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Steve Jobs' Grand Vision
ejungle writes "The Toronto Star has an excellent article on Steve Jobs and his increasingly interesting role as head of both Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios. The article goes into the market pressures surrounding both companies, and goes a long way to explain their recent moves."
Jobs, who is worth $1.7 billion (U.S.), according to Forbes magazine last year, routinely declines interview requests and could not be reached for comment for this story.
What does Steve Jobs not wanting to do an interview for the San Francisco Chronicle have to do with how much money he is worth?
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
While I firmly agree with Pixar breaking off from Disney, the statement
Jobs went so far as to declare that Pixar had surpassed Disney as "the most powerful and trusted brand in animation."
seems a little fishy to me. While Pixar is amazing at what it does, it's no Disney. Nobody wants to take thier kids to Pixarland, and you don't get the Pixar channel at home, and I'd say it'll be quite a while before either of those happens. They are by no means trusted to the level of Disney in a family atmosphere.
They have a good thing going, but IMHO they are far from the top still.
Jobs is a rebel because he is successful and innovative and they will close him down? No wonder the entertainment industries don't seem to get things right if thats the definition of a rebel.
Jonathanjk.com
Only on /. can you find a comment relating an article on the business moves of the CEO of an animation studio and a computer company related back to needing more advocation for Linux.
And then it gets modded up??? Puh-Leeese
That means what to the point a made?
As a side note, i don't watch TV either or drink "sickly sodas", they are both detrimental to the human condition, looks like Jobs is being a reponsible father, I would do the same.
Besides its not like he could do the rest of the population the sam favour is it? Big money and power comes from feeding kids crap foodstuffs and having them watch TV all day long.
Jonathanjk.com
Dude's been a Unix-head for a long time. c.f. NeXT in the late-80s/early-90s... It's zero suprise that not long after he comes back to Apple, OS X is announced, a unix-based OS (and at that, one *strongly* derived from NeXTSTEP). I don't know what he thinks of Linux in particular, but it's obvious he likes Unix in general.
Then again, can you name any Disney movie in the last couple of years that was:
1. Animated
2. A hit
3. Not made by Pixar
Their only non Pixar movie in the last couple fo years that was considered major and not a pixar film was that Sinbad one that tanked at the box office. Unless the future of Disney Animations is making cheesy home videos, they're going to have to do a lot of work to get anywhere near where Pixar and who ever they ally with will be.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
What really bad ones? You say there were a lot...
And NeXT was fucking fantastic, it amazed me that even in '99 the rest of the computing world hadn't caught up to how far along NeXTSTEP was when it came to providing a useful, coherent, sane computing environment.
Installed base is a much more useful number than market share, unless you really think real computing advancement comes from the hundreds of mid to low end machines typically deployed in corporations (hint: it doesn't). Emacs don't cost near 2k, iMacs do and they are poor sellers because of it. The G5 machines are priced well if you do a serious comparison of what you get for the money... and more importantly they are priced great since Apple sells them as fast they make them (the single 1.6 excluded).
I realize you are doing the anti-popular opinion troll for mod points but unfortunately for me I can't help but reply.
--- I do not moderate.
Mahatma Gandhi was rich?
"But then again we are talking about Apple ppl here who must have more money than God in order to afford an Apple computer."
I own 4 of `em, and I certainly don't consider myself "rich" by any stretch of the imagination. I use my machines to make money on the side and I use the tools that will make me more productive. It might cost me more initially, but if I can complete a job faster, with the least amount of hassle, then the machines have paid for themselves.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Your above statements only hold true if you assume Pixar can't create any other market-winning content. Obviously they believe they can and to their credit, Nemo, etc... were very successful market creations, much more so than anything Disney has created in a while.
--- I do not moderate.
If the Pixar modeling/rendering software ran on MacOS X, then there'd be an army of Joe Sixpacks out there competing with Pixar, with a few thousand dollars worth of computers.
I read statements like this with a bit of bemusement. Here's a clue to all you movie makers of the future: it isn't about which software have, or which computer you are running. Movie making is hard because most people don't tell very interesting stories.Let's look at it this way: Steve Jobs runs both Apple and Pixar Animation Studios. One could imagine that if a move to MacOS X allowed such a dramatic reduction in costs for movie development that perhaps Pixar would go ahead and take advantage of it themselves. Or perhaps you think Pixar works hard to spend millions of dollars on salaries and equipment when it cut expenses and expand profits by the simple process of porting software?
Get real.
"He might be surprised to find that Hollywood closes it ranks to rebels," said Kay, the IDC analyst. "By aspiring too high, too quickly, that could be his downfall. But that story's not told yet.''
Certainly not. People want to see Pixar movies and that is guaranteed money. I can see Hollywood closing its rank to rebels when it comes to cash. Right.
To the contrary, I think it's an interesting question. Jobs is the head of one of the world's great computer companies. Jobs is also the head of one of the worlds great computer animation studios. As both mentioned in the article. But his studio's render farms -- the industrial engines that churn out the frames -- do not run on his computers, even though for many years he has pitched his computers as the machines of choice for computer graphics. I know that rendering is actually on the "production" side rather than the "development" side, and that it is a batch process rather than a creative process, but still, it creates an interesting tension from a PR standpoint. Kind of like finding out that the president of Chrysler drives a Porsche.
If the Pixar modeling/rendering software ran on MacOS X, then there'd be an army of Joe Sixpacks out there competing with Pixar, with a few thousand dollars worth of computers. Steve JObs wants to keep this business obscure enough to keep the bar raised to where Pixar offers a unique and valuable service.
Hold your horses there cowboy bebop. It would take a lot more than Pixar's software to turn Joe Sixpack into the next "Finding Nemo" creator.
All the software in the world cant get around the CPU cycle requirements for this type of rendering. Perhaps if Joe Sixpack had a raised floor room in his basement with about 2000 Xserve G5's (Ok, so it's a big basement) then maybe the release of this software on OSX would be a threat.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Just as script kiddies have no innate intelligence and have no clue how all those scripts work, this writer has learned from some rule book somewhere that clauses in a sentence are the preferred way to spiff up boring writing. Rather than try to understand why, he has applied this rule indiscriminately and come up with nonsense.
It has been ages since I worried about this stuff (6th grade, I think). I think these are called subordinate clauses, and are supposed to clarify the rest of the sentence. Thus if he had said "Jobs, who made his money interviewing famous people, routinely declines interviews requests" or "Jobs, who is worth $1.7 billion, said he cannot afford to finance movies himself" -- either one would have been legitimate.
Now I hope I've cleared up SOMETHING, for Ifni's sake!
Infuriate left and right
I don't think so, it's more like finding out the president of Chrysler's landscapers drive Ford trucks
Geekleak.com - Silly name, serious geeks
Lots of people agree that the real reason of the Mac slow but sure descent into Hell is Job's elitist vision and its results, overpriced hardware, rumor cult(ure) at Apple, etc.
Why do people still claim Mac is on the verge of bankruptcy? According to some, they've been "on the verge of hell" since the late 80's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they're doing much better now than they were in 1996...
If any of you are still wondering, just sit down and watch Lion King 1 1/2. Then compare it to Finding Nemo. Ask yourself: which is the better movie? Then ask yourself: How would Walt have felt about the character Poomba in the Lion King, whose defining characteristic is that he passes gas? (A LOT of gas). Methinks old Walt would not have approved of fart jokes, and furthermore that when you have to resort to scatalogical humor to intertain kids, it's a symptom that you've completely run out of good ideas. Shrek and Lilo and Stitch weren't as bad, but they too seemed to need to resort to scatalogical humor. The closest Pixar ever comes to scatalogical is in Monsters Inc, where I really cannot figure out where in the middle of the Himalayas the Abominable Snowman is getting lemon juice with which to make yellow snowcones...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
If the Pixar modeling/rendering software ran on MacOS X, then there'd be an army of Joe Sixpacks out there competing with Pixar, with a few thousand dollars worth of computers.
... and the talented people who know how to organize all of the above.
Steve JObs wants to keep this business obscure enough to keep the bar raised to where Pixar offers a unique and valuable service.
yeah, sure. It's not the machines, it's not the software. It's the talented people who know what to do with the software, and know how to work around all the things that it can't do.
and the talented people who can write a good script, design good characters, and act. Without them, the people who know how to push the buttons don't have anything to do.
Hardware [check]
Software [check]
Content [check]
Mindshare [check]
Market [check$]
In the great race to revolutionize previous services, CableTV, Telephone and Audio are all taking new forms. Seems to me that the Pixar acquisition after iTunes means Job's only needs a portable device with a large enough screen to make the portable, secure, wireless future happen.
Pixar will produce its own content, and those who seek to distribute their movies through that 'channel' will join in the success. Filling out the market footprint for Jobs' in 2005.
M$ may suffer from being more than we need with their next release.
If at the same time indie Musicians and Filmakers could get the gear they could offer great alternatives, but Apple and Pixar are a collossus.
Stuff that matters.
Second back when I had my NeXT it came with Renderman which was I beleive the Pixar developed shader for 3-d rendering. It was very slick and blow-your-socks off fast on a 486 computer.
NeXT also came with Zilla, the predecessor to all grid computing that let the Zilla project steal unused cycles on all volunteer NeXT computers in the world. Among its feats was part of the four-color-map theorem proof (an exhaustive proof), and the early CGI movie rendering.
So the convergence of Jobs computer platforms and Pixar in not a new thing. The fact that its running on Intel hardware is also no suprise since NeXTstep and Renderman ran on INTEL hardware.
but it seems that with pixlet, Xgrid, Xraid, and the new rackmount G5 all the peices are in place to go back to an all apple platform if he chooses too. But circumstantially they probably will wait till their next movie is done. But presumably with Pixlet, and finalcut pro they can do all the desktop work on apples now.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
16) Apple made a computer that doesn't crash, one that I can use, and I'm just some guy.
17) Apple gets that while functional is good, functional and stylish is better.
18) Apple made a computer that I'm proud to bring with me.
Example: The other night I was at a screening of a foreign movie on some sort of esoteric VCD format that the language lab computer (running XP pro) couldn't play under RealOne, WMP9 or the other DVD software installed. Soooo, just as the professor was about to send everyone home, I offered to try it out on my ibook.
I put in the disc, "DVD Player" started up, the movie started, I plugged in the projector cable, the controller faded away subtly and seemlessly and we watched the movie. I sat back with a grin, as if it was me who did something right... As if I was the one who fixed the movie player with my Apple.
So what's my point again?
Apple is great because it makes my life easier, my computer does the work I want it to when I want it to and I'm proud when it does so.
If you read, I wrote:
Apple's no longer in a position to afford profiting by quantity. The first step is to make the public want Macs. In 1997, the public didn't care. In 2004, finally, Apple is associated with Cool. The public wants Macs.
The thing I find is, whenever I tell someone how much an entry level iMac costs, they're always shocked because it's less than they expected. Step 2 is to make the public decide to buy Macs. That's what the Apple stores and the iPods are for.
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
If I had to handicap the animation industry, I'd bet on Pixar because they have five mega-hits under their belts, and zero flops.
Dreamworks has been much more spotty.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Consumer's aren't choosing Linux, enterprises are choosing Linux for desktops. Mom and Pop aren't formatting their hard drives and installing Linux distros on their 'box' at home. If anything, Microsoft has to worry about the loss of enterprise desktop share, not Apple, who's not in enterprise.
Enterprise takes what's cheap and what works. That's why they buy thousands of identical, feature-less Dell boxes. And that's why they'll install Linux on those boxes instead of Windows XP Pro if Linux does what they need it to do. I mean seriously, why would you install XP in the enterprise? The reasons keep diminishing.
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
No, it's kind of like finding out that a company uses the best tools for the jobs it needs to do. Apple doesn't run on all Mac OS X boxes, either. And I'll bet that SGI workstations aren't powering the SGI website, either. Oh the horrors and hypocrisy!
Do you really think Jobs would change Pixars Hardware/Software setup to please his Apple side?
;-)
And why should he have to explain it? The fact that most of that software comes straight from the NeXT days should be "explanation" enough on the techie front. But go ahead and raise your fist for Linux dominance
It's only very recent that Apple's making serious servers and raid solutions, and while they're very cool and cost effective, an established business will wait just a bit longer and see where it goes before switching the most processor-intensive part of their work to G5's.
OTOH, when there's a proven advantage and a clear cut in cost, you'll see them switch in no time, especially now that Linux and Windows Server have been certified to run on the Xservers.
I'd never expect a serious CEO to have to think about that in other terms than cost-reduction, productivity and quality.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
You can get an eMac (1GHz G4, 17" CRT, DVD-ROM/CD-RW), or last year's iBook (800MHz G3, 12" LCD, CD-ROM), for $799. Financing available. If God can't afford that, no wonder He has so many of His followers on TV asking for money.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
their art work and prototyping is done on Macs..rendering is grunt work, why not do it on cheap machines?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
When tell people I prefer working on a Mac than on anything else, people look at me as if I were a perfect ass. Some of my friends don't speak of computers with me anymore, they just think I've become some kind of extremist who can't see how Macs are doomed.
Sounds to me like your friends are the extremists if the simple mention of a Mac makes them stop talking to you. Jobs has done a bunch of dumb things, sure. To hold him responsible for your friends not talking computers with you is kinda silly though.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
Linux is outpacing Mac because it is out cheaping MS on cheap boxes.
anyone who would say Linux is a better Desktop system than OS X are crack heads....and this is coming from a Linux desktop user.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Shrek vs. Toy Story 1/2, A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo. That's one hit against five. I'd bet on Pixar.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
It seems to me that Apple is greatly expanding. The X Serves are actualy selling fairly well (and those can't all be going to schools) and many of the markets that started to drop Apple have started moving back, for example, 2 years ago, my highschool decided it was going all Dell. They had given us a great deal and they were cheap computers, so we started pulling machines for Dells. Now the school is probably about 90% Dell, and we're rapidly back pedling and trying to get new macs. The teachers want them because they were less of a hassle, the sys admins want them because the dell rackmounts have been nightmares (and they want something that will play nice with the linux boxes and the old macs that are still being used) and the repair techs want them so that they can sit down for longer than 5 minutes at a time. Similarly my college was considering a year ago to standardize all computers across the campus as x86 windows machines. Just 2 weeks ago, the IT department sent out a campus wide email to all staff that the school had just negotiated a bulk order from apple, and anyone who wanted a machine should order now. To top it off, they just recently opened a mac tech position to support the influx of new macs into the campus.
I realize these are anecedotes, but going on what I've seen, I think Apple is slowly creeping back.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
1) Woz was a genius yes, but Woz was the Apple. Steve and his team was the Mac.
2) And yet for all of that, no one did anything like it until Apple did it.
3) No matter where you go, there will be fan boys
4) It's not that the single button itself is better, it's the philosophy that you should be able to do everything with a single mouse button. Just for fun, try to create a new folder on your desktop of your windows machine with only the left click.
That and when you really think about it. If you're hard set in teh 2 button ways, you already own a 2 button mouse, so just plug it into your mac and be done with it.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Pixar is run by some very bright computer graphics legends. They make Renderman, the best and basically only production renderer in the movie industry.
They don't tell Jobs how to do his job, he doesn't tell them how to do theirs.
What Apple borrowed from PARC and others before them they improved and innovated. For example, pull-down menus (Mac) are simpler to use then pop-up (pre-Mac) because they're always visible. Previous systems did bit-blits only of rectangular regions, Apple introduced non-rectangular, non-contiguous region blits. Etc.
MS, on the other hand, has slavishly followed and usually dis-improved. Or been way late to the party. For example, Apple added Quartz Extreme a couple of years ago: use OpenGL and the today's opwerful graphics cards to improve and accelerate the Mac UI. MS will bring this to Longhorn in a couple of years.
Heck, MS so copies Apple that they even use the same color schemes and desktop patterns for their advanced UI previews. They can't even come up with their own.
And THAT is the difference between Jobs and Gates.
Not that Gates hasn't innovated. He has. But in the business/marketing realm, not design or technology. Most of us geeks admire tech/design innovators over marketing innovators.
"1. the whole personality cult surrounding Steve Jobs (face it - Steve Wozniak is the real genius)"
What, exactly, do you mean by "Real?"
There is more than one kind of genius, and all kinds are very real. There is genius in mathemeticians who focus only on esoteric theories, there is genius in engineers who only solve real problems they can feel, and there is genius in Ella Fitzgerald's singing.
The genius of Dali's art is very different in kind from the genius of a certain Finnish student coming up with the right code for the world, but who would say that Linus Torvalds is no genius?
Not all genius is necessarily what you might consider to be good. There is a genius in Bill Gates' domination of markets, in George W. Bush's political mastery, in Osama Bin Laden's sheer survival skills and leadership abilities.
Both Wozniak and Jobs are geniuses, in their own way. Wozniak is the engineering genius, and Jobs is the marketing and management genius.
And neither one is really less of a genius than the other.
Although I agree with the article's point of view, you're dead-on about the submitter's bias. Of course, the submitter's bias is probably why the submitter noticed the article in the first place, and if the submitter didn't like the article, he/she probably wouldn't have submitted it.
This is clearly an opinion piece, not so much a report.
I disagree. As the president of Pixar, his job is to do what's in the best interests of the company. If his admins came to him and said they wanted to make a render farm using a bunch of xeons running linux and he told them to use Apple products instead, just because he's in charge at apple, he wouldnt be doing what is in the best interest of Pixar. He'd be doing what's in the best interest of Apple, and that's not his job at Pixar.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
He only gets a 1 dollar check per year but his stock optins and bills that Apple picks up for him are worth millions.
No, they aren't. His stock options allow him to purchase Apple shares for $43.56. AAPL is currently at around $20.00. Right now, Steve Jobs stock options are worth exactly nada point null. And frankly, in the foreseable future they will rather keep this value. Jobs even once offered a journalist who was estimating their worth at some millions to buy them at half the estimated price. Obviously, the journalist declined. Even if Jobs was half-joking then, he had a valid point - it will take ages for AAPL to break through the $40.00 level and actually it's not even likely for it to ever happen.
Of course, the company pay for his semi-private jet and his powerbook. But even that is not exactly his own salary - if he quits from Apple, another CEO will fly "his" gulfstream jet.
I read statements like this with a bit of bemusement. Here's a clue to all you movie makers of the future: it isn't about which software have, or which computer you are running. Movie making is hard because most people don't tell very interesting stories.
As one who had a Mac and a LaserWriter but failed to takeover the world of publishing, then a Mac and Dreamweaver but failed to become a DotAnything, and now a Mac and iMovie and am totally non-threatening tp Spielberg, I concur. Anyone can buy equipment but it takes a talented person to use it. Michelangelo (artist, not turtle) didn't even have a Wacom tablet!
Talent is innate, but it ain't in me.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
i think we have seen that with the Xserve G5s and such. The man is unquestionably smart.