Behind a Steve Jobs Keynote

Shree writes "The Guardian has an article about what it takes to prepare that smooth Steve Jobs-style keynote. When Steve launches iPhoto and says 'here we have 5000 or so photos', he actually means here we have 5000 or so carefully picked photos ... " From the article: "Objectively, Apple Computer is a mid-sized company with a tiny share of its primary market. Apple Macintoshes are only rarely seen in corporate environments, and most software companies don't even offer Apple-compatible versions of their products. To put it another way, Apple is just bit larger than Cadbury-Schweppes and about the same size as Nike or Marks and Spencer in terms of annual sales. Such comparisons come up short in trying to describe Apple's place in the world of business, because they leave out a key factor: Steve Jobs."

Comments

Re:you're right

[Liselle]

And like he foresaw, NeXT is now at the nexus of modern computing. I mean, everyone here has a NeXT machine, and when was the last time you saw a non-NeXT computer in an office?

You need a hit with the clue-by-four, sir, NeXT lives on in every OSX machine.

Re:Showmanship and Attention to Detail

[grouchomarxist]

Only later was it revealed that [Amelio] was largely a victim of the mistakes of others.

That's really BS. As CEO the buck stops with Amelio. No one else can take the blame for that disaster. He had plenty of time to rehearse, but from what I heard he refused to. He also wore a particularly horrible patchwork sweater, which I dubbed the "Frankensweater".

Amelio's been trying to re-write his history at Apple, but the truth is that he performed badly. What he did well was buying NeXT and (unintentionally) putting Steve Jobs back into power.