“One morning, about a year ago, a doctor told Steve Jobs that a cancerous tumour in his pancreas would kill him within months, and that it was time to start saying his goodbyes. Later that night, an endoscopy revealed that the tumour could be cut out. But for one day Mr Jobs, the boss of Apple Computer, as well as Pixar, the world’s most successful animation studio, stared death in the face,” The Economist reports. “The experience seems to have invigorated him. Last week, gaunter but otherwise undiminished, he was on a stage in San Francisco, putting on a show (for that is what Apple product launches are) that was as flashy and dynamic as any as he has ever thrown.”
“For Mr Jobs, the product launch seemed mainly to be an opportunity to drive home the message that his hold on downloaded and portable music now seems overwhelming. iTunes sells 2m songs a day and has a world market share of 82%—Mr Jobs reckons that it is the world’s second-largest internet store, behind only Amazon. And the iPod has a market share of 74%, with 22m sold. For a man who helped launch the personal-computer era in 1976 with the Apple I, but then had to watch Microsoft’s Bill Gates walk away with, in effect, the monopoly on PC operating systems (Apple’s market share in computers today is less than 3%), this must be some vindication,” The Economist reports.
“The digerati in Silicon Valley, Redmond (Microsoft), Tokyo (Sony), Seoul (Samsung) and other places now simply take it for granted that Mr Jobs has a top-secret conveyor belt that will keep churning out best-selling wonders like the iPod… Hollywood and music studios are also increasingly frightened. The music studios, which barely took him seriously when he launched iTunes in 2001, are sick of his power and are pressuring him to change his 99-cents-per-song flat rate for music. Slim chance. Disney, a long-time partner of Pixar whom Mr Jobs broke with when he got tired of its former boss, is now trying to worm its way back into his favour… for somebody famous in large part for a spectacular defeat—to Bill Gates and Microsoft—all this must feel like a new lease of life, in every respect.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs and Apple and the Mac are still here decades later. And they’ve done so with their own hardware and the world’s most advanced operating system, also their own. No other company besides Apple has pulled this off during the dark ages of the Microsoft hegemony. Only Apple survives and thrives.
If you want “spectacular defeat,” look at Commodore, Packard Bell, Osborne, Digital, Wang, and the rest of a seemingly endless list, not Steve Jobs’ Apple Computer. Apple sells over 1.1 million Mac units every 90 days. Apple’s Mac unit sales are growing at more than double the overall industry rate. Apple’s Mac platform has tens of millions of users. That’s a “spectacular defeat?” On what planet? You want a “spectacular defeat?” You’ll have to wait a bit longer, but it will come, and not upon Jobs, but at the hands of Jobs. Some are about to learn that Karma’s a bitch.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple continues to grow worldwide Macintosh market share – July 25, 2005
Gartner: Apple grows shipments 31 percent in Q2 2005, moves from 5th to 4th in U.S. market share – July 18, 2005
IDC: Apple gains U.S. market share at double overall market rate, up to 4.5 percent for Q2 2005 – July 18, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal: ‘to take back the computer business from Microsoft’ – June 16, 2005
The future is going to be bright. And very, very interesting.
Oh and all the doom & gloom articals I have read over the years, dang im glad I love APPLE COMPUTER!!!
Maybe some of these people will see the light.
I have converted many PC users to Mac users, once
you go Mac you never go back.
Apple Forever
Hiiyyyyahh!
Steve Jobs = iCreate, iInnovate, iRevolutionalize
Others (eps M$) = iWait n iSee n iCopy.
Innovate? Nay, wait for Apple. Dun want to wait my money on R&D. Just wait for Steve Jobs’s ideas.
Dear Bill,
In China, foot binding was also once very popular. Then people finally woke up.
Sweet dreams,
Steve
On a side note…
Tonight I have read a number of positive Appl-related articles, seen two iPod commercials, and seen the Cingular/iTunes commercial at least twice. This is SOOOO not a few years ago!
“Apple’s market share in computers today is less than 3%”
Umm, no…as of June 30th, the Mac’s market share is at 4.5% according to IDC. Get it right.
They were once even, and now apple trails MS 10-1 in computer sales, at least. I guess that might be a spectacular defeat to some.
R…….no Mac ads? Pity.
Pheonix rising, Joe.
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Let face it, Steve Jobs is the drive for innovation in the computing industry.
He’s a natural hunter, always honing his weapons and finding better ways to take down his prey.
Microsoft, Dell, HP and the rest are simply farmers, they will take a little improvement but eventually just settle down and do nothing forever if it wasn’t for a hunter waiting to kill them and steal all their crops.
If I was a investor in Apple stock, I would buy now and sell right before Christmas.
Why? People are going to do a big spending fling for the Holidays and then the costs of fuel, Iraq, Katrina, national debt, bankrupt airlines, inflation is going to take it’s toll next year or everyone.
I fully expect Bush to announce a tax increase during the new year.
I agree with MDNs take. The fact that Apple survived the dark expansion of the Microsoft Hegemony through unfair business practices speaks volumes. Apple had to be so good that people stuck with it even though Microsoft produced a cheap knock off copy of its operating system that was “good enough” and resulted in commodity machines being sold that were a quite a bit cheaper than what was then being sold by Apple.
Apple hung on until Steve Jobs could return to the helm with his vision and maximum innovation and marketing genius. The original “crazy one” if you will, who was not afraid to “think different” and take big chances. Now we have OS X based on Unix, the various incarnations of the iMac, the iPod and ITMS, and next year will be moving to Intel chips to stay at the cutting edge in hardware (especially in notebooks). What’s next? Who knows! But you can be sure that there is a better than even chance that it will be Insanely Great.
Joe McConnell,
Who’re “they?” And when were “they” ever “once even?”
Facts only, please.
Joe McConnell,
MS doesn’t make personal computers. Apple Macs outsell MS 10 to 0.
The writer fails to mention that Steve wasn’t even with the company during the era when Apple really got trampled by Microsoft. Apple’s “spectacular defeat” falls on the heads of the CEOs that were there when Steve wasn’t. Steve’s defeat was really at the hands of John Sulley.
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Oops! I mean John Sculley.
nobody lives forever.
that’s why it’s important to cherish life every day.
that said, why would anybody waste their lives using a peecee? lol.
Frankly, it was miracle that Apple lived. OS 8 and OS 9 were pretty crappy, really. The hardware was generally uninspiring and over-priced. My Windows boxes ran with more stability. Still, I’m glad Apple stuck it through. We now have UNIX with Apple’s magic all over it and the hardware has once again regained its fetishistic lustfulness.
Apple got seriously trampled in the middle of the ’90s… around the time Windows 3.1 came out, and after they ditched the Apple ][ line entirely. This lasted until after Steve returned and started making a difference (i.e. around 1993-1997). They were losing money faster than if they’d just thrown it all out the window – its probably lucky that they survived this period, considering the $$ they lost during this time. I would assume that if Steve and NeXT hadn’t been there in 1997, in all likelihood they might not have lasted much longer.
I attribute their being around to survive those “dark days” due in part to their higher pricing, and the loyalty of its customer base.
The shame from that period is that the Newton effectively failed in bringing in money and that the various OS efforts went more or less nowhere. Oh wait, Batman and Robin did feature a 20th Anniversary Mac running Copland (?) with a cool dark futuristic window theme on it (the P theme?) and then there was those pesky aliens which were destroyed by a virus launched *from* a Mac (beat that Windoze!). Not to mention some problems with Dinosaurs which were helped by a Mac with AU/X.
It’s kinda great that NeXT was bought into Apple tho – I was torn between them for a while :=)
Prof, wasn’t there a time in the 80’s when Apple and “IBM’s” were neck and neck in sales? I think so, but if only facts will satisfy you, I guess you will have to disuade me with some.
“Actually”, it is a parameter like yours, specious as it is, that makes discussion pointless.
Perceptive readers will notice that I was trying to explain the columnist’s take, not agree with it, but as usual the majority, having left their sense of objectivity along with their humor at the door, get exercised. Please don’t trip on your own spittle.
I love Macs and Apple. But you must admit that Bill Gates has very powerful voodoo powers while Steve only has his RDF (Reality Distortion Field). Money attracts money and Bill has the most, so the real big business’ choose Mr. Bill over Steve the hippie. Steve has what it takes to build a cult among individuals but not big business that are slow to change and take chances. Also, I think Steve is scared of Bill. Mr. Bill is one bad mother! Even the goverment could not do to him what they did to AT&T and Standard oil. In my own sick way I stand in awe of Mr. Bill. I’m also in awe of Satan but would never worship either. I just give the devil his due.
Ward, don’t you think you were a bit hard on the Beaver last night?
goodness, somebody didn’t take their medicine=\
Hiring John Scully was the single bigest mistake Steve Jobs ever made.
The second mistake was letting John get too powerful without a leash.
John Scully didn’t know a damm thing about the computer industry.
I think Steve saw how PepsiCo rose up and defeated CocaCola in market share (the “cola wars”) and wanted the same thing for Apple against then competitor IBM.
Steve Jobs finally saw he was losing control and attempted a coup, which failed as Scully was waiting for it.
Later the IBM PC architecture go opened when a manual from IBM got circulated, IBM attempted to sue all the clones, but the damage was done.
Eveyone and his uncle cloned the IBM PC and started making money and M$ was just a opportunist.
I think I once saw Bill Gates driving his BMW …sporting a bumper sticker which read …..
Support Microsoft R & D … Buy AAPL
Joe, it’s late. You really need to head back to your bridge.
Nice try tho’. See ya tommorow?
Its nothing to do with karma – careful planning, and insight.