标签: steve jobs

As commentators, editors, journalists, and observers have all shared something about the untimely passing of Steve Jobs, I thought I'd let the first wave pass before I gave my views. Although I am not an Apple acolyte, nor an Apple product user, I have great admiration for what Jobs and Apple have done in terms of products, markets, and forging ahead despite tough circumstances. I do have three observations from years of seeing what Apple has done. First , Jobs' repeated exhortation to his engineers and marketers to create something "insanely great" is so different and so refreshing compared to just doing "faster, better, and cheaper"—although those attributes are important, too, of course, in many ways. But you need some pushing beyond that, to create the "pull" from far ahead. Second , Jobs had the ability to create a Reality Distortion Field (RDF) that kept Apple going during some very hard times. Wait a moment..."what hard times?", you wonder. There was a time when Mac computers were hovering at about 3% market share, software developers were not supporting it, the "i" products (iPod, iTunes, iPhone) were not yet released, and Apple's future was very much in doubt. The RDF that Jobs created was enough to keep the faithful users and media flame alive, even as the products were not there yet. That alone is an impressive accomplishment. Finally , there was his ability to guide a company to rise above and learn from major failures. Consider this: if a broad-line IC company has a presumed winning product which doesn't meet expectations, that's bad but not usually fatal; they can go on to other products and probably have a strong backlog of existing products to sell. But it can be disastrous for a PC vendor who only has one, maybe two major releases per year, especially when these new ones are supposed to be the seeds of major new lines and market initiatives. Apple stumbled badly with their Lisa PC (1980), and Newton (1987, perhaps a little too much ahead of its time). End of company? Could have been—except they were able to learn, adapt, retry, and move forward. That's an impressive feat. Those are the three aspects of Steve Jobs and Apple I'll try to keep in my mind. They are broader and go beyond the specifics of the products themselves.  

Commentators, editors, journalists, and observers. They have all had something to say about the untimely passing of Steve Jobs. I figured I'd let the first wave pass before I added my views. Although I am not an Apple acolyte, nor an Apple product user, I have great admiration for what Jobs and Apple have done in terms of products, markets, and forging ahead despite tough circumstances. I do have three observations from years of seeing what Apple has done. First , Jobs' repeated exhortation to his engineers and marketers to create something "insanely great" is so different and so refreshing compared to just doing "faster, better, and cheaper"—although those attributes are important, too, of course, in many ways. But you need some pushing beyond that, to create the "pull" from far ahead. Second , Jobs had the ability to create a Reality Distortion Field (RDF) that kept Apple going during some very hard times. Wait a moment..."what hard times?", you wonder. There was a time when Mac computers were hovering at about 3% market share, software developers were not supporting it, the "i" products (iPod, iTunes, iPhone) were not yet released, and Apple's future was very much in doubt. The RDF that Jobs created was enough to keep the faithful users and media flame alive, even as the products were not there yet. That alone is an impressive accomplishment. Finally , there was his ability to guide a company to rise above and learn from major failures. Consider this: if a broad-line IC company has a presumed winning product which doesn't meet expectations, that's bad but not usually fatal; they can go on to other products and probably have a strong backlog of existing products to sell. But it can be disastrous for a PC vendor who only has one, maybe two major releases per year, especially when these new ones are supposed to be the seeds of major new lines and market initiatives. Apple stumbled badly with their Lisa PC (1980), and Newton (1987, perhaps a little too much ahead of its time). End of company? Could have been—except they were able to learn, adapt, retry, and move forward. That's an impressive feat. Those are the three aspects of Steve Jobs and Apple I'll try to keep in my mind. They are broader and go beyond the specifics of the products themselves.  

It was a sttunning news, teven if not completely unexpected: Steve Jobs, the iconic co-founder of Apple Inc., who will be remembered for—among many other things—his showmanship and larger-than-life public persona, passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family. In the coming hours, days, weeks and years, there will be volumes written about Jobs, his impact and his legacy. Many will wax eloquently about the man who transcended electronics and literally changed the world during two stints at the company he helped build. No doubt, some of these endeavors will offer profound insights into Jobs' genius and his place in history. But it is difficult to imagine that any will truly encapsulate the extraordinary life and phenomenon of Steve Jobs. I can pretend no special insight. I never actually spoke to Jobs, or got closer to within about 30 feet of him. I didn't know Jobs; I knew of him, of course, but I am hardly alone in that. It is simply beyond me to comprehensively sum up Jobs' contribution to the electronics industry, much less society as a whole. Still, as someone who frequently has the opportunity to speak with people who work in electronics, I'm constantly impressed by the widespread desire to emulate Apple, not just in consumer electronics but in the semiconductor industry and its supply chain. People are justifiably amazed by Jobs' ability to create an ecosystem around Apple's products that compounds their value to customers. The biggest lesson I think the electronics industry took from Steve Jobs is the boldness of his vision—his willingness to truly reach for the brass ring. So much of electronics has been and will continue to be about engineering out as much cost as possible to compete on price with razor thin margins. Jobs didn't want any part of that. He showed the world, repeatedly, that if you go the extra mile to create products that truly resonate with customers, they will not only pay a premium but stand in line, rain or shine, to get their hands on them. Not that everyone can or should believe they can command a premium on their products the way that Apple does. Apple has always been a special case for several reasons, many of which can be at least partially credited to Jobs' leadership. It's not as though firms can emulate Apple's success by following a step-by-step blueprint. Still, Jobs showed the entire electronics world that extraordinary heights were achievable if leaders were willing to make bold investments, take the road less traveled and, in the grammatically incorrect words of the famous Apple ad campaign, think different.

It was a startling news, though not completely unexpected: Steve Jobs, the iconic co-founder of Apple Inc., who will be remembered for—among many other things—his showmanship and larger-than-life public persona, died peacefully, surrounded by his family. In the coming hours, days, weeks and years, there will be volumes written about Jobs, his impact and his legacy. Many will wax eloquently about the man who transcended electronics and literally changed the world during two stints at the company he helped build. No doubt, some of these endeavors will offer profound insights into Jobs' genius and his place in history. But it is difficult to imagine that any will truly encapsulate the extraordinary life and phenomenon of Steve Jobs. I can pretend no special insight. I never actually spoke to Jobs, or got closer to within about 30 feet of him. I didn't know Jobs; I knew of him, of course, but I am hardly alone in that. It is simply beyond me to comprehensively sum up Jobs' contribution to the electronics industry, much less society as a whole. Still, as someone who frequently has the opportunity to speak with people who work in electronics, I'm constantly impressed by the widespread desire to emulate Apple, not just in consumer electronics but in the semiconductor industry and its supply chain. People are justifiably amazed by Jobs' ability to create an ecosystem around Apple's products that compounds their value to customers. The biggest lesson I think the electronics industry took from Steve Jobs is the boldness of his vision—his willingness to truly reach for the brass ring. So much of electronics has been and will continue to be about engineering out as much cost as possible to compete on price with razor thin margins. Jobs didn't want any part of that. He showed the world, repeatedly, that if you go the extra mile to create products that truly resonate with customers, they will not only pay a premium but stand in line, rain or shine, to get their hands on them. Not that everyone can or should believe they can command a premium on their products the way that Apple does. Apple has always been a special case for several reasons, many of which can be at least partially credited to Jobs' leadership. It's not as though firms can emulate Apple's success by following a step-by-step blueprint. Still, Jobs showed the entire electronics world that extraordinary heights were achievable if leaders were willing to make bold investments, take the road less traveled and, in the grammatically incorrect words of the famous Apple ad campaign, think different.  

Relax and settle down now. Despite Steve Jobs' resignation, Apple will do just fine. Investors freaked out after Jobs resigned as Apple CEO Wednesday (Aug. 24) , sending the company's stock price down 5 percent in after-hours trading (and costing Jobs tens of millions of dollars, on paper). This knee-jerk investor reaction should come as no surprise—even though many suspected that there was at least a possibility Jobs would not return to full time CEO duties after he went out on medical leave in January. Let's face it: there is a lot of hero worship associated with Jobs. On the part of Apple fans, obviously, but also on the part of investors, business leaders, journalists, financial analysts and politicians. His story is mythical: boy genius starts company, revolutionizes personal computing, gets cast out after feuding with the people he sold the firm to, then returns a decade later to lead the company back to prominence, in the process revolutionizing the consumer electronics, entertainment and cellular phone industries. Except that it's not the whole story, obviously. For all that Jobs has done as a dynamic, visionary leader, he has presided over an army of talented people—engineers, industrial designers, procurement managers, marketing types—you name it. As comments on the show, not everyone is comfortable with the fact that Jobs gets the lion's share of the credit for Apple's success. EEs in particular seem to bristle at the praise heaped on Jobs because of the sense that Apple's ground-breaking products would never have seen the light of day without the sweat and toil of the rank-and-file engineers who worked to physically create them. Fair enough. Jobs did not design the circuit board for the original iPod. Yet there can be no doubt that his expectations, his preferences and his intrinsic sense of what appeals to consumers helped to shape a ground-breaking product. The same can be said of the Mac, the iPhone and the iPad. Jobs certainly does not deserve all of the credit for Apple's success, or its string of category-defining products. But he does deserve a good deal of it. Perhaps the bulk of it. We can debate what is his just due forever. And we'll never arrive at a definitive conclusion. Investors panicked about Jobs' resignation Wednesday in part because people like simple explanations. Apple has been a staggering success with Jobs at the helm, and new CEO Tim Cook has never truly run the show. Right or not, the person at the top of an organizational chart always at some level gets the credit—or takes the blame—for the execution of those that work beneath him or her. In Jobs' case this tendency is compounded because, at the risk of slipping into hyperbole, Appleliterally changed the world during both of Jobs' stints at the helm. In the years that lay between, the company did little of note.ÿ Why Apple will be OK Still, Apple fanatics, investors, suppliers and other interested parties needn't worry that Jobs' resignation will suddenly plunge Apple into a rudderless dark age. There are several reasons for this: Apple is firing on all cylinders, and has been for years . During the recession, Apple defied gravity in turning in increasing sales and profits, even while consumers were tightening their grip on their wallets. In its most recently concluded quarter, Apple reported record sales of $28.57 billion and profit of $7.31 billion. (The company also forecast a decline in sales for the current quarter, but analysts have increasingly taken issue with what they view as overly conservative guidance; to under-promise and over-deliver is far better than the alternative). Earlier this month, Apple briefly slipped past Exxon Mobile to become the world's most valuable company as measured by market capitalization. A year and a half after Apple introduced the iPad, a significant competitor has yet to emerge—the company still can't fulfill the demand for the product. And, in the second quarter, 57 percent of all cellular handset operating profits went to Apple, according to an analyst at Canaccord Genuity. In short, demand for Apple products remains rabid. That's not going to change anytime soon, regardless of who is sitting in the corner office. Tim Cook is no slouch. Cook has been effectively running the day-to-day operations of Apple since January and also served as acting CEO during Jobs' previous medical leave in 2009. Cook is given high marks by analysts and employees for his handling of Apple operations and his representation of the company in public. He has been at Apple for 13 years (a good deal of that time as Jobs' right-hand man) and knows the company inside and out. He was on the short list of virtually every high-tech CEO search in the past several years. Cook was also "strongly recommended" for the job by none other than Jobs himself. An endorsement from the man who built Apple and steered the company to the top, twice, is a serious vote of confidence (not to mention something that jumps out on a resume). The Apple machine. As of last October, Apple had more than 26,000 employees, and Jobs was but one of them. Among them are some of the most talented people in their respective areas of expertise. With Apple's affluence and prestige, the company was able to attract some of the best talent on the market. The company's hard-driven culture, prestige and commitment to excellence remain in place. Bottom line: There are a lot of smart and talented people at Apple, up and down the org chart. The employee talent pool is the single most valuable asset of any high-tech firm. Jobs' continued presence. When Jobs resigned from Apple in 1984, he was hopping mad, cutting virtually all ties with the firm he helped establish (reportedly selling all of his Apple shares except one). This time, while Jobs stepped down from the day-to-day leadership of Apple as CEO, he was immediately installed as chairman of the firm. You'd like to hope that this means that Jobs, in chairman tradition, can spend more time with his family, relaxing and playing golf—though the questions surrounding his health make the the prospects for this kind of leisurely semi-retirement murky. But the important thing to Apple and its supporters and investors is that Jobs is, well, still on the job. He'll still be overseeing the company from a distance, and we can safely assume that Cook will have no trouble picking up the phone to talk to him when necessary. And Jobs, given his nature as we understand it, is not likely to sit quietly by if he believes the company is veering off course.   Dylan McGrath EE Times