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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
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
I think Jobs was probably referring to just the movie animation industry in which case it is not too far fetched as sweeping statements go.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
That's exactly what Comcast is wondering: Disney isn't just a movie studio, radio station, tv channel, theme park, touring ice skating show, toy brand, ocean cruise line, hotel chain, or marketing monster. It's all of these things.
Pixar doesn't have to beat any of these to be *more* successful than Disney : It merely has to have better ROI, better employee retention, more creative output, and freedom to break the Disney Oversight in all things they do publicly. This is what they suffered from.
Jobs is a smart man to break out now. The crowds will show up for 2 movies past a crap release (proof: Matrix) and Pixar has released blockbusters so far. The Point: Pixar is now a Name Brand.
No need to have foam-headed characters dance around a plaster castle giving out happy meals to sell this stuff; it's good all on its own.
Ah, but he talks about animation - not family entertainment, not amusement parks, not television programming. In the field of animation, it has been quite some time since Disney last did anything worthwile.
That said, in animation, I would put at least Studio Ghibli right up there with Pixar as well.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
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
One might argue that Google has greatly surpassed Yahoo as a search engine, and try to argue against that on the grounds that Yahoo has great email, a comprehensive customizable news service, etc. Well, sure, it's a great portal, but it isn't the leading directory service people switched to first back in '95.
Pixar certainly seem to have developed a name for themselves. It's quite possible to believe that as Disney have allowed their animation side to fester and decay, Pixar and others have stepped in to take Disney's place.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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