say so is no more a trivialization of those people's talents than it is a justification for Jobs' tendency toward mystification, hype and dictatorial self-assertion. Despite all that, he was good at some important things.

The man was a gifted organizer, salesman and conceptual simplifier. He might be dead, but (even if he annoyed you beyond patience) to discount his gifts is to fail to recognize and possibly absorb the strengths of a former rival. It's easy to see how Guy Kawasaki might have learned from Jobs but eventually decided to work for Google.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

It's important to differentiate between Jobs' talents and successes, his failings and limitations, and his moral ambiguity. All three aspects are not interchangeably bad or good.

Hans' point is merely logical: Jobs would have found other creative people to galvanize, bully, steal from and improve upon. Those same creative people would likely not have found another Jobs. To say so is no more a trivialization of those people's talents than it is a justification for Jobs' tendency toward mystification, hype and dictatorial self-assertion. Despite all that, he was good at some important things.

The man was a gifted organizer, salesman and conceptual simplifier. He might be dead, but (even if he annoyed you beyond patience) to discount his gifts is to fail to recognize and possibly absorb the strengths of a former rival. It's easy to see how Guy Kawasaki might have learned from Jobs but eventually decided to work for Google.

My point is that as Jobs took ideas from people working for other companies, it is quite clear that without Jobs (and by extension Apple) the devices would have still existed. It is the creative people that are indispensable, not Jobs.

Jobs is the reason why during his life the iPhone didn't get a bigger screen. That definitely simplified concepts, and it might have been the best idea for the company, but it wasn't the best idea for consumers.

[pl001]

I don't think Jobs would have been successful at any company as some people claim, nor do I believe Apple would have become what they are today without him. He was abrasive, vindictive, and his main management tool was fear. It was his failures at Apple that led to being forced out in 1985. His next company, NeXT, had some technical successes that eventually became the core of Apple's renaissance, but commercially it was a dud that could not stand on its own.

His last successes at Apple were a result of both Apple and Steve being in the right place at the right time.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

My point is that as Jobs took ideas from people working for other companies[;] it is quite clear that without Jobs (and by extension Apple) the devices would have still existed. It is the creative people that are indispensable, not Jobs.

Jobs is the reason why during his life the iPhone didn't get a bigger screen. That definitely simplified concepts, and it might have been the best idea for the company, but it wasn't the best idea for consumers.

Here's the problem, Sil_liS: At this point, most of us were already aware of the examples you're offering (fixed iPhone screen size; Jobs' appropriation of ideas from Xerox/Parc and others; iDevices not having been created in a vacuum, etc.).

The difference is that you and I form antipodal conclusions about the trajectory of the data overall.

I could try to convince you of my POV and you mine, but each of us is still going to leave with his own opinion of Jobs' role. I think it will be much easier to discuss his contribution in 50 years when his personality and the dominance of Apple aren't deterrents to objectivity. We do the same thing now with similar catalysts and can be dispassionate (Coco Chanel, Henry Ford, Robert Moses, Louis Comfort Tiffany).

In other news:

I happened to notice that a producer friend of mine was quoted in an article about NASDAQ's delisting AVID on the stock exchange. The relevance of the story is tangential, but it does have a bearing on our discussion as to whether professional use of Apple computers by the music and film industries has any effect on its stock value.

What the NASDAQ Delisting of Avid Really Means to ProTools Users

“My guess,” Bowler continues, “is if they don’t do something fairly quickly they could be forced to sell assets. As I wasn’t a big fan of Avid’s purchase of Pro Tools to begin with, spinning it off might be the healthiest move they could make for the future of the product.”

[CommonReader]

Owning iOS, Android and Windows stuff I don't buy the argument that Apple's products last longer than those of other companies. I still have a Vaio running Windows XP at home that was bought at some time in 2003. It runs all sorts of periphery from an old Minolta slide scanner that uses a SCSI interface (!) right up to the latest colour laser printers. Is there anyone here who wants to tell us about the 2003 Mac they still have in daily use? People don't even recall the name of Apple's system that was released at that time while XP has been an enormously durable investment. It's no surprise that still about 30% of PCs run it globally.
Apple will also ruthlessly drop support for standards that they promoted in the past. Firewire? Oh, sorry, we don't use that standard any more but we will happily sell you a little piece of plastic for 50 € to make it work.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Here's the problem, Sil_liS: At this point, most of us were already aware of the examples you're offering (fixed iPhone screen size; Jobs' appropriation of ideas from Xerox/Parc and others; iDevices not having been created in a vacuum, etc.).

The difference is that you and I form antipodal conclusions about the trajectory of the data overall.

I could try to convince you of my POV and you mine, but each of us is still going to leave with his own opinion of Jobs' role. I think it will be much easier to discuss his contribution in 50 years when his personality and the dominance of Apple aren't deterrents to objectivity. We do the same thing now with similar catalysts and can be dispassionate (Coco Chanel, Henry Ford, Robert Moses, Louis Comfort Tiffany).

I'm not trying to convince you of my point of view, I just think that you made wrong assumptions regarding what that point is.

The creative people don't need Jobs, or someone like him, companies do.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

Owning iOS, Android and Windows stuff I don't buy the argument that Apple's products last longer than those of other companies. I still have a Vaio running Windows XP at home that was bought at some time in 2003. It runs all sorts of periphery from an old Minolta slide scanner that uses a SCSI interface (!) right up to the latest colour laser printers. Is there anyone here who wants to tell us about the 2003 Mac they still have in daily use? People don't even recall the name of Apple's system that was released at that time while XP has been an enormously durable investment. It's no surprise that still about 30% of PCs run it globally.
Apple will also ruthlessly drop support for standards that they promoted in the past. Firewire? Oh, sorry, we don't use that standard any more but we will happily sell you a little piece of plastic for 50 € to make it work.

Yes... 2003 Mac in daily use... works fine, runs last non-Intel version of OS X fine, MSO, LibreOffice, CS, Mail etc together with external drives, printer (brand new multi-function), wi-fi, broadband etc... and why would I need to remeber the name of the OS when I know the version which is much more accurate...
3 Windows PCs in same period - 2 motherboard failures, 4 hard drive failures (twice for one), one screen failure - resulting in 2 piles of spare parts and sell off of the final one and my other Mac runs multiple versions of multiple operating systems fine. Glad your Vaio still works fine... and of course you can let us know all about the many current PCs supporting SCSI, UltraScsi, Firewire and many other past standards... non-Apple PC manufacturers are just as good at dumping older standards for connectivity (and anything else they fancy)...

[Shane R]

I think Google is showing that it doesn't think it was all Jobs. They were happy to acquire the father of the iPod and many ex-Apple employees.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/nes...ardware-group/

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Yes... 2003 Mac in daily use... works fine, runs last non-Intel version of OS X fine, MSO, LibreOffice, CS, Mail etc together with external drives, printer (brand new multi-function), wi-fi, broadband etc... and why would I need to remeber the name of the OS when I know the version which is much more accurate...
3 Windows PCs in same period - 2 motherboard failures, 4 hard drive failures (twice for one), one screen failure - resulting in 2 piles of spare parts and sell off of the final one and my other Mac runs multiple versions of multiple operating systems fine. Glad your Vaio still works fine... and of course you can let us know all about the many current PCs supporting SCSI, UltraScsi, Firewire and many other past standards... non-Apple PC manufacturers are just as good at dumping older standards for connectivity (and anything else they fancy)...

And who manufactured the PCs?

[Glorfindel]

I have a XP running on a laptop designed for ME... runs just fine with NO upgrades other than doubled RAM... (oh & BTW it runs just fine with 128MB of RAM too)