By Mark Tennent in Reader
Posted in Uncategorized on February 28, 2010 at 7:24 pm
That Apple Computer, what a bunch of losers! Hold on, this is written with the best of intentions so hear me out.
Back in the 1976 Steve Jobs, Ron Wayne and Steve Wozniak had a moment of brilliance and created Apple Computer. Within a year their turnover was $174,000 and they asked a venture capitalist, Mike Markkula, to help them. The next year they made $2.7 million, $7.8 million followed in 1978. Meanwhile Ron, for whatever reason, became Apple’s first loser as he sold his shares back to Steve Jobs for $800. A decision he would probably prefer not to talk about.
Apple may have captured the computer market but in the process lost Steve Jobs when John Sculley, whom he had lured from being Vice President for Pepsi Cola, led a boardroom coup which ousted him. Jobs left Apple to start NeXT and developed an innovative operating system and hardware combination.
Meanwhile back at Apple things went mad. They had three incompatible product computer systems, the Macintosh, the Lisa and the Apple II. The Mac won, the others were dumped, some literally into landfill. Apple then captured the desktop publishing market due to PageMaker and Apple’s Postscript laser printer. At the same time it lost the most important legal battle of its life and ceded the GUI operating system to Microsoft and others.
A decade of turmoil nearly finished the company. The old Macintosh operating system lost its lead and was overtaken by IBM’s OS/2 and Sun’s Unix. Apple joined with IBM and Motorola to try create hardware and software far ahead of Microsoft and the PC which had become a threat to them all.
Runner Up
CEO’s came and went and one, Mike Spindler, even tried to hive Apple off to IBM, Sun or Philips. Luckily he lost to new CEO Gil Amelio who arrived with a track record of getting to the heart of a problem.
He cut costs, workforce, product lines and ties with IBM and Motorola. Instead he tried to buy BeOS, an off-the-shelf operating system from ex-Apple employee Jean-Louis Gassée. Another loser because he asked $75 million more than Apple would pay. Instead Amelio bought NeXT, which came with Steve Jobs.
Jobs had learned a lesson or two while away from Apple. He ousted Amelio who lost in another boardroom coup. The same year Jobs managed to grab Bill Gates of Microsoft by the round objects. Because of the threat of yet another lengthy court battle, this time over such technologies as QuickTime. In return Microsoft agreed to continue developing Internet Explorer and Office for the Mac as well as paying $150 million for non-voting Apple stock.
While Steve Jobs was missing from Apple they did have some successes: the first Powerbook in 1991 set the form factor for laptops as well as selling a billion dollars worth in its first year. The world’s first PDA, Newton, was developed by Apple in 1989 but never became a commercial success and was left to wither away over the next ten years.
However, two Newton employees had formed Pixo and wrote the operating system used on the iPod. Newton’s handwriting recognition was also rolled into Mac OSX as Inkwell which appears in System preferences if a graphics table is connected.
Turn Around
The Millennium has stemmed the losing streak from Apple which instead has grabbed the music downloading and digital audio player markets with the iTunes Store and iPod line. As well as setting up on-line sales, Apple opened Apple Stores around the world before moving into the cell phone market and arguably capturing the sales of smart phones with the iPhone.
The jury is still out on the iPad and until we can get to hold and use one, we won’t know whether it is for us or not. One thing is for sure, Apple could be on the verge of creating a whole new business. The iPad could be just the device to make the world move away from printed media and into electronic publishing.
Dennis Publishing has made inroads into this with the amazing iMotor magazine which has music, video and other attractions as well as the text and photographs of printed media. Waitrose, Marks and Spencer, Virgin, BBC, and others have made special issues of their magazines and catalogues. Currently these need Flash and Javascript which means Apple could become losers again if the Ceros system for on-line electronic publishing becomes the norm. The iPhone and iPad currently won’t run Flash because Apple is trying to move on from the limits this imposes and into MP4.
On the other hand the iPad could release us from the tyranny of the tell. In the further we will choose to watch and read electronic publications which also include TV shows and active links to subjects they cover. Watching the ’Pad won’t be a strictly linear process as it is with TV, moving from StarTrek to Clarkson to CSI Crime Scene. Instead we’ll stay with Coast or one of Attenborough’s wildlife extravaganzas and be exploring a dimension of the show we want to know more about.
We’ll be able to pick and choose from film, TV, news, books and magazines and display them all on one flat panel. Our current laptops cover this to a certain extent but they get hot, noisy and are hampered by small screens and short battery life. The iPad could be just what we need.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...Make a comment
Tag cloud
Archives
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
Most commented posts
Highest Rated Blog Posts
- Blinking Cursors (100%)
- iPhoniness (100%)
- Relevant eloquent pleading (100%)
- Frozen in Time Machine (100%)
- Moondrop to Agony (100%)
- Coding Monkeys and a Hat full of Sky (100%)
- Grrrr Growl (100%)
- Chasing the dragons (100%)
- It just sits there dribbling (100%)
- And the Winner is… Who cares? (100%)
