Steve Jobs Crowned "Person of the Decade"

longacre writes "Apple CEO Steve Jobs won over 30% of the vote in an online poll published by personal finance and investing news site SmartMoney.com, enough to earn their 'Person of the Decade' title by a solid margin over luminaries such as Warren Buffett (17%), Ben Bernanke (13%) and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (12%). From the article: 'Certainly, Jobs accomplished more than probably any other CEO since he returned to Apple in the late 1990s: Not only did he revive sales at the failing computer company, he led the stock to a more than 700% increase in value, and forever changed the way people buy and listen to music.'"

Comments

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[Ironchew]

So, this wraps up another Decade of Dreadful Apple Ads. (I couldn't resist.)

Re:what seriously?

[Dog-Cow]

Thank you for sharing your ignorance and stupidity. Slashdot was feeling a bit empty without them.

Re:First decade of this millennium

[maxume]

Well, there isn't a year zero, so the first millennium AD spans the years from 1 AD to 1000 AD.

But that is why it's gone

[SuperKendall]

You are forgetting that apple was the first Online music store that implimented DRM

Actually they were not the first. There were other smaller music stores around before iTunes, all used DRM (except eMusic which as you note didn't have large labels - because they would not use DRM).

Apple didn't want to use DRM ether, they stated so repeatedly - it's bad for the user experience after all, which is what Apple is all about. They were forced to by the labels.

But as a result of success of iTunes, no other music store could really sell music well exactly because of iTunes DRM - which the labels made Apple use. So in the end the labels had no choice but to abandon DRM, so they could sell music through channels other than iTunes.

You can argue that iTunes store "was the first time selling music online ever went anywhere" because they had the clout and lawyers to get Big Labels to sign on.

It was wholly because they agreed to DRM, just like the other small stores around at the same time. Apple just had the fortune to have enough software expertise to actually make buying music online practical and compelling compared to piracy, and so the store grew. And as is inevitable with any DRM system, once you have one player dominate it's impossible to remove them because so many people have music using the dominant form of DRM they are locked in.

Apple just made it trendy and not just a geek thing.

If by "trendy" you mean "mainstream", then yes. "Trendy" is a word implying something that ends after a finite period. I don't think people will lose the taste for playing music, ever.