How Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator's Dilemma

But can he solve the First Post dilemma? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 11:49 · Score: 3, Funny

He can't because he's dead.

Re:But can he solve the First Post dilemma? by HermMunster · 2011-10-26 04:48 · Score: 1

Please don't attribute to one man what his thousands of employees accomplished. Steve did nothing in this regard. His employees did everything. Give Apple's employees credit here and for nearly all things. Steve was just a figure head with some neat ideas and a philosophy of his own, but he did nearly nothing.

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You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.

MBAs Prevent Disruption by GeneralTurgidson · 2011-10-25 11:51 · Score: 1

I believe it's part of a 101 class on how a profitable business should be ran.

Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Divebus · 2011-10-25 12:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's the most misunderstood thing in business - do good work, make the customers happy, create good value and profit becomes a side effect.

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Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by PPH · 2011-10-25 12:32 · Score: 4, Informative

Part of a 101 Business class, that is. You know, that class that all the football players ace.
Growing a business, expanding market share, increasing sales revenues in a competitive market place all require taking risks, otherwise known as 'disruption'. Good managers know how to stay focused on the risk, not avoid it. Meanwhile, they minimize unneeded risks, or issues that divert the organization's attention from their primary goal. There is a very good correlation between risk and ROI. No risk means your investors had better be willing to live with T-bill like returns.
You want no disruption? Go into a government bureaucracy or get a job in a large corporation away from the principle line of business*.
* The problem here is that its easy for companies to outsource these tasks. So in the final analysis, you are still exposed to risk. That which involves turning your job over to leaner, more competitive service providers.

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Have gnu, will travel.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by bmo · 2011-10-25 12:33 · Score: 2, Funny

Mod parent funny.
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BMO
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by DigiShaman · 2011-10-25 12:57 · Score: 1

If I may borrow from Starwars a bit...
"The more you tighten your grip, CEO, the more profit will slip through your fingers"
You know, as a devout capitalist, I've always believed that customers service comes first. That, and the quality of your goods and services should be enough to advertise themselves via word of mouth.

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Life is not for the lazy.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by iluvcapra · 2011-10-25 13:34 · Score: 4, Informative

You know, as a devout capitalist, I've always believed that customers service comes first.
A capitalist of the Adam Smith variety would say that profit comes first, and that good customer service and mutual benefit is a consequence of pursuing profit.
The fact that this doesn't work under a lot of different contexts, particularly the ones that Harvard MBAs get themselves learned in, is the guts of the story.

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Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by smash · 2011-10-25 13:54 · Score: 2

Its a bit of a mix. If you are profit driven and already have good products, you'll be fine until the products are superseded by something else that is more attractive.
This is where apple was between say 1984 and 1997 - gradually sliding downhill with no direction in a race to the bottom - and losing.
However... Eventually, you need to put quarterly earnings calls aside, and figure out how to make something people don't even know they want, rather than race to the bottom against everyone else building an ever cheaper version of X. Thats a race that nobody wins, so don't be in that race.

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I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 14:10 · Score: 1

A capitalist of the Adam Smith variety would say that profit comes first
A capitalist of the Adam West variety would say that shark repellent bat-spray comes first
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Grishnakh · 2011-10-25 15:14 · Score: 1

Sounds good in theory, but it's absolutely the wrong way to run a business. Steve Jobs was a terrible CEO, because he didn't put profit first, especially the next quarter's profit, and he thought too much about the long term. Why are these things bad? I can't really explain since I don't have an MBA, but that's exactly what they teach all the MBAs in MBA schools these days, so it must be right....
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Grishnakh · 2011-10-25 15:16 · Score: 1

You're not a very good capitalist if you believe that stuff. Industrialist, perhaps, entrepreneur, businessman, maybe, but not capitalist. A true capitalist only cares about maximizing profit above all other concerns.
Besides, why should we believe some random Slashdot poster rather than one of the many experts that Harvard graduates from its MBA school every year?
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by mldi · 2011-10-25 15:25 · Score: 1, Insightful

Except that if anything, Apple is a marketing machine. They could have sold shit on a cracker.

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If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Divebus · 2011-10-25 15:26 · Score: 2

... which is why Asian companies kick the American's asses. Long range thinking in the US is having a 5 year plan. In Japan, they have 100 year plans [and a dozen other links].

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Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Capsaicin · 2011-10-25 15:45 · Score: 1

Except that if anything, Apple is a marketing machine. They could have sold shit on a cracker.
Ah yes, but if would have to be really cool shit, on a beautifully designed and engineered cracker.

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Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by mldi · 2011-10-25 16:11 · Score: 1

Not necessarily. The point of marketing is to make you want it. It doesn't have to be great, you just have to believe it's great.

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If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Capsaicin · 2011-10-25 16:26 · Score: 2

Not necessarily. The point of marketing is to make you want it. It doesn't have to be great, you just have to believe it's great.
How is "cool' not what people believe is great?
But yes, the point of Apple (under Jobs) was clearly not merely marketing.

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Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by justforgetme · 2011-10-25 16:57 · Score: 1

Good, now if only Governments could adopt this idea...

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-- no sig today
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by mrxak · 2011-10-25 17:39 · Score: 2

Considering how much profit Apple makes by staying customer-focused, one could argue they're both the same thing. It's just that some companies don't realize that the best way to get profit is focus on the customer experience. In other words, they focus on making profits but don't have a clue how to get them.

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-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by mrxak · 2011-10-25 17:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

If it was only marketing, wouldn't everybody be doing it? Or are you just saying that only Apple has an advertising budget?

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-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Opportunist · 2011-10-25 18:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

Be it as it may, what it comes down to is that Apple created a product their customer doesn't complain about. And in this time and age, this is already the superior product. Whether you liked it a lot or didn't, Apple made products that "work". They don't crash, they don't lock up, they don't keep their user puzzled how to use them. They made "computer stuff" usable by common folks.
I can see it in my dad and other computer illiterates. They are usually afraid to "poke" at their other goodies, fearing they might "break" something. Not so with Apple. My dad even started trying to find out what this button does, something he would NEVER have done in any other OS he ever had. Reason? He might have changed a setting and wouldn't have a clue how to undo it.
That's what sets Apple apart from the rest. Personally, I consider it an abomination, I just can't wrap my mind around their way of doing stuff, but it seems to work just great with people who have no computer background. And that's what endeared it to those people. And what makes a lot of computer specialists hate it. Not so much the "loss of edge", just that they do things in a way that makes us look stupid instead of the computer illiterates.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by gnasher719 · 2011-10-25 18:57 · Score: 2

A capitalist of the Adam Smith variety would say that profit comes first, and that good customer service and mutual benefit is a consequence of pursuing profit.
My CEO, who tries very hard to be one tenth as successful as Steve Jobs (and that he failed so far is not his fault, but Apple's), says: "If you look after your customers, and you look after your employees, the stock will look after the shareholders just fine by itself". And that has worked quite well in the last years, for the customers, the employees, and the shareholders.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by teg · 2011-10-25 20:29 · Score: 2

It's the most misunderstood thing in business - do good work, make the customers happy, create good value and profit becomes a side effect.
If you read the book, you'll see that this is where the danger lies. This is what a good, normal managers would do. But customers don't always know what they want, and you leave yourself open to attack from adjacent areas. Two of the examples in the book - computer hard drives and construction machines - show how companies by doing what you say ("doing everything right, by the book") eventually come under attack from adjacent market sectors and die.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Hognoxious · 2011-10-26 00:28 · Score: 1

Ah yes, but if would have to be really cool shit, on a beautifully designed and engineered cracker.
A white cracker, with rounded corners. And you have to hold it in a very precise way, or the shit falls off.

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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Hognoxious · 2011-10-26 00:37 · Score: 1

No. Marketing isn't a switch with on and off positions. Apple happen to be very good at it, others less so.

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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by elrous0 · 2011-10-26 01:19 · Score: 1

They could have sold shit on a cracker.
Nope. Sony already owns the patent.

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 01:35 · Score: 1

Apple is an engineering company, through and through. The hallmark of great engineering is not complexity, it's simplicity. Great engineering goes mostly unnoticed, because the solution is totally obvious in retrospect, and everyone says "I could have done that".
If you have a great product, marketing is trivial. Great products sell themselves.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by BasilBrush · 2011-10-26 02:36 · Score: 1

Actually, the Innovator's Dilemma points out that beliefs such as yours are exactly the reason why so many successful companies go on to fail. For example there comes a time when it's suicidal to make your customers happy. Your customers are the people who are already buying your product. They want you to continue producing stepwise improvements of that product. If you continue doing that for too long, that's when another company comes along with a disruptive product and steals your lunch. You stop getting new customers, and your old customers start to dwindle.
It takes something quite different to stop focussing on a successful product at the height of it's success, and disappoint current customers by coming up with a disruptive product yourselves.
Apple's customers wanted a version of Mac OS 9 with multi-tasking. Instead Jobs gave them OS X 1.0, which was rather less functional than Mac OS 9 was, and had few native third party apps.
Apple's customers wanted Macs with better PowerPC CPUs. Apple pissed many of them off by switching to Intel.
Apple's customers wanted the conveyor belt of better Macs and better versions of OSX. That's what kept them happy. But Jobs took most of his engineers off that task and made a phone instead.
It's not about keeping the customers happy. Although you have to do that most of the time. But at times you have to ignore their wishes and think about what will get you lots of new customers in the longer term.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by datavirtue · 2011-10-26 02:48 · Score: 1

" They don't crash, they don't lock up, " That is an awful broad statement. I just dumped two Mac Books because they wouldn't work right--the damn OS kept crapping out on the updates with no manual update path and there was no support for Java 6 on a 32 bit machine (I did have to restart because of klunnky behavior a few times on top of all that). Total nightmare--unless you just want to watch a movie or browse the internet. I actually wanted to develop software and help people run a business with the damn things. Business==not supported. Certainly not infallible. It is just Unix.

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I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by werepants · 2011-10-26 03:10 · Score: 1

Except that if anything, Apple is a marketing machine. They could have sold shit on a cracker.
Then explain the lackluster performance of the Apple TV, or the Xserve line, or the initial weird aluminum macbook lineup. Apple produces mediocre products or products that don't really have as much of a market as they initially anticipated, just like anybody else does. They occasionally mess up and have a hard time pushing as many products as they expected. The difference is that they have a much higher signal to noise ratio than is average for the industry.

Sure, Apple does have a good marketing machine, but most people that I know have converted to Apple because they saw the product in action and said "hey, I want that". There's no denying that they build nice products. There's also no denying that they've built probably the most valuable brand that exists right now. Marketing can do a lot for you, but if it was the only factor, Microsoft wouldn't ever lose market share.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by Divebus · 2011-10-26 03:19 · Score: 1

I agree that essentially milking a product with little actual improvement will lead to problems, although it's done Microsoft very well for decades. It helps to have an entrenched monopoly to pull that off. The switch to Intel created more opportunity for the Mac platform than less, so overall that was a win. I don't think anyone should be releasing products that aren't ready, as you singled out OS X which was nearly unusable until about 10.2.
However, Apple had less to lose by gutting their entire hardware and software platform and starting over. Apple also created some very smooth pathways through the migration; 68k code emulation on PPC, Classic environment on OS X, Carbon, Rosetta and a few others. They did the right thing for the long run.
The area where Apple excelled was the iPod and they avoided exactly what you warn against. They released upgrade after upgrade plus several variants for many years in the face of essentially no competition. They captured huge market share, massive brand loyalty and the most illusive variable; trust. Trust was the missing element in all of Microsoft's dalliance with music players. They never had traction and the lack of trust was already spreading to just about every other aspect of Microsoft's business. True to everyone's expectations, Microsoft fucked it all up when they released the Zune and that was the end.

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Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by werepants · 2011-10-26 03:19 · Score: 1

Be it as it may, what it comes down to is that Apple created a product their customer doesn't complain about. And in this time and age, this is already the superior product. Whether you liked it a lot or didn't, Apple made products that "work". They don't crash, they don't lock up, they don't keep their user puzzled how to use them.
I have a recent iMac that crashes quite a bit, and Apple's Aperture (photo editing program) is pretty grossly unstable. The most recent version of iMovie is less powerful than the previous one, and also less intuitive (IMO).

I still use primarily Apple computers, because the hardware is the best I've found and the software is good when it works. But I use Windows for some stuff, and Linux for others, and honestly each has upsides and downsides. If anything, I think the different platforms are becoming more similar than they are different, and it isn't so easy to categorize them as it used to be. If Apple has any significant advantages still, it is usability for newbies and consistency in UI, but I think stability and security are no longer what they used to be.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by BasilBrush · 2011-10-26 04:56 · Score: 1

The switch to Intel created more opportunity for the Mac platform than less, so overall that was a win.
They were all wins. But not one of them came about because it's what the existing customers wanted.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by inviolet · 2011-10-26 06:04 · Score: 1

You're not a very good capitalist if you believe that stuff. Industrialist, perhaps, entrepreneur, businessman, maybe, but not capitalist. A true capitalist only cares about maximizing profit above all other concerns.
Besides, why should we believe some random Slashdot poster rather than one of the many experts that Harvard graduates from its MBA school every year?
Are you sure you've correctly defined the concept 'capitalist'? Is that one parameter really the best way to explain the other properties observed in the group?

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FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by interval1066 · 2011-10-26 06:35 · Score: 1

A true capitalist only cares about maximizing profit above all other concerns.
Spoken like a true idiot. Don't let your own opinions color your reply in anyway.

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Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by mldi · 2011-10-26 07:24 · Score: 1

Whether you liked it a lot or didn't, Apple made products that "work". They don't crash, they don't lock up, they don't keep their user puzzled how to use them. They made "computer stuff" usable by common folks.
See? I told you they had a great marketing department.

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If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by mldi · 2011-10-26 09:12 · Score: 1

That statement said nothing about the quality of their products. Yes, marketing is only a factor, but the product is also only a factor. Without good marketing it's just a toy. With good marketing it becomes gold. If Apple didn't market their products they way they do now, I doubt it would have achieved the same cult status it has now, and it especially wouldn't be the same kind of social status symbol they somehow inserted into millions of peoples' brains.

Anything else people have inferred from my statement kind of proves my point.

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If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by DaveGod · 2011-10-26 09:37 · Score: 1

If an economist argues that good customer service is a consequence of pursuing profit, he is talking about macroeconomics.
If an economist argues that profit is a consequence of good customer service, he is talking about microeconomics.
If a manger confuses the two he has neither an understanding of economics nor any commercial sense.
For what it's worth, MBAs are usually obtained (here in UK anyway) by people who do not have business or management backgrounds. It's a second degree taken later in life, intended to assist moving into management. People who were hot shit at whatever specialism they had being given a rudimentary introduction to high-level business academic theory because they're trying to get on the Board. The result is a proportion of them think they're still hot shit at this management thing, or are too embarrassed to admit they're not and so are desperate to prove themselves. Sure you do get great managers with MBA's but most of them were just getting a bit of paper to back up the substantial management experience they already had.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by werepants · 2011-10-26 11:11 · Score: 1

"Shit on a cracker" certainly implies something about product quality. My point is that Apple has produced things that haven't sold well, so clearly their marketing isn't as all-powerful as you suggest it is. They have good marketing, and they often have good products, which combine to produce good sales. You can't survive on marketing alone (not permanently anyway).
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption by mldi · 2011-10-26 13:14 · Score: 1

I also didn't use present tense. So I didn't say they'e selling shit on a cracker, I said they could have.

Geez, people read too much into that. I've never been up-down moderated so much for 1 phrase that was fairly accurate and a compliment to Apple's great marketing department. Goes to show how emotional people get about brands.

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If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.

Nice if you can do it by jpmorgan · 2011-10-25 11:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's very nice if you can run a company and just worry about your products, but unfortunately most senior management can't. The board and the shareholders hold them to stock price and quarterly earnings, and if they don't make the expectations they're likely to be replaced by the board.

Steve Jobs was a bit of an unusual case, because the man had a brand unlike almost any other corporate executive in the United States. Think about how he took most of Apple's engineering staff off of MacBook upgrades and OS X development to create the iPhone. It worked, and created Apple its most profitable product line ever. But what other person, at what other large company, has the political capital to sacrifice development of an existing profitable product line for an unknown?

That's why Apple was so successful under Jobs' tenure: he had the resources of a huge organization, but the political capital amongst employees, the board and the shareholders to make the kinds of decisions that usually only small companies (with small expectations) can manage. It takes technical talent to create great products, but it also takes a management that's willing to let the talent do that. It's unlikely that Apple will be able to continue in the same vein for long, now that Jobs is gone. His successors may be great, but they'll never be Jobs.

Re:Nice if you can do it by Spy+Handler · 2011-10-25 12:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

not to mention, Jobs was only able to take total control because Apple was very close to death.

If Scully and the other bean counters didn't screw up as much as they did - and Apple was still a somewhat decent and profitable company - there's no way Job's would've been invited back, let alone go nuts the way he did.
Re:Nice if you can do it by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 12:13 · Score: 1, Insightful

Sculley saved the company from Jobs. The share price rose after Jobs ouster because some semblance of sane management was introduced. It started failing in the mid-nineties because it had a crap OS which was useless to people in the real world and no plan to replace it with something useful. In fact Apple only joined the 20th Century in having a pre-emptive multi-tasking OS in the 21st Century.
Re:Nice if you can do it by AndrewStephens · 2011-10-25 12:19 · Score: 4, Interesting

What has always surprised me about Jobs is the amount of risk he was willing to take on. People forget what a huge leap it was to ditch everything that came before (including several up-and-coming products) and focus on OSX. The iPhone also represented a huge effort - a radical departure for Apple and radically different from other cell phones, if it hadn't been an immediate success Apple would only be a fraction of what it is today.
History is littered with the wreckage of companies that decided to change direction, diverting resources from existing customers to look for fresh fields. Apple somehow managed to do it several times to great success.
Another thing that strikes me about Apple is how old-fashioned the corporate culture seems to be (from the outside). They do business by figuring out what people want, and then selling it directly to the public with a minimum of fuss at a price that both parties can live with. Contrast this with their competitors in the computer and cell phone markets, who sell pretty much the same devices encumbered with "special offers", "free malware detection (for 30 days)", or annoying contracts, none of which customers actually desire. I can't see why other manufacturers haven't gotten the hint yet.

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sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
Re:Nice if you can do it by khallow · 2011-10-25 12:31 · Score: 2

It's very nice if you can run a company and just worry about your products, but unfortunately most senior management can't. The board and the shareholders hold them to stock price and quarterly earnings, and if they don't make the expectations they're likely to be replaced by the board.
I see no evidence that Apple, a publicly traded company, didn't have the pressures or the expectations that any other publicly traded company has. And for all the political capital that Jobs had when he returned to Apple, he had more when he died.
Re:Nice if you can do it by binarylarry · 2011-10-25 13:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Sculley traded Apple's good reputation for short term profits.
I wouldn't exactly call that saving Apple, it's typical MBA idiocy.

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Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Re:Nice if you can do it by LateArthurDent · 2011-10-25 13:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

Steve Jobs was a bit of an unusual case, because the man had a brand unlike almost any other corporate executive in the United States. Think about how he took most of Apple's engineering staff off of MacBook upgrades and OS X development to create the iPhone. It worked, and created Apple its most profitable product line ever. But what other person, at what other large company, has the political capital to sacrifice development of an existing profitable product line for an unknown?
Jobs did that back when Apple had less resources too. He pretty much completely killed the Apple II team to make the Macintosh team. He just got his best people, and put them to work on what he thought was the future product. Take this story for example. Eventually, the people who remained on the Apple II team were only the engineers he didn't have much confidence on (and by "eventually" I mean before the Macintosh got released, not after the user base for the Mac surpassed the Apple II). Relevant quote:

"No, you're just wasting your time with that! Who cares about the Apple II? The Apple II will be dead in a few years. Your OS will be obsolete before it's finished. The Macintosh is the future of Apple, and you're going to start on it now!".
With that, he walked over to my desk, found the power cord to my Apple II, and gave it a sharp tug, pulling it out of the socket, causing my machine to lose power and the code I was working on to vanish. He unplugged my monitor and put it on top of the computer, and then picked both of them up and started walking away. "Come with me. I'm going to take you to your new desk."
Jobs was an asshole in a lot of ways, but it's undeniable that his driven attitude was responsible for his successes. He didn't play it safe, he put his faith in the next product and went ahead full steam. If it doesn't work out, drop the project without a second thought and move on.
Re:Nice if you can do it by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 13:22 · Score: 1

It started failing in the mid-nineties because it had a crap OS which was useless to people in the real world and no plan to replace it with something useful.
No, they started failing because PCs got cheap and Windows (which was also a crap OS) was Good Enough.
That and the developer feedback loop: more PCs sold -> bigger software market -> more software published -> more PCs sold...
Re:Nice if you can do it by J.+T.+MacLeod · 2011-10-25 13:34 · Score: 2

We can argue about how much Apple needed saving from Jobs, but pushing to replace the crap OS was just the kind of thing that got Steve Jobs ousted from Apple.
Of course, it was the same OS he'd been pushing for that they eventually bought back along with Jobs himself when they acquired NeXT.
Re:Nice if you can do it by catmistake · 2011-10-25 13:40 · Score: 1

It's unlikely that Apple will be able to continue in the same vein for long
If you're talking about the pace of their innovation, I have to agree... but only because... what the heck else can they do now? A television... and then what? But Apple should do fine with a slowed innovation pace, with minor hw/sw updates at the schedule they are accustomed to, for years to come. They have the best hw, the best sw available for the desktop, the best integration of products... they can focus on increasing the install base... but their success is going to slide out for at least a decade before they need to even begin to worry.

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The Admin and the Engineer
Re:Nice if you can do it by bloodhawk · 2011-10-25 13:55 · Score: 1

Apple were borderline going out of business, In those situations short term profits are far more important as you have to still be alive to collect long term profits.
Re:Nice if you can do it by catmistake · 2011-10-25 13:57 · Score: 1

in the mid-nineties because it had a crap OS
Well, I made a lot of money using that crap OS in the mid-nineties. It was the worst OS available for things like desktop publishing, graphic design, photo manipulation, and professional audio tracking... except for all the others.
Granted, by the late 90's the unprotected memory was getting to be a bother, and Apple knew it needed a refresh, needed a modern OS. BeOS was an option... but so was OPENSTEP. Unfortunately for BeOS, they didn't have Steve Jobs.
But I'm curious what OS in the 90's you believe wasn't crap. Windows NT 4 served a purpose, but it couldn't do the things MacOS could do, certainly couldn't replace it, and wasn't an OS for the masses... not until they slapped a poor copy of the new Mac OS X interface across it (bubbly colors!), and called it "XP." And ironically, considering Windows 7 is really Windows NT 6.5, Microsoft is now in the position Apple was in the 90's, regarding their OS, it is quite long in the tooth... all the problems NT had in the 90's they are still dealing with today. How many times can they repaint an interface and re-release it?

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The Admin and the Engineer
Re:Nice if you can do it by Chuck+Chunder · 2011-10-25 13:58 · Score: 1

The iPhone also represented a huge effort - a radical departure for Apple and radically different from other cell phones, if it hadn't been an immediate success Apple would only be a fraction of what it is today.
The interesting thing to my mind is not so much the products but the fact they involved making disruptive changes in industries that are notoriously resistant to change. I'm not suggesting that the iPod and iPhone aren't good in themselves but they aren't whole without the music industry getting behind iTunes or mobile carriers getting behind the iPhone even while some of it's features may be against their (perceived or real) interests. For example I was gobsmacked when and update to iOS5 meant that messages will now be automatically sent for free over the network rather than SMS where possible.

It isn't just Apple's ability to persuade consumers that is great, it's also their ability to persuade other businesses.

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Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Re:Nice if you can do it by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 14:44 · Score: 2

In fact Apple only joined the 20th Century in having a pre-emptive multi-tasking OS in the 21st Century.
It's interesting that now, with Grand Central Dispatch, they've got the best pre-emptive multi-tasking in the business on OSX.
And on iOS, they've solved the classic smartphone problem of third party background processes killing battery life.
Re:Nice if you can do it by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 14:48 · Score: 1

Not in 1985 when Steve was pushed out they weren't.
Re:Nice if you can do it by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 14:55 · Score: 4, Funny

With that, he walked over to my desk, found the power cord to my Apple II, and gave it a sharp tug, pulling it out of the socket, causing my machine to lose power and the code I was working on to vanish. He unplugged my monitor and put it on top of the computer, and then picked both of them up and started walking away. "Come with me. I'm going to take you to your new desk."
Now I understand why OSX has got so good at not losing unsaved user data when unexpected power loses happen. ;-)
Re:Nice if you can do it by ceoyoyo · 2011-10-25 15:50 · Score: 1

Betting big to enter a well established market is risky. The iPod, iPhone and, to a lesser extent the iPad, were huge risks and exactly the sort of "distracting us from our core mission" that most MBAs would tell you is a bad thing.
Re:Nice if you can do it by Moofie · 2011-10-25 15:57 · Score: 1

Cool story, bro.

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:Nice if you can do it by Moofie · 2011-10-25 15:59 · Score: 1

If you knew the answer to that, maybe you'd be running the company. They may keep doing what they're doing (fixing human-machine interfaces) but that's not to say they'll never do a new product.
Me? I want them to fix the hideous rat's nest behind my stereo.

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:Nice if you can do it by Broolucks · 2011-10-25 16:00 · Score: 1

There are many things they could do, not necessarily what's immediately obvious. After all, the iPod kind of came out of the blue.
They could dabble in the home console market, though a television would do just that. In a nod to Futurama, they could make an actual EyePhone: electronic glasses for augmented reality (though that's probably years from being feasible). They could start making small electric cars. They could go insane and make "Apple condos" with Siri-controlled locks and appliances. Maybe robotic stuff, though I'm not sure what could be done in the near future that's interesting for the masses.
Re:Nice if you can do it by Nyder · 2011-10-25 16:13 · Score: 1, Insightful

What has always surprised me about Jobs is the amount of risk he was willing to take on. People forget what a huge leap it was to ditch everything that came before (including several up-and-coming products) and focus on OSX. The iPhone also represented a huge effort - a radical departure for Apple and radically different from other cell phones, if it hadn't been an immediate success Apple would only be a fraction of what it is today.
History is littered with the wreckage of companies that decided to change direction, diverting resources from existing customers to look for fresh fields. Apple somehow managed to do it several times to great success.
Another thing that strikes me about Apple is how old-fashioned the corporate culture seems to be (from the outside). They do business by figuring out what people want, and then selling it directly to the public with a minimum of fuss at a price that both parties can live with. Contrast this with their competitors in the computer and cell phone markets, who sell pretty much the same devices encumbered with "special offers", "free malware detection (for 30 days)", or annoying contracts, none of which customers actually desire. I can't see why other manufacturers haven't gotten the hint yet.
Um, no, it's not a surprise.
When your company is circling the drain, and all your previous products don't cut it, then yes, you bet everything on something new, because if you don't, your out of the race anyways. This is what jobs did with OSX, and led to his other stuff.
You people talk Jobs up like he was the messiah or something, but he was just a businessman that truely, got lucky. He got lucky by being able to take a company that was dead, give it a new purpose, and then capitalize on it. Now he's dead. Guess that's life for ya.
And if i'm wrong, and Jobs wasn't lucky, then apple will continue it's domiance in everything it puts out. Which in a small amount of time, we will know for sure.

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Be seeing you...
Re:Nice if you can do it by martin-boundary · 2011-10-25 16:15 · Score: 1

That's quite easy to do if the company is private. A privately held company can focus on delivering a vision instead of looking only at the bottom line. Of course, making radical changes like Jobs did is high risk. He was very lucky to actually succeed.
Re:Nice if you can do it by tlhIngan · 2011-10-25 17:03 · Score: 1

Unfortunately for BeOS, they didn't have Steve Jobs.

Be had Gassee, a former Apple exec. The big problem though, was that Be felt Apple needed them far more than Apple felt they needed Be. As a result, Be refused to sell itself for less than $200M, while Apple refused to pay more than $125M for it.
Steve Jobs also mentioned that BeOS had a few limitations (lack of printing), and did a sell job to get NeXT sold for $429M.
If it wasn't for Gassee's greed, Apple might've gone with BeOS instead of NeXTStep. In the end, Be Inc. was acquired by Palm for $11M.
Re:Nice if you can do it by AndrewStephens · 2011-10-25 17:07 · Score: 2

When your company is circling the drain, and all your previous products don't cut it, then yes, you bet everything on something new, because if you don't, your out of the race anyways. This is what jobs did with OSX, and led to his other stuff.
MacOS was pretty crusty at that point, and Apple hadn't had a breakout product for years but the company was far from dead when Jobs came back. Apple still had a lot of money in the bank - any other company would have limped along for years and then sold itself to one of the giants. Jobs could have done that and been considered a success, but he chose not to.
The iPhone was the real turning point. A lot of people thought that there was no way that Apple could worm its way into the entrenched cell phone market, Apple did so by doing a complete endrun around the traditional telco channels. It could have easily gone sour.

You people talk Jobs up like he was the messiah or something, but he was just a businessman that truely, got lucky
Maybe, but he got lucky several times in a row. Perhaps he was just a good businessman, but there don't seem to be too many of them around.

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sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
Re:Nice if you can do it by dabadab · 2011-10-25 19:39 · Score: 1

They do business by figuring out what people want, and then selling it directly to the public with a minimum of fuss at a price that both parties can live with. Contrast this with their competitors in the computer and cell phone markets, who sell pretty much the same devices encumbered with "special offers", "free malware detection (for 30 days)", or annoying contracts, none of which customers actually desire.
Huh?... For a long time you could buy the iPhone only tied to special phone plan contracts while at the same time you could walk into a GSM shop and buy any other phone with no strings attached.

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Real life is overrated.
Re:Nice if you can do it by catmistake · 2011-10-25 23:41 · Score: 1

nice history lesson... its all coming back... chick bands... and lo fi... :)

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The Admin and the Engineer
Re:Nice if you can do it by AmiMoJo · 2011-10-26 00:01 · Score: 1

And on iOS, they've solved the classic smartphone problem of third party background processes killing battery life.
I don't call simply not allowing useful features a "solution". Android solved the problem by firstly giving coders the tools they need to minimise power consumption and secondly creating a handy graph of how much battery life each app is using so that the user can make an informed choice (and rate battery hogs with 1 star).

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Nice if you can do it by Millennium · 2011-10-26 01:11 · Score: 1

At the time of Jobs' ouster, there was a lot that the man still had to learn about running a business. Clearly he learned it in the intervening time before his return, but that doesn't change that he really wasn't ready for that role at the time Sculley came along.
Re:Nice if you can do it by srussell · 2011-10-26 01:20 · Score: 1
The iPhone also represented a huge effort ... radically different from other cell phones
Are you suggesting that there weren't full-screen, touch-sensitive slate phones prior to the iPhone? You can go back as far as 2000 (five years before Apple started designing the iPhone, and seven years before it was first sold) to the Ericsson R380; the Sony/Ericsson P800 was even closer -- if you removed the clip-on keyboard, it was the same form factor as the iPhone, with a touch screen and full PDA functions. So how, exactly, was the iPhone "radically different" from other cell phones?
Recently, I've come to the conclusion that products are irrelevant; popularity is all in branding and marketing. Us developers (of hardware and software) like to kid ourselves into thinking that we're the ones who do the "real work," but really, it's the sales and marketing people who are the backbone. Apple didn't "invent" the smartphone, any more than they invented the MP3 player (they were three years late on that), or the laptop, or the slate PC (again, late by several years), or any of the other stuff they've been successful with in the past ten years.. They've just been able to corner the "sexy" market, through good advertising and branding. I think that since Jobs returned to the company, they also payed more attention to quality and product polish, and were willing to sacrifice volume in the increased costs that often incurred. But I really think what makes a successful product is the cult of personality.
Other examples:
- Microsoft. There's almost always been a better competing product to whatever Microsoft is selling, but Microsoft managed to capture the Business sector by its early and intimate association with IBM. Even OS/2, an arguably better OS, couldn't wrestle that crown away, and that's because they didn't have Bill Gates, not because it was a technically inferior product.
- Linux. Minix predates Linux, and had the potential to be as successful as Linux, and can be argued to have a better architecture, but Tanenbaum had different priorities and isn't, I dare suggest, the personality that Linus is. Or, if you don't like microkernels, BSD. Same thing: they don't lack technology, they lack Linus.
- Java. There are a lot of at least equivalent languages out there, even if you restrict yourself to the OO space, but none of them had Sun behind it, pushing Java so aggressively. I'm not going to give McNeally or Gosling credit for that; I don't think there was a personality behind that one, just aggressive and persistent marketing.
Re:Nice if you can do it by BasilBrush · 2011-10-26 01:31 · Score: 1

I don't call simply not allowing useful features a "solution".

Theres more to it than that. Apps can still have stuff happen when they are in the background. Realising that most of what applications on other platforms do themselves in the background could be provided by a limited number of built in system services was the innovation.

Android solved the problem by firstly giving coders the tools they need to minimise power consumption and secondly creating a handy graph of how much battery life each app is using so that the user can make an informed choice (and rate battery hogs with 1 star).
Thats not solving the problem, it's passing the buck. Passing it to third party developers, who don't even have to get their apps through any kind of vetting before being sold is futile. And passing it on to the user to play policeman with a task manager and graphs is unforgivable.
Apple got it right.
Re:Nice if you can do it by jalefkowit · 2011-10-26 02:16 · Score: 1

It's kind of ironic really. Thirty years ago Sculley priced the Mac high, arguing that profit margins were more important than market share, and today is the Apple fan's favorite whipping boy. Ten years ago Jobs priced the iPhone high, arguing that profit margins were more important than market share, and today is the Apple fan's favorite business genius.

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Read my blog.
Re:Nice if you can do it by jalefkowit · 2011-10-26 02:37 · Score: 2

People forget what a huge leap it was to ditch everything that came before (including several up-and-coming products) and focus on OSX.
There are so many things wrong in this sentence.
First, choosing to focus on OS X wasn't a risk for Jobs. OS X was the entire reason Apple brought back Jobs in the first place. OS X didn't start out as an Apple product, it started out as NeXTSTEP, the operating system built by NeXT (the company Jobs founded after getting ousted from Apple) for their workstation line. Apple bought NeXT in 1996 specifically to get NeXTSTEP to use as the foundation for its next-generation Mac OS. The whole point of the acquisition was to get NeXTSTEP productized into a new Mac OS.
Second, there weren't any "up-and-coming products" Apple killed to make room for OS X. The NeXT acquisition came about because of the utter failure of a decade's worth of Apple attempts to reinvent the Mac OS. Taligent and Copland were both attempts by Apple to invent the next-generation Mac OS on their own; both ended up legendary disasters. Apple bought NeXT specifically because they knew building a modern OS was a task that they couldn't accomplish. Any attempts they had lying around were long discredited by the time Jobs returned.
Third, Apple didn't burn their boats and ditch the legacy Mac OS overnight. The NeXT acquisition was in 1996; the first version of OS X, OS X Server 1.0, didn't come out until 1999, and the first version actually marketed to consumers (OS X 10.0) didn't hit shelves until 2001. All during OS X's gestation period Apple continued to market and refine the classic Mac OS -- it actually went through two major version releases, OS 8 and OS 9, while OS X was being developed -- and they made sure to ship OS X with a "classic" abstraction layer so that it could run legacy Mac OS applications.

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Read my blog.
Re:Nice if you can do it by s73v3r · 2011-10-26 06:21 · Score: 1

Nope. You can cry "Marketing!" all you want, but nothing you said explains why they were able to get those fans in the first place. They got them by having solid, well engineered products that did what their customers wanted. And they continued to keep them by having solid, well engineered products that did what their customers wanted. They might not do everything everybody wants right away, but that means they aren't wasting resources half-assedly implementing features that only a handful of people want.
Re:Nice if you can do it by Rich0 · 2011-10-26 06:53 · Score: 1

Uh, nobody vets apps before they can be sold, well, except for console makers and Apple.
Frankly I would like it if Android took a little more control away from the app developers. Just because I want to run some app doesn't mean that I want it to be able to wake up the phone while it is in my pocket to do whatever it thinks is important. Android forces you to either abandon lousy apps or live with them. I'd prefer that it just contain them with reasonable defaults, and give the user the option to unshackle or extra-shackle them.
Re:Nice if you can do it by syousef · 2011-10-26 09:04 · Score: 1

Nope. You can cry "Marketing!" all you want, but nothing you said explains why they were able to get those fans in the first place. They got them by having solid, well engineered products that did what their customers wanted. And they continued to keep them by having solid, well engineered products that did what their customers wanted. They might not do everything everybody wants right away, but that means they aren't wasting resources half-assedly implementing features that only a handful of people want.
BULLSHIT. They got them by engineering shiny cool looking gadgets with no substance. My experience with CrApple gear has been nothing but bad. They are flimsy products that break easily and only allow you to do things "the Apple way" and if you don't agree you're ridiculed or ignored. That "handful of people" just made Android the leading phone OS despite all it's flaws. Android isn't great but it's superior to iTurd. And how many resources were wasted locking the iPhone down only to have it jailbroken repeatedly?

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These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Re:Nice if you can do it by wamatt · 2011-10-26 09:34 · Score: 1

Maybe, but he got lucky several times in a row.

This is one of the most naive comments I've ever seen on Slashdot. Do not let your own biases or insecurities stand in the way of acknowledging Job's visionary product brilliance was by far and large the most significant variable.
Re:Nice if you can do it by drinkypoo · 2011-10-26 16:18 · Score: 1

Totally awesome citation, bro. Not only that, but since the NeXT thing he did (see what I did there?) was go build that computer with no more processor than the Mac had, it's utterly plausible, too.
At least GassÃ©e is consistent; BeOS had POSIX compatibility, but it sure wasn't UNIX. Having owned a BeBox and run BeOS on x86, and having spent quite a bit of time sitting at a Dual G5 doing posters and flyers, I far prefer GassÃ©e's way today; but I also have a little bit of experience with an '040 NeXT slab, which provided remarkably good performance for what it was. I'd love to have one of those machines here today just to show off how good the precursor to OSX was then. Unfortunately, I'm a bit underwhelmed with it given how very much faster the machines it's running on today are than the NeXT machines of yesteryear, which were clearly a sort of Big Mac anyway, down to 68k, and ADB for input, and probably other similarities I'm not aware of.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Nice if you can do it by s73v3r · 2011-10-28 05:05 · Score: 1

No, you're just plain wrong. If what you said had any lick of truth to it, they wouldn't be in the position they are today.

Re:How long... by Dunbal · 2011-10-25 11:56 · Score: 5, Funny

If Christianity is any metric to measure this by, we're going to be hearing about Steve Jobs for at least the next 2100 years...

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Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.

Legacy by EraseEraseMe · 2011-10-25 11:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

What will determine Jobs' perceived success going forward is if Apple continues to innovate, or that it falls apart without his guidance.

A great leader creates success around them. Does Apple in 10 years look the same or worse than it does now? If worse, why? Cook is a capable performer, but was Jobs the lynchpin that kept things moving or did he create his 'legacy' in a stable enough fashion that Apple continues as if he never left.

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"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)

Re:Legacy by Russ1642 · 2011-10-25 12:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

The state of Apple in 10 years will be determined by many things, and imagining how things would have gone if Steve Jobs had survived is simply an exercise in religion. What would Steve do? What would Jesus do? How about looking at the real world instead.
Re:Legacy by shadowrat · 2011-10-25 16:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

Jobs will be revered no matter what happens to Apple. I don't think that anyone can deny apple hasn't been remarkably successful during the era of Jobs. If Apple continues to grow and succeed, Everyone will praise the vision of Jobs. If Apple falters, everyone will point out that Jobs was such a genius visionary and how could any company survive without him?
Re:Legacy by mrxak · 2011-10-25 18:37 · Score: 1

One thing Steve Jobs said to Tim Cook while he was in his final week, was that he didn't want Apple to keep asking itself what Steve Jobs would do, and just figure things out for themselves.

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-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You

Apple solved the problem by moving to design by Hentes · 2011-10-25 12:01 · Score: 4, Informative

Apple managed to turn profits by outsourceing the actual production so they could focus on design.

Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 12:17 · Score: 2, Informative

Made in China. Designed by Apple in California.
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by SpiralSpirit · 2011-10-25 12:21 · Score: 2

Apple outsourced production because assembling electronics in a 3rd world country costs you bubkes. Its funny that you think outsourcing is the cause of their success. They're good at polishing products, and their marketing machine has built a powerful brand image. Thats why they're successful.
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by drb226 · 2011-10-25 12:42 · Score: 1

Wrong meme; I believe you meant to say "correlation != causation". GP was clearly referring to Foxconn, etc.
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by Hentes · 2011-10-25 12:55 · Score: 1

I didn't claim they don't do this. The article is wrong thinking that it was a unique genius of Steve Jobs.
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by AK+Marc · 2011-10-25 13:44 · Score: 1

I didn't claim they don't do this.

He didn't claim you didn't claim they do this.

The article is wrong thinking that it was a unique genius of Steve Jobs.

You presented it as your own idea, and as such, it was an irrelevant one, as every other company does the same. If you wanted to critique the article, then you should have done so, rather than expressing it as a general opinion unrelated to the topic at hand (And a wrong one at that).

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 15:17 · Score: 1

Apple's design isn't about polish. It's about how things work. Sure they're polished too, but that's the tip of the iceberg. You don't get that, and Apple's successes will continue to be a surprise to you.
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by Moofie · 2011-10-25 16:11 · Score: 1

So why aren't all the companies that do this as profitable as Apple?

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by NateTech · 2011-10-25 17:35 · Score: 1

There's a giant Foxconn logo inside my brand new HP server. Not sure that was anything special to Apple. Everyone uses them.

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+++OK ATH
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by mrxak · 2011-10-25 18:56 · Score: 1

It will continue to surprise Apple's competitors, as well. Whenever they see Apple have success, they think it is just the polish, try to copy that polish, and their products just aren't that successful. Steve Jobs was fond of pointing out in interviews that his competitors just didn't get it.

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-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design by jandrese · 2011-10-26 08:48 · Score: 1

How many of their competitors do any manufacturing themselves anymore? Certainly nobody in the computer industry or cell phone industry.

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I read the internet for the articles.

Ye Gawds! by DontBlameCanada · 2011-10-25 12:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think all of us in the tech industry know of or have experienced decisions which make sense only when viewed from the light of "near term profit is the most important."

You know:
- Downsizing skilled engineering teams to cut costs in order to hit profit numbers
- Terminating new products before they've been completed, because some number cruncher couldn't foresee profitability
- Failure to endorse refactoring of software modules engineering states are fragile/non-maintainable because it requires dedication of resources to something that doesn't drive current revenues
- The list goes on

Here we have evidence, finally, that profit at all costs isn't how you run a company.

Re:Ye Gawds! by David_Hart · 2011-10-25 12:25 · Score: 1

I just got my HP touchpad from the firesale that HP held. In my opinion, it is the one tablet that could have challenged the iPad. It just needed to be sold at or near cost to gain a presence. WebOS, after the latest update, is a very capable OS. But HP hired a software guy for a hardware company. And so, they aborted a product that could have had a lot of success.
Not only does a company have to have management who is willing to take chances, it also needs the right management to continue to be innovative. The slow destruction of HP is proof of that.
Re:Ye Gawds! by Ethanol-fueled · 2011-10-25 12:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

Especially in this economy. My employer produces the best products in its niche, and neglected its repair/bug fixing apparatus because it could just sell or offer the customer a still-costy exchange for latest model. Now all of the customers not buying or exchanging but are sending in their existing shit to be fixed, and nobody wants to give the repair apparatus the funding it needs because there are too many middle-management bonuses at stake. Internal parasitism runs rampant in corporations, hand-in-hand with short-term profits.

Also notice that I said, "best products in its niche." That means that our customers have too much invested in our products to launch any credible threat to use our competitors' gadgets. They're stuck. You, our customer, paid tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for our products, and we are fixing them with hairpins, duct tape, and bubblegum. We have no engineering support because all of our engineers are either doing jack shit waiting to retire, jumping ship, or are fixing the bugs in our newest product line which is years late and still doesn't work.

And we're fine with that, because at this point all we care about are our paychecks. We are the ninety-nine percent.
Re:Ye Gawds! by SpiralSpirit · 2011-10-25 12:46 · Score: 1

I got a touchpad from the firesale too. Its a good product @ $150 for 32gb, but it wasn't and still isn't worth $500. The problem is that: a) The OS is great (really, I really enjoy webos) but there aren't enough apps and the web browser sucks. b) Competing @ apple's price point is ridiculous. If I wanted a top notch tablet @ that price I'd buy an ipad. What I want is something thats good (not necessarily ipad good), but whose price more closely reflects its utility. So it's not really as good as an ipad, and was pretty much just as expensive. Why would I choose it over the ipad if it wasn't being sold for significantly less money?
Re:Ye Gawds! by Asic+Eng · 2011-10-25 20:17 · Score: 1

I always like the ban on buying office supplies near the end of the fiscal year. Brilliant idea that. The worst thing is that they don't understand that it doesn't even work short term. Sure you can move costs from one quarter into the next while harming future profit, but you can only do that one single time. After that your employees catch on, and order office supplies early - before they need them so that there is a buffer.
If you dropped the ban now, nothing at all would happen - all your employees have already bought what they need ahead of time. It's just a testament to corporate stupidity by now.
Re:Ye Gawds! by DaVince21 · 2011-10-26 07:09 · Score: 1

Finally? It's much more common practice in Europe...

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I am not devoid of humor.

Sad commentary on the state of US companies by antifoidulus · 2011-10-25 12:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think this speaks more to how pathetic the leadership of a lot of US companies have become more than it does on Jobs. Love Jobs or hate him, one thing that you cannot deny is that he was one of the few US CEOs that actually gave a shit about what his company makes and sells. Compare Jobs to people like Fiorna or Bob Nardelli whose sole purpose was to get inside a company, didn't' even matter which industry it was, and play games with numbers while gutting the company and enriching themselves in the process. Fiorna didn't give 2 shits about servers, or calculators, or Unix etc. To her they were all just "product", an annoyance that she had to tolerate on her way to stealing from the HP shareholders, employees, and customers.

Now compare that to Jobs, people talk about the reality distortion field, but the only way Jobs could actually create that field was if he actually cared about what he was talking about. He gave such good presentations because in a lot of ways he was like a kid who had just been given a neat toy and was showing it off at show and tell, there was genuine passion there. If companies want to emulate Apple's success the first thing they have to do is hire executives that actually are genuinely interested in what they make and sell.

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Monstar L

Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by SpiralSpirit · 2011-10-25 12:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

Indeed. Its funny when you see the difference between an engineer who became upper management, vs an MBA brought in from the pool of MBAs ready to leech off any company that will hire them. Its sadly similar in most marketing and human resources departments as well.
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by AK+Marc · 2011-10-25 13:51 · Score: 1

I've taken engineering math and MBA math. Neither was "easier" than the other. Parsing through a company's financials is harder to me than integrals or differential equations. Also, when doing so on public books, it's no longer math. It's divination, as the books are more cooked than last night's dinner.

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2011-10-25 14:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

Also, when doing so on public books, it's no longer math. It's divination, as the books are more cooked than last night's dinner.
Which is why GPP was correct when he said engineering math (or, you know, just math math) is more rigorous than MBA math. In real math, you start with axioms and theorems, and work your way to the conclusion. In business "math," you start with the conclusion, and then adjust the starting conditions to make the conclusion work. This may be difficult, and a lot of work, but it's not rigorous mathematics by any stretch of the imagination.
Real math has given us pretty much every technological advance that makes the modern world a better place to live than it was a couple of hundred years ago. Business "math" is the tool of people who are trying to drag the world back a couple of hundred years more, to the days of a small noble class living on the backs of a mass of starving peasants. It's not hard to figure out which one is more useful.

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The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by Mr.+Underbridge · 2011-10-25 14:10 · Score: 2

I think this speaks more to how pathetic the leadership of a lot of US companies have become more than it does on Jobs.
Blame the large institutional shareholders who demand quarter-to-quarter accountability, as well as the litigious society that suffers preposterous shareholder lawsuits for having the audacity to manage with an eye beyond this quarter.
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by AK+Marc · 2011-10-25 14:32 · Score: 1

Math hasn't given us anything. Math is a language. It's help us describe things, but it hasn't made the world better. You might as well argue that English or German made the world better because important discoveries were made in those languages, while Arabic drags us back to feudal days.

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by paiute · 2011-10-25 14:46 · Score: 2

Also, when doing so on public books, it's no longer math. It's divination, as the books are more cooked than last night's dinner.
Which is why GPP was correct when he said engineering math (or, you know, just math math) is more rigorous than MBA math. In real math, you start with axioms and theorems, and work your way to the conclusion. In business "math," you start with the conclusion, and then adjust the starting conditions to make the conclusion work. This may be difficult, and a lot of work, but it's not rigorous mathematics by any stretch of the imagination.
Real math has given us pretty much every technological advance that makes the modern world a better place to live than it was a couple of hundred years ago. Business "math" is the tool of people who are trying to drag the world back a couple of hundred years more, to the days of a small noble class living on the backs of a mass of starving peasants. It's not hard to figure out which one is more useful.
“The success of mathematical physics led the social scientist to be jealous of its power without quite understanding the intellectual attitudes that had contributed to this power. The use of mathematical formulae had accompanied the development of the natural sciences and become the mode in the social sciences. Just as primitive peoples adopt the Western modes of denationalized clothing and of parliamentarism out of a vague feeling that these magic rites and vestments will at once put them abreast of modern culture and technique, so the economists have developed the habit of dressing up their rather imprecise ideas in the language of the infinitesimal calculus.” -- Norbert Wiener

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Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by Fozzyuw · 2011-10-25 15:13 · Score: 2

Side note, Carla Fiorna and Bob Nardelli where also not engineers. Lets not forget, Steve Jobs might have been a CEO but he was also an engineer first. Those others where business majors. That could help explain things. Of course, there was Woz too.

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"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by NateTech · 2011-10-25 17:40 · Score: 1

Great point. He was either proud of what his company made, or he killed it. (The leaked information about the berating of the MobileMe team also shows that he knew when his engineering staff was proud of something they shouldn't have been because it wasn't really all that great.)

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+++OK ATH
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by hitmark · 2011-10-25 18:38 · Score: 1

Well Jobs was more marketing savant then engineer. But he seemed to have a mental goal about tech that may be missing in most other tech CEOs right now.
Btw, this is a pattern as old as capitalism. Consider a family owned company that goes big. The old man will likely take care of the employees because he may have been doing part of what they do when the company started. But once the second or third generation takes over, shit hits the fan.

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Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by hitmark · 2011-10-25 18:42 · Score: 1

http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheMayfairSet
part 3 have some interesting comments on that.

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comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by mvdwege · 2011-10-25 19:22 · Score: 2

Excuse me? Rewriting history much? Jobs was not an engineer. Except for a short interlude as 'technician', he always was a designer and salesman. But his gift for self-promotion, the modesty of his engineer partners (especially that other Steve), and his Legion of Faithful obviously managed to hide that fact and turned Jobs into the God-Engineer.
"Of course there was Woz too". Fah. Fanboys.

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Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by svick · 2011-10-25 19:24 · Score: 1

Math isn't just a language. We use some language to express the ideas in math (and each field uses its own dialect). But the language itself isn't the important part, the ideas are.
You don't need the + symbol or the integral symbol to derive the formula for the area of an ellipse. But you do need the concepts of addition and integration.
Going with your natural languages theme, think about something like Romeo and Juliet. It's written in English, but that's not the reason why it is so well accepted across continents and centuries. The story is.
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by njahnke · 2011-10-25 19:36 · Score: 1

you're swedish, aren't you?
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by Xest · 2011-10-25 20:27 · Score: 1

It's not just Jobs, what you say sums up why Gates, Page, Brin, Zuckerberg also managed to build such massively succesful companies.
It's the difference between having a business person at the top, and a person who actually cares about the product.
Business people do wonders in terms of short term profit gains by outsourcing, by laying people off and so forth, but are meaningless in the long term because they've gone by the time the long term negative effects hit such as having customers ticked off and leaving you because of your dire outsourced support, or your inability to produce decent new products because you ditched all your highly skilled long term staff for a cheaper army of outsourced devs or inexperienced fresh graduates.
It's not that Steve had some special quality in this respect, just that Apple as a company made the right decision as to what kind of leader you need to make such a company succede - a leader who is actually genuinely interested and enthusiastic about the product you sell and the future of the industry you are in.
This is also why Google had to drop Schmidt as the CEO and hand the reigns back to Larry and Sergei, Schmidt has in the last decade or so just because too much of a business person, and not enough of a technologist, and it was dragging Google down and holding them back.
Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by mapkinase · 2011-10-26 00:02 · Score: 1

It's not even about the profit anymore, it's about value on Wall Street.

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Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by AK+Marc · 2011-10-26 08:01 · Score: 1

You don't need the + symbol or the integral symbol to derive the formula for the area of an ellipse. But you do need the concepts of addition and integration.
The concepts of addition and integration are like the concepts of red and smell when used to describe the rose, and you are elevating the descriptive language above the items they describe. We'd have ellipses without math. Math didn't create them, just describe them more exactly. Math didn't "discover" the ellipse. Math is irrelevant to the existence of ellipses.

Now, I'm not arguing that math is useless, just that it's a programming language that didn't "discover" anything on its own. Math is necessary for calculations, and physics is based in calculations, so without math, we'd not have physics. But then, without English, we'd not have Shakespeare. Sure the story would still be there, just like orbits would still remain elliptical, but describing them accurately is impossible without a language to do so.

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Re:Sad commentary on the state of US companies by jwhitener · 2011-10-27 09:58 · Score: 1

I think this speaks more to how pathetic the leadership of a lot of US companies have become more than it does on Jobs
They are leading quite well right now. As an average, corporate profits are at record highs. Despite having really no new innovations or services.
Over the last 30 years, various regulation changes and some de-regulation occurred that allowed corporations to both become more entangled in politics (which meant legislation became more and more in favor of profit for those corporations), as well as shelter more and more of their money (often tax free). Corporate CEO's began to make larger and larger salaries, in place of stocks and options, which changed the CEO's strategy from long term growth of his stocks into short term performance.
Our historically low taxes and large number of loopholes alone is a major factor. Take the lowering of the capital gains tax from 30% to 15%. Now it makes more sense to invest your money in things that will be taxed at 15% rather than at 30%. The low taxes and loopholes in general also mean that now is the time to store that profit. When taxes are higher, large businesses tend to invest profit back into the business, because that is a tax deductable.

Re:Jobs must have went by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 12:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

It drove more than their share price.

If you're arguing that he made bad business decisions, I think you need to rework your argument.

Seems to me... by king+neckbeard · 2011-10-25 12:13 · Score: 1

Seems to me this pretty much boils down to not caring about profit IN THIS QUARTER, but rather, a few years down the line. Also, the issue of cannibalization seems to have been largely sidestepped. The iPod wasn't a threat to Mac sales. The iPhone was not a threat to Mac sales, but was a bit of a threat to iPod sales, but the iPhone could effectively serve as a replacement (and without telephony, it was deemed the iPod touch). The serious threat of cannibalization came from the iPad, but I'm fairly sure by that point, the iPhone was the breadwinner, so it would be far less of a concern than going straight from Mac to iPad.

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Re:Seems to me... by SpiralSpirit · 2011-10-25 12:58 · Score: 1

HP is still screwing this up. They've tied Whitman's 'bonus' (ie her salary, since her official salary is only a dollar) to the stock price. She only gets paid if the stock price goes up 120%. Since stock price is market driven, and the market runs on fear, uncertainty, and the predictions of thousands of deranged analysts, it seems unlikely that she'd be motivated to look at long term company health when her income doesn't depend on that.
Re:Seems to me... by NateTech · 2011-10-25 17:42 · Score: 1

Nailed it. People care about what they're incentivized to care about.
Change the incentives, change the behavior.
Most CEOs are compensated with stock options.

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+++OK ATH
Re:Seems to me... by PhrstBrn · 2011-10-25 18:33 · Score: 1

Yes and no. The iPod Touch was the replacement for the iPod, and the iPhone was an iPod Touch with GSM telephony. While it's true people who buy an iPhone probably won't buy the iPod Touch since the iPhone is just a better iPod Touch, people who want just an iPod can get one. Since the iPhone costs more more money than the iPod Touch does, they increased their profits by figuring out a way to get away with selling even more expensive iPods than they were before.
Since the iPod and the iPhone are the same platform, the iPhone is no threat to the existence of the iPod. Instead of competing with each other, they complement each other.

Re:Jobs must have went by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 12:22 · Score: 1

The "low rent training program" you're describing was actually a book - which is what the article was about had you bothered to read the first sentence.

Re:Jobs' Legacy Is Shit - Nothing Can Change That by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2011-10-25 12:24 · Score: 1, Troll

The iPad, iPhone, and Macbooks weren't really successful? +1? Really??

And you lot wonder where noisy fanboys come from.

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Re:How long... by NeutronCowboy · 2011-10-25 12:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ah, the classic "They make money - they suck!", or the equally entertaining "They used to be good before everyone knew about them."

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Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.

Really? by pookemon · 2011-10-25 12:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

If Apple are focussed on their Products rather than their Profit - why are they suing Samsung to protect their profit? Samsung aren't making iPads - so they aren't suing to protect their product... People (Fanboi's) will still buy iPads regardless of whether or not the Galaxy is available...

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Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 14:38 · Score: 1

Arguably, they aren't suing to protect their profit. They are suing to prevent people from copying their designs -- designs they spent billions developing. Sure, in the end it's all about money, but in this case I think it starts with design. I think if there was a guarantee Apple's profits would _not_ rise if they won the lawsuit, they would still sue because having non-iphone devices that look like the iphone dilutes the worth of the Apple brand.
Re:Really? by hitmark · 2011-10-25 18:49 · Score: 1

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/10/jobs-i-will-spend-my-last-breath-fighting-android-a-stolen-product.ars

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Re:Really? by bonch · 2011-10-25 18:56 · Score: 2, Informative

They're suing to protect their product, because companies like Samsung are clearly ripping them off, and it's obvious to anyone who isn't a raving Apple hater.
Hell, Samsung sells a knock-off MacBook Pro running Windows that has a mock Apple logo in the center of the screen to futher intentionally confuse consumers. They're even outright stealing Apple icons and using them in their store backdrops.
For some reason, Slashdot has completely ignored all these obvious instances of blatant copying and instead obsessed over the fact that Apple is "abusing the patent system," because patent system articles get a ton of page hits around here. But the fact is that Apple really is getting ripped off and is suing to protect its design work.

Re:Copy it by jonwil · 2011-10-25 12:27 · Score: 2, Informative

And if someone does the same to you in reverse, tie em up in the courts for so long that their product is obsolete before it reaches the hands of consumers.

Re:How long... by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2011-10-25 12:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

Uh, no, RMFP, it's actually the "you're part of the problem you're whining about" argument. Slashdot attracts readers to the comments section where they serve ads. If you post about how you hate Apple, you're making money for Slashdot and encouraging them to keep running Apple stories.

But, hey, according to somebody with a mod-point, I shouldn't be pointing this out. Well, if I'm some crazy person, fine. You're welcome to go to apple.slashdot.org and peek at all the recent stories and how many comments they've gotten. After three or for stores with 500+ comments it really is hard to say that people who post on Slashdot don't want Apple stories posted.

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"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

So, what he did.... by WindBourne · 2011-10-25 12:40 · Score: 1

was to return what America used to do and be before MBA's took over.

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Prior art. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 12:41 · Score: 1

Ford understood it waaaay before Jobs.

http://quotations.about.com/od/stillmorefamouspeople/a/HenryFord2.htm

We sure needed Jobs to show the path again to us, though -- we're lost in this moronic "shareholders first" mindset. Shareholders will never care about anything but money... nor products, nor customers, nor the environment and specially not you.

PS: I'm a foreigner and live in a country with traditional good relations with the USA. Let's say simply this: Ford was an excellent neighbour.

Re:Prior art. by SpiralSpirit · 2011-10-25 12:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

anyone whose played Civ can tell you this one:

“There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.”

Henry Ford

It seems somewhere between Ford and outsourcing everything we can to india and china, industrialists became looters.

Re:How long... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 12:44 · Score: 3, Funny

I wanted to wait until his next biography to find out if Zombie_Jobs rises again.

...it's been more than three days.

We need to wait 75 years for someone to promulgate a resurrection + subsequent disappearance/ascension myth. Maybe a little longer, given current lifespans. Preferably, the promulgator will be someone with admin access to archive.org in order to "tweak"/"harmonize" historical accounts. The promulgator can also publish three different accounts under different pseudonyms to give the appearance of corroboration of the "historical" account.

4 bonus internets if the promulgator can integrate parthenogenesis somehow producing a male Jobschrist.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by Tronster · 2011-10-25 12:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's one piece of the puzzle.
Two of a few examples that come to mind...

How did he get some of the best talent to work for Apple; especially in the late 90s when engineers knew it was nearing bankruptcy and the dot.com boom was paying top dollar for talent in a variety of interesting projects?

How did he get a good number of the consumer populous to think of Apple as being "THE" computer worth having; especially when it offered similar or only slightly better performance and features to what established big dogs (i.e., Dell, Compaq, and HP) were offering?

I grew up idolizing engineers like Woz & Carmack for their engineering skills; it wasn't until years of participating in group projects, and taking leadership positions on teams of 6 - 12 people have I realized how underrated amongst the technically proficient are the humanistic contributions that go into any project of a significant size. The larger the project, the more likely it will fail without stellar leadership. (e.g., Take a look at what Longhorn claimed and what it became when released as Windows Vista.)

I truly believe Steve cared about his products beyond the profit; he knew a great product, marketed the right way, would bring the profits. I wish more companies used this mentality.

I hope whatever qualities Steve possessed, that allowed Apple to be successful during his oversight, are able to persist amongst his successors.

Cherry picking Jobs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 12:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

Here are some things attributed to Jobs by his official biographer that won't be appearing in any Slashdot stories:

Steve Jobs told President Obama he probably would not be re-elected [because] regulations and unions in the United States were crippling its ability to remain competitive. "You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs said to Obama.

[Jobs said] it was too difficult to build a factory in the U.S., which led the company to build manufacturing plants in countries like China.

Jobs also said teachers' unions "crippled" the education system in the United States. Among his requests to Obama were an 11-month school schedule, school days that last until 6 p.m. and a merit-based system for employing and firing teachers.

[Jobs] told Obama that the United States needed to become more business-friendly.

You may now resume your continuously scheduled iSpin.

Re:Cherry picking Jobs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 13:29 · Score: 1

Here are some things attributed to Jobs by his official biographer that won't be appearing in any Slashdot stories:

Steve Jobs told President Obama he probably would not be re-elected [because] regulations and unions in the United States were crippling its ability to remain competitive. "You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs said to Obama.
[Jobs said] it was too difficult to build a factory in the U.S., which led the company to build manufacturing plants in countries like China.
Jobs also said teachers' unions "crippled" the education system in the United States. Among his requests to Obama were an 11-month school schedule, school days that last until 6 p.m. and a merit-based system for employing and firing teachers.
[Jobs] told Obama that the United States needed to become more business-friendly.

You may now resume your continuously scheduled iSpin.
If you think this will make Slashdot readers think less of Jobs, you must have forgotten Slashdot's libertarian bent. If anything, you just turned Jobs-haters into Jobs-admirers.
Re:Cherry picking Jobs by AK+Marc · 2011-10-25 14:18 · Score: 1

Here are some things [businessinsider.com] attributed to Jobs by his official biographer that won't be appearing in any Slashdot stories:
But by posting them, you have proven yourself wrong. Most of those are sensible. I'd tell them to Obama, if I could get an audience. But I can't, so why should I fault Jobs for saying what needs to be said. The reason that Obama will be a one-term president is that he cooperated for a sense of bipartisanship that didn't exist. Give the "enemy" what they want without them needing to ask, and then, when they still withhold support (because you never actually engaged with them, but instead guessed what they wanted and caved without gaining support first), lose your supporters. Why should your supporters support you when you sold them out so quickly? The health care reform should have been single-payer and passed within the first 100 days before the majorities were lost. Instead, we have welfare for the rich where it's a crime to not send money to private corporations. *That* is why you will be a one-term president. And yes, schools should be 12 months (with a few weeks between sessions, and 4 sessions per year, starting later and ending later). And merit-based teacher evaluations is a necessity to get rid of the incompetent ones which infect the system.

Business friendly isn't necessary. There are plenty of places more 'business friendly" that aren't housing large corporations. Because the US is so stable and secure. "Business friendly" is often a code for "repeal EPA and OSHA" as those regulations are why it costs more to make stuff in the US, even if American workers worked for free, it's still cheaper to build in China.

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Re:Cherry picking Jobs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 16:03 · Score: 1

Here are some things attributed to Jobs by his official biographer that won't be appearing in any Slashdot stories:

Steve Jobs told President Obama he probably would not be re-elected [because] regulations and unions in the United States were crippling its ability to remain competitive. "You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs said to Obama.
[Jobs said] it was too difficult to build a factory in the U.S., which led the company to build manufacturing plants in countries like China.
Jobs also said teachers' unions "crippled" the education system in the United States. Among his requests to Obama were an 11-month school schedule, school days that last until 6 p.m. and a merit-based system for employing and firing teachers.
[Jobs] told Obama that the United States needed to become more business-friendly.

You may now resume your continuously scheduled iSpin.
On the other hand, note that
1. Jobs actually supported Obama pretty heavily ($$$) which is why Obama even bothers listening to him
2. Apple pulled out of the US COC over its stance advocating global warming denial.
Jobs is many, many things (and it seems like we'll be hearing about all of them over the next few weeks) but he's not a straight-line liberal or conservative.
Re:Cherry picking Jobs by Prof.Phreak · 2011-10-26 00:11 · Score: 1

But but but... with everyone in school for the summer... who will tend the corn fields??? Eh?

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Re:Cherry picking Jobs by lwsimon · 2011-10-26 01:44 · Score: 1

If you think that advocating for the expansion of state-run schools is going to make libertarians happy, you've never been around us.
I will say this - at least Jobs appeared to have an understanding of the problem, and offered solutions that would have reduced it.

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Re:Cherry picking Jobs by cwgmpls · 2011-10-26 02:26 · Score: 1

Among his requests to Obama were an 11-month school schedule, school days that last until 6 p.m...
And how would this be paid for? Every teacher I've met agrees we need a full-year school calendar and more hours per day. But name me one industry where workers are willing to increase their work hours 30% with the same pay they currently receive. School reform like this is pie-in-the-sky dreaming until we get serious about how we are going to pay for it.
Re:Cherry picking Jobs by Rich0 · 2011-10-26 08:11 · Score: 1

The health care reform should have been single-payer and passed within the first 100 days before the majorities were lost. Instead, we have welfare for the rich where it's a crime to not send money to private corporations.
Well, arguably the reason the majorities were lost was that people weren't all that happy with what was going on early-on.
Part of the problem with health care is that there are a lot of convoluted issues that people like to mix and match. There is single-payer vs a competitive system, with or without public options, and then then there is the question about mandatory participation, and also how it all gets paid for.
Usually single payer = progressive payment model, and competitive = regressive payment = non-mandatory, but you can have a single-payer system which is regressive (you tax poor people $10k/yr to participate or whatever), or private competitive systems that are progressive (you pick your insurer and the government writes them a check on your behalf and recovers it from income taxes or whatever). What we ended up was a competitive mandatory system with regressive payment models. It has the advantages of more choice, coverage of pre-existing conditions, and nobody has to pay for anybody else, and the disadvantages of paying a premium for that choice, mandatory participation, and nobody will pay for the poor.
All those aspects of models have pros and cons - while everybody argues that exactly one of those is the best nobody can agree on which one that is. I think that if we could actually get into rational dialog we could at least have some informed debate, but everybody is too busy with political ads to bother with that.
Every complicated problem has a simple solution, which is wrong.
Re:Cherry picking Jobs by AK+Marc · 2011-10-26 08:56 · Score: 1

Well, arguably the reason the majorities were lost was that people weren't all that happy with what was going on early-on.
Yes. He blew his momentum in his first 100 days. Obama didn't move swiftly on anything, and didn't work on the campaign promises. He played insider politics trying to gain more support from his opponents. He wanted a unified America. However, that's the last thing that Republicans want. Unified doesn't get them power. It takes manufacturing division to be able to sell their side of the division (or, in business speak, it's about differentiation). So they resisted, so he tried harder. And so we ended up with nothing.

Usually single payer = progressive payment model, and competitive = regressive payment = non-mandatory, but you can have a single-payer system which is regressive (you tax poor people $10k/yr to participate or whatever),

Screw whining about progressive/regressive. Single payer (done right) eliminates insurance overheads, saving 10-20%. Single payer (done right) eliminates insurance (another 5-10%). So you can drop costs for everyone by 25% and deliver the same coverage. Given the existing costs of Medicare, if that were better optimized (with death panels and such), we'd be able to cover the entire US for the same or less than what we currently pay into Medicare. Less money than before the reform paying for 100% of healthcare for 100% of Americans. That's what I would have done. And no, I don't care if I get compared to Hitler making death panels and such. If you don't like them, then buy your own optional private insurance and don't use the public system. There's nothing that would outlaw paying your cash for services. And with single-payer and a few regulations regarding gouging, it should be cheaper than today to self-insure.

All talk about single payer degenerates into the sociopathic discussion that poor are poor because they deserve it (lazy, dumb, etc.). Why pay for those who could pay for themselves, if only they worked harder? Seriously, I may be overly biased, but that's all I hear from the Republicans when they talked about health care. Thinly veiled eugenics arguments about who "deserves" coverage. They play to the "hardworking Americans" while screwing anyone that doesn't make most of their money from stock options (at a tax rate well below what working Americans pay, thanks Bush).

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Re:Cherry picking Jobs by Tablizer · 2011-10-26 12:44 · Score: 1

So, we have become a 3rd-world corporate-slave sh8thole in order to compete with 3rd-world corporate-slave sh8thole countries?
Remember, Steve's focus was on selling more products. If regulations, healthy babies, and lead-free soil gets in his way, he just may think, "Screw them, I want to sell more iTrinkets!" Being too goal-oriented has downsides.

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Re:Cherry picking Jobs by Rich0 · 2011-10-27 15:35 · Score: 1

You are oversimplifying this a bit, but fundamentally I tend to agree on the single payer bit. The current system is incredibly inefficient, and the insurance company profits are just the tip of the iceburg.
There are a lot of other issues that need to be fixed like expectations around level of care (yup, the death panels), and also artificial restrictions on the supply of services (guilds, medical schools, etc). There is a ton of administrative overhead as well.
One thing we do need to find a solution to is how we get people to ration their own care. In most socialized system inconvenience and waiting are the tools that are employed. In most private systems money is. Neither tool is ideal, but I really dislike the waiting system since it causes people to suffer unnecessarily and it is especially hard on people who have something better to do with their time.
Even the present private system in the US has HUGE amounts of waiting which leads to all kinds of waste. I've spent plenty of time in hospitals caring for loved ones and my observation is that the typical workflow is doctor comes in, doctor gets idea, doctor orders tests/treatment, patient waits for tests/treatments, next day doctor comes in checks results, repeat. Most patients in hospitals spend most of their time just lying on their backs. Now, to some extent that is inevitable as most problems heal on their own with proper support, but I think we prolong problems a great deal because it takes so darn long to work out the treatment regimen and not just because of delays required by biology.
It is even worse outpatient - I've seen diabetics given a treatment change and told to come back in three months, and slowly over a few years they work out their treatment program. The huge delay in controlling their problems results in all kinds of long-term damage, all because the doctor can't just have the patient phone in their blood sugars a week after starting treatment and adjust the meds. Oh, and don't get me started on how expensive it is for patients to titrate medications with the way copays work. In theory a nationalized medical system could make better use of triage/clinics and escalation to give patients more attention at the right levels - you don't need the top endocrinologist in the USA to bump up the dose when the sugars are a little high, but maybe you do call him in when you max out the standard protocols and need to try something new, and the big expert doesn't need to grind lots of low-complexity cases just to pay his rent.
Re:Cherry picking Jobs by AK+Marc · 2011-10-27 18:33 · Score: 1

You are oversimplifying this a bit, but fundamentally I tend to agree on the single payer bit. The current system is incredibly inefficient, and the insurance company profits are just the tip of the iceburg.
We pay more per resident for Medicare, covering a small portion of the residents than most socialized medicine countries spend on everyone. That is, we could cover everyone with a UK style coverage (done even better, since we can learn from their problems and fix them before they begin) for less than we are paying for Medicare right now. Instead, the "small government" Republicans support Medicare, while complaining about its inefficiencies (And the Democrats support everything).

you don't need the top endocrinologist in the USA to bump up the dose when the sugars are a little high, but maybe you do call him in when you max out the standard protocols and need to try something new, and the big expert doesn't need to grind lots of low-complexity cases just to pay his rent.
And you let doctors moonlight as doctors. Allow a private system overlay on the public one. If people choose to, they can pay insurance and get private care. But looking at many of the socialized medicine places, people, in practice, don't. They may complain, but they never cared enough to buy insurance, or to pay a private doctor, so the complaints about how bad it is seem quite hollow.

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Learn to love Alaska

Re:How long... by jamrock · 2011-10-25 12:48 · Score: 1

Dammit! Where are my mod points?

easy tiger by luis_a_espinal · 2011-10-25 13:11 · Score: 2

Jobs solved the innovation dilemma by having a lot of engineers circled around him.

Which itself was a master stroke that made him an outlier (a positive one when it comes to profit) above the average management crop. And if we look deeper, we see him (after he was re-appointed CEO) taking Apple (which was a few weeks short of bankruptcy) and turned it in a way that it is hard to replicate in the business world. That takes more than just having a lot of engineers circling around him.

I think he was an asshole, but you cannot deny the brilliance and determination the motherfucker emanated (or farted, whichever verb appeals to you the most.)

Re:easy tiger by Midnight+Thunder · 2011-10-25 13:23 · Score: 1

He also had top industrial designers. The computer has moved into the same phase the automobile moved into over 60 years ago, whereby having the best engineering is not enough. Sure it will attract the geeks and the spec seekers, but most people are interested how good the product looks and feels, while doing the job they expect from it. Would a Ferrari be the same car without the exterior design?
Too much IT hardware feels as if it was designed on the outside by the people who are doing in the inside. Even as a programmer, I recognize the importance of getting some who understands people to do the user interface. The user experience is down to the little details, that as a programmer I probably ignore because I focus on the functionality.

--
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Re:easy tiger by NatasRevol · 2011-10-25 14:26 · Score: 2

You're going to have to define "Apple is losing". Market share? Maybe. Profit share? No fucking way.
http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/30/the-profitphone-x-phones-sold-chart/
Or this, which shows that the iPhone has MORE REVENUE THAN ANY LINE OF BUSINESS AT MICROSOFT.
http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/30/the-profitphone-x-phones-sold-chart/
Or this, which shows that the iPhone is ABOUT AS PROFITABLE AS ALL OF MICROSOFT.
http://www.asymco.com/2011/10/02/ios-vs-microsoft-comparing-the-bottom-lines/
How do you like them apples?

--
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Re:easy tiger by Karlt1 · 2011-10-25 14:39 · Score: 1

1. Build the entire computer. Microsoft licensed their product and achieved a place at the heart of the emergent ecosystem. Apple lost.
If you mean by "lost" making money hand over fist... Hint: The company with the largest market share in computers is trying to get out of the computer business....not Apple. Businesses "win" based on profitability not market share.

2. Build the entire phone. Android licensed their product and is achieving a place at the heart of the emergent ecosystem. Apple is losing.
Again, if you mean by "losing", capturing 66% of all mobile phobe profit worldwide. Then yes Apple is "losing".
http://www.bgr.com/2011/07/29/apples-iphone-accounted-for-66-of-q2-smartphone-profit-among-top-vendors/
And before you come up with the usual Slashdot retort of why am I bragging about "overpaying" for an iPhone, I paid the same $200 for a $700 phone that an Android user paid for a $500 phone and my monthly bill is the same. Why should I care that the carrier had to pay a larger subsidy to Apple?
Re:easy tiger by knapper_tech · 2011-10-25 14:41 · Score: 1

I can't take this seriously. Microsoft is obviously, at this moment in time, the reason why I would suggest that Apple is losing at its attempt to build and sell every part of every single phone used by every consumer on Earth. Obviously.

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"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
Re:easy tiger by Broolucks · 2011-10-25 15:29 · Score: 2

I don't think he was ever interested in "dominating" the ecosystem. Domination in the sense you are describing dilutes profit margins, dilutes brand control and recognition, and the heterogeneity of the platforms you have to support makes it more difficult to offer a stable, consistent experience. Making your own locked down device, on the other hand, drives brand recognition and allows you to get much higher profit margins.
In other words, Apple could license OSX or iOS, but it's not clear they would reap larger profits by doing so. In order to properly compete with Windows or Android, they would have to license it for as much, or less, which would start a price war. Their own products would become much less differentiated from PCs/other smartphones, they would sell much less, and Apple would stop enjoying the outrageous profit margins they have right now. In the end, such a move would make OSX's market share soar, and the consumer would benefit from having more choice, but Apple's profits would likely plummet. Maybe it would make them more profitable in the long term, but that just means they have to choose the right moment to switch up their model. I don't think that's now.
Re:easy tiger by Karlt1 · 2011-10-26 00:22 · Score: 1

Kinda curious why you cited an article from July 29th?
Couldn't find anything more relevant to cite?
It's from Q2 of this year. Do you think that the financials changed drastically in one quarter?
Re:easy tiger by knapper_tech · 2011-10-26 02:58 · Score: 1

Microsoft is obviously winning. Why don't you understand that I'm clearly asserting with all my mind, body, and soul that Microsoft, my beloved Microsoft, is the reason why I am of the opinion that Apple is losing the smartphone battle. Nokia and Windows 7 Phone are obviously why I am making that distinction. Obviously red is blue and Apple fanbois are genuine in their pursuit of knowledge.

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"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
Re:easy tiger by NatasRevol · 2011-10-26 03:11 · Score: 1

Hmmm, pretty sure it's obvious that you completely miss the point. MSFT is not the point.
Here's an exercise for you, to help you get back on track. Find any company that Apple is actually losing to.

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There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Re:easy tiger by s73v3r · 2011-10-26 06:11 · Score: 1

Build the entire computer. Microsoft licensed their product and achieved a place at the heart of the emergent ecosystem. Apple lost.
Build the entire phone. Android licensed their product and is achieving a place at the heart of the emergent ecosystem. Apple is losing.
They may not be "winning" on marketshare, but you cannot argue that they are not "winning" on profits. Which is where it counts.
Re:easy tiger by knapper_tech · 2011-10-26 07:02 · Score: 1

lol way to go fanboi.

See that iOS market share? Drip drip drip.

--
"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
Re:easy tiger by knapper_tech · 2011-10-26 07:05 · Score: 1

Microsoft won, then lost. I thought this was an obvious interpretation. Microsoft won round 1. Microsoft then laid down and died? That's about how I see it. Anyway, the point I'm attempting to drive home is that Apple's repeated attempts to sell one product to rule them all have failed again. Droid will slowly eat the market to death until Apple is back at square one with manufacturing runs getting smaller and pricing leverage going away as well as developer flight from their walled garden.

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"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
Re:easy tiger by NatasRevol · 2011-10-26 07:09 · Score: 1

Ahh, still missing the point. For the blind: Market share != winning. You can't run a business, or pay bills, on market share.

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There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure

Re:Jobs must have went by Midnight+Thunder · 2011-10-25 13:17 · Score: 1

One thing they attempted to do is keep the product line simple. This helps people find what they want easily and also keeps production manageable. There are some companies that have product lines that are so confusing with too much mediocre selection and badly written specs, that I simply turn away.

Sometimes limited choice is actually better for business and for your customers. You just need to be sure what the best median is.

--
Jumpstart the tartan drive.

Re:Jobs must have went by theVarangian · 2011-10-25 13:26 · Score: 2

Give Apple another 10 years and we'll see if this "culture of innovation" supposedly created at Apple continues, or it was just one man with a plan that drove their share price.

That depends on the people who took over from Jobs and how well Jobs judged their abilities. If they think like him the company will prosper. If the spreadsheet monkeys move in they'll piss away everything Jobs achieved inside of 10 years... tops.

Re:How long... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 13:29 · Score: 1

How long will the trolls continue to celebrate their ignorance and lack of decency?

Re:Jobs must have went by AK+Marc · 2011-10-25 13:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

making products people want to buy so that you can make money isn't really earth shattering.

Making things people want to buy isn't earth shattering. Finding out what people want before they know *is*. People didn't want the iPhone before it was out there. People have wanted printers since Gutenberg. So HP making a printer to make money isn't earth shattering. But making a phone in a crowded phone market that people wanted, really wanted, *is* earth shattering. Why didn't anyone else do it first? Why have phones been around for 20 years before that happened. It's not just the "find a need and fill it" marketing you are referring to, it was "find a desire and make a product that generates a "need" when none existed before. It's unlike the CEO training classes that are almost exclusively common sense.

--
Learn to love Alaska

PR? by slasho81 · 2011-10-25 13:31 · Score: 4, Interesting

This submission feels like pure PR for a book or two.

Re:PR? by slasho81 · 2011-10-25 20:28 · Score: 1

I was talking about Jobs newly published bio.

Re:How long... by WolfWithoutAClause · 2011-10-25 13:33 · Score: 1

I'm gonna wait for the autobiography ;-)

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-WolfWithoutAClause

"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"

Re:Jobs' Legacy Is Shit - Nothing Can Change That by AK+Marc · 2011-10-25 13:36 · Score: 1

The iPhone is getting destroyed by Android 2.5 to 1 in sales worldwide right now and the rate at which Android is leaving Apple in the dust in the cellphone market is rapidly growing.

Are you taking the lying Apple-hating stance of "lets compare OSs, not devices, and when doing so, lets exclude Apple devices I find inconvenient, like the iPad.

The iPad has dropped from some 95 percent of the tablet market down to 65 percent in just a few months as Google does exactly what they did to the iPhone now to the iPad.

Ah, you separated it out. Note, Apple still sells more than half of all tablets, and with a much higher margin than Android sellers. A smaller, but more profitable, product share has worked out well for Apple, so no reason to consider 65% share a failure, as you assert.

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Learn to love Alaska

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by iluvcapra · 2011-10-25 13:37 · Score: 1

Jobs solved the innovation dilemma by having a lot of engineers circled around him.

The fact that no other corporate CEO surrounds himself with engineers, designers and implementors should be instructive. I mean you make it sound easy but why on earth are most of the other tech companies led by the nose by their sales and marketing people?

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Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.

Textbook _Innovator's Solution_ by bill_mcgonigle · 2011-10-25 13:37 · Score: 1

Yeah, this has been pretty obvious. Read the section on Blackberry in _The Innovator's Solution_ and their suggested approach for Blackberry is what Steve Jobs implemented with iPhone.

If you want to know why the iPhone is so closed when OSX was so open, turn to page 53 (I just made that up, I don't have the book in front of me).

It was published in 2003. The iPhone was released in 2007. Jobs is a solitary genius. Some of these are true.

--
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)

Re:LOL, Fanboy Rationalizations by AK+Marc · 2011-10-25 13:39 · Score: 1

Because some people believe computers should be hard to use. Easy leads to the Eternal September and such, and any geeks around for that remember it as a bad thing. Apple makes things easy which should be hard. What, you are installing a Unix-like OS and didn't have to write your own drivers? Blasphemy. Using a computer should be hard enough to keep the undesirables away.

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Learn to love Alaska

Ridiculous fanboyism by FyberOptic · 2011-10-25 13:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

I like how he still thought he was an innovator, when he admitted in his own book that another guy came up with the idea for products like the iPhone. That same guy received an award for it. That guy still works for Apple.

Steve Jobs was just the business man who could sell it. This has not only been blatantly obvious from the beginning, but now his own words back it up. So why are we still describing him as an innovator and visionary?

I can however credit him for being a good business man. And that's how he should be remembered. You know, the honest way.

Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 15:15 · Score: 2, Informative

I like how he still thought he was an innovator, when he admitted in his own book that another guy came up with the idea for products like the iPhone. That same guy received an award for it. That guy still works for Apple.
Steve Jobs was just the business man who could sell it. This has not only been blatantly obvious from the beginning, but now his own words back it up. So why are we still describing him as an innovator and visionary?
I can however credit him for being a good business man. And that's how he should be remembered. You know, the honest way.
There are a million ideas and engineers in every big tech company. Which CEO has the guts to back them? That's why Jobs is a visionary, because he could see the desire of consumers for these devices ages before anyone else did.
And I don't understand this Jobs' bashing of saying he was a corporate for-profit drone. NO HE WAS NOT. I hate Apple and its walled garden with the now ironical 1984 ad, but Jobs was one of those precious few, who wanted to be successful making things consumers would use. The corporate who-is-who is now littered with executives who want to be successful for the sake of success. Jobs did this for an almost childish tendency of doing something he loves. This must be a source of inspiration to everyone in the world, especially those here in Slashdot.
I ridicule fanboys' selective blindness, but the inability of a group of smart people here in /. to rise above their prejudices is not just silly, but somewhat embarassing.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 15:52 · Score: 1, Insightful

Ideas are ten a penny. It's execution that matters. A touchscreen smartphone in 2007. So what? The finished iPhone? An innovative product and instant success.
A successful product design isn't a case of an idea. It's a series of difficult questions, answered with good answers, right through the development process. Jobs asked many of those difficult questions, and had the taste to know what were good answers. That was a major part of his role.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by iknowcss · 2011-10-25 16:06 · Score: 1, Insightful

Let me guess, you've come up with ideas that you thought would have benefited your employer, but the people with a broader perspective of the business decided that they weren't cost effective or viable, right? Ideas are like assholes: everyone has one. It takes an individual with foresight, leadership and determination to consider those ideas, pick the best ones, and apply the right amount of resources in the right places. The iPhone was one of probably hundreds or thousands of ideas Steve heard on a regular basis. He saw the potential and acted on it, effectively changing the entire mobile computing landscape. By the way, no one was stopping employee number 24621 from taking his idea and running with it. He chose to work at Apple because he lacks the skills, resources or connections necessary to bring his idea to life. This is where people like Steve Jobs are important. They bring those skills, resources and connections together to make a successful product.

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Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by sydneyfong · 2011-10-25 18:44 · Score: 1

inability of a group of smart people here in /. to rise above their prejudices
You lost me at "smart".
I wish I was only joking.

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Don't quote me on this.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 20:29 · Score: 1

Sure.
Still, I feel the need to facepalm myself every time I read how Steve Jobs was such a "technological innovator", how he "redefined the world of computing", how (if it wasn't for him) we'd "still all be using DOS", or something.
Like grandparent pointed out: sure, he created innovative products (and business strategies), but that's not the same as saying he was a "technological innovator". That title should be reserved to people who actually made groundbreaking contributions to the world of computing: people like Dennis Ritchie or John McCarthy, who in fact gave huge contributions to the world of computing.
In case you don't know, both these men died recently (Dennis, right after Jobs passed away; and John, a few days ago) and I have yet to see any article on mainstream media praising these man and their contribution.
Jobs (actually, Apple; it's sickening already to see people give credit to him for things made by other people) built new fancy gadget toys for the developed world: that was it. I'm pretty sure you're more likely to hear someone say "What's Apple OSX?" than "What's Microsoft Windows?".
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by ardeez · 2011-10-25 23:18 · Score: 1

>I like how he still thought he was an innovator
If Jobs wasn't an innovator, then how do you explain the slew of products that started coming
out after he took over? Like the first iMac or the iBook ?
These products were completely revolutionary for the time and were an incredible break from anything
that was being sold at that time - even from Apple.
If he was just a salesman then wouldn't he have just tried to keep selling the same old stuff they had? But he didn't. He
surrounded himself with a team of designers and changed the landscape forever.
Nobody suggests that he designed everything, or came up with all of the ideas, but Apple and it's products are uniquely Jobs.

--
don't be a spelling loser
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by whisper_jeff · 2011-10-25 23:31 · Score: 2

This has not only been blatantly obvious from the beginning, but now his own words back it up.
"Now"? It's been obvious for several _YEARS_. He never claimed to have invented the iPhone. Pretty much everyone with a clue knows the story of an engineer walking into his office with an early version of the iPad, showing it to Steve, who was enormously impressed but put the prototype on a shelf and said "we can make this into a phone." I've known that story for a very long time so, perhaps, your version of "now" is a bit later than the rest of us.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by plurgid · 2011-10-26 01:13 · Score: 1

We are describing him as an innovator, because he created a company where "that guy" could thrive.
Steve Jobs was a great manager, who understood technology and gave two shits about great ideas and quality.
That's why we miss him, because apparently he was the last one of those in the known universe.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 02:09 · Score: 1

So, what you're saying is Jobs is worth remembering because he was rich?
Wow. That's what makes someone worth remembering today? Sucks to be Nikola Tesla, I guess.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by rolfwind · 2011-10-26 02:38 · Score: 1

I like how he still thought he was an innovator, when he admitted in his own book that another guy came up with the idea for products like the iPhone. That same guy received an award for it. That guy still works for Apple.
Steve Jobs was just the business man who could sell it. This has not only been blatantly obvious from the beginning, but now his own words back it up. So why are we still describing him as an innovator and visionary?
I can however credit him for being a good business man. And that's how he should be remembered. You know, the honest way.
Genius - 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.
Look around at the business world. How often do companies take chances vs. just operating off of inertia until somebody upsets their game? Every place it's about the next quarter, next quarter, next quarter, and less and less long-term.
I don't know if it's the patent frenzy in the US, of which Apple has no small blame in participating, but ideas by themselves are not as valuable as everyone makes them out to be.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by FyberOptic · 2011-10-26 03:46 · Score: 2

Perhaps your Apple history needs some refreshing.
Jonathan Ive designed almost all of the products Apple is famous for. He designed the iMac, for example. He worked at Apple long before Steve Jobs came back. Only his job position changed around the time of the infamous return. Nice timing, eh?
But the question is, how exactly was the iMac an innovative product? It was literally no different than the beige boxes that came before it. It literally ran the exact same bland, unstable operating system. In no way was it a new product, aside from being inserted into a colorful shell. This is not an exaggeration at all, it's simply the truth.
Eventually OSX came along as well. But again, how was this a new or innovative product? OSX was, quite literally, a recycled operating system. They took an OS which was not very popular when Steve ran NeXT, put a colorful skin on it to mimic the layout of OS9 with a dock, and put it on the shelf for people to buy. They threw away OS9 because that platform had become such a nightmare, but they didn't actually make anything themselves to replace it with.
Jobs was just a salesman. He took bland products which had a new coating of paint and sold them to millions of people. That's the harsh reality of it. He deserves a lot of credit for being able to do that, too. But that's the only credit he truly deserves, because Jonathan Ive existed whether Steve Jobs ever did or not.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by FyberOptic · 2011-10-26 03:50 · Score: 2

Steve regularly took credit for things which other people did all the time. The people who came up with those things didn't like it very much, either.
The point is, though, many Apple fanatics have thought and continue to think that Steve Jobs was single-handedly responsible for designing most of the products at Apple. When the guy died, it was even more evident how misinformed the average person was. His book, however, can now finally help set things straight. Sure, the average Apple user will likely never read that either, or even comprehend the extent of what it reveals regarding Jobs' influence on actual product design, but the information is at least out there now in the man's own biography. Perhaps it will bring a few peoples' opinions back down to reality.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by FyberOptic · 2011-10-26 03:55 · Score: 1

Don't worry, Jonathan Ive will still be coming up with plenty of new product designs like he always did, still made in the same low-quality Chinese manufacturing plants (by a company which most PC users acknowledge make junk PC parts), and sold by Tim Cook, who has been in charge for almost the last year already anyway.
Some people will miss Jobs for whatever reasons, but the company has already proven that it doesn't really need him around to yell at everybody.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by FyberOptic · 2011-10-26 03:56 · Score: 1

I dunno, if you call repackaging existing things with a pretty outside as taking a risk, then there's a lot of really innovative Chinese companies out there.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by FyberOptic · 2011-10-26 04:02 · Score: 2

No, you seem to not understand Steve Jobs' role. And how that role was pretty much nothing.
Jonathan Ive's role was designing the iPhone. All of it, essentially, down to the materials that were going to be used to make it look as pretty and shiny as it does. Of course an actual engineering team designed its guts, but they already knew what to put in it.
Jonathan Ive received the award for the iPhone, and for most of the other Apple products, because he actually deserved it. Steve Jobs on the other hand received awards because most other people have no idea how a company works.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 05:02 · Score: 1

You just described a smart BUSINESS MAN. None of what you said makes him an inventor or innovator. Smart guy, maybe even visionary, designer; yes. Inventor, engineer, scientist, creator; no.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by rolfwind · 2011-10-26 05:40 · Score: 1

I dunno, if you call repackaging existing things
There are a lot of movies that do nothing new under the sun that do nothing *new* but package it well enough to convince people to buy it. Avatar was a $500M such risk. (And that was a risk, many people predicted it wouldn't make the money back.)
I argued the checklist bullshit with geeks many a time. That's a mindset useful maybe in the commercial sector, but consumers work differently once the basics are fulfilled.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism by drinkypoo · 2011-10-26 16:24 · Score: 1

The half-baked OS became a much better OS when you add a shiny coat of paint on the case and throw out useless junk like PS/2 ports and 3.5" IDE floppy drives.
The earliest all-in-one macs were Beigeish, but they never had PS/2 ports. They did, of course, have 3.5" floppy drives, though there were kits to use that space for an additional SCSI disk, complete with a flush bezel, usually with disk activity LED.
The revolution of the iMac was that it looked cute. Which as the word revolution implies, was just a turn of the wheel, coming around full circle from the original Macintosh computer. Being totally legacy-free was not a big deal, especially since so many users of the day had to go spend big bucks on a USB floppy drive. As Apple users, they were used to that sort of thing already.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Re:Steve Jobs was an arrogant fool by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 14:05 · Score: 1

The man saw a PSYCHIC to cure his CANCER instead of receiving life saving drugs until it was too late. How much more evidence is needed?

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/235295/20111021/apple-co-founder-steve-jobs-stalled-life-saving-cancer-surgery-to-visit-psychic-healer.htm

How much more? Perhaps you should take a look at the survival rates and statistics behind this cancer in particular and all those "life-saving" DRUGS before dragging his decision through the mud.

I'd sure as hell rather live in a world where I have the choice as to what is done to my body rather than have that choice made for me. Regardless of the end result, respect an individuals opinion to NOT riddle themselves with DRUGS that quite often have horrible and sometimes permanent side effects. This is another reason people aren't so damn open to chemotherapy for "treatment", trying to kill one poison with another in a horrible battle to the death to see who wins.

Rather ironic that people who belittle and insult the iSheep for their allegiance are the same people who blindly believe and follow whatever Big Pharma and their doctor is pimping for the week...like THEY don't have an ulterior motive? Fucking please.

Re:Steve Jobs was an arrogant fool by smash · 2011-10-25 14:05 · Score: 2

Yet he died after making more of an impact on several massive industries (film, music, computing) than you ever will. He wasn't too bad off in terms of money, either. So what does that make you?

--
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.

Re:Cue the haters by geekmux · 2011-10-25 14:16 · Score: 1

Sure they're Apple haters, and you're not an Apple fanboi? Reality gets skewed a bit once you drink the flavor-aid... but I have to say, your post is a new extreme. I am completely tired of Jobs stories. This is worse than the usual Apple fanboyism; it seems anything at all even remotely related to Steve-baby gets on the front page, no matter how irrelevant or pointless. Look at how many stories there are about the marketing mogul Jobs (sorry, no time to count), and how many there are about REAL computer pioneers like John McCarthy (1) and Dennis Ritchie (also 1). Slashdot has fallen far when someone like you can be modded up for whining about "Apple haters" not likely a Jobs-a-day story, while ignoring actually important people and their contributions. You make me sick.

Famous people who contributed a lot are ignored every single day, and pretty much for the exact same reason. Take your "flavor-aid" example of John McCarthy and answer one question about him; what has he done for me lately?

Current relevance makes all the difference in the world in recognition. And in the ADD-riddled world we live in where everything must be summed up in a tweet-sized post for people to take more than 17 seconds out of their precious day to give a shit, this should come as NO surprise to you.

Re:Jobs' Legacy Is Shit - Nothing Can Change That by catmistake · 2011-10-25 14:20 · Score: 2

And Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field is rivaled only by your own. I guess the fact that Apple is the most valuable company in the world, the most valuable company the world has ever seen thus far, and they are tiny compared to the next 9 most valuable companies, doesn't impress you. All the major tech companies seem to hit a wall at some point, and strain under the weight of their dead... Adobe, Microsoft, IBM, RIM, Nokia... they move like slugs. Apple has been running rings around the competition for nearly half of the last decade.

It's funny, though... how Apple is held up to a higher standard... how its always "Apple vs EVERYONE ELSE" and never a fair comparison. Try Apple v Microsoft. or Apple v Dell. or Apple v RIM. or Apple v. Sony... and then you'll see what a silly person you are saying things like "Apple sucks... because the combined forces of their 20 competitors are starting to eat away at their market share."

--
The Admin and the Engineer

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by NatasRevol · 2011-10-25 14:20 · Score: 1

the dot.com boom was paying top dollar for talent in a variety of interesting projects?

Partly because most of those projects weren't really interesting. They were business ideas, online. If you show it that way, then give the engineers something actually interesting to work on, most engineers will take the interesting route over the 'online' route.

--
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure

Re:How long... by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 14:20 · Score: 2, Informative

Slashdot is ad-driven and Apple brings a lot fo comments, both good and bad.
Think about that next time you whine about too many Apple stories floating around.

It's a common explanation. But there's a more straightforward one. AFAIKS getting story on slashdot is a 3 step process. A story is submitted. People vote for it or against it on firehose. An editor picks it,theoretically with some regard to how it was voted on firehose.

The number of Apple stories on Slashdot may simply relate to how many are submitted and how they are voted on in the firehose. It doesn't require that were being trolled for comment quantity by the editors.

Either explanation could be true. As could the even more straightforward explanation that the number of Apple articles isn't excessive at all. They just aren't to some people's taste.

Re:Cue the haters by syousef · 2011-10-25 14:21 · Score: 1

Cue the Apple haters who can't stand an Apple story on the front page of Slashdot. They've been bitching and moaning all week.

I've never seen so many stories about a single company here before. If you want a goddamn site to discuss Apple find one or otherwise be honest by renaming this site to iSlashdot at which point I'll stop coming here.

Steve Jobs invented NOTHING. To be hailed as a genius that changed the world on the sweat of others who actually did is insulting and disrespectful to them, never mind that it's a blatant falsehood. To be praised when the inventors of C and Lisp die all but forgotten by the world at large within a couple of weeks of his death is infuriating to anyone who gives a damn about credit where it is due.

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These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by Toam · 2011-10-25 14:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

I truly believe Steve cared about his products beyond the profit

If this were true, Apple wouldn't be suing Samsung over who owns the rectangle.

Re:Jobs must have went by Karlt1 · 2011-10-25 14:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

Laying off thousands of people, cutting hundreds of product lines to focus on three main products which are beginning to stagnate is hardly 'innovative'.

Pixar, a company run by SJ
http://www.geekosystem.com/how-pixar-bosses-saved-their-employees-from-layoffs/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/10/14/no_layoffs_at_apple_steve/

And if by "stagnate" you mean year over year growth that vastly outpaces the industry you're right....

Re:Jobs must have went by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 14:30 · Score: 4, Informative

Laying off thousands of people, cutting hundreds of product lines to focus on three main products which are beginning to stagnate is hardly 'innovative'. It's hardly a good idea either.

Under Jobs, Apple went from nearly bankrupt to the biggest, most successful company in the world in just 14 years. Congratulations - by claiming that it was all a bad idea, you've just made what must be the stupidest post of the day. And I'm including all the Frist psots! in that.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by NatasRevol · 2011-10-25 14:31 · Score: 1

It's not just tech companies, it's most large companies.

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There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure

Re:Jobs' Legacy Is Shit - Nothing Can Change That by paiute · 2011-10-25 14:35 · Score: 1

Macs continue to have an irrelevant markeshare. They have gotten a minor bump by being able to run their competitor's dominant OS on their hardware.

The iPhone is getting destroyed by Android 2.5 to 1 in sales worldwide right now and the rate at which Android is leaving Apple in the dust in the cellphone market is rapidly growing.

The iPad has dropped from some 95 percent of the tablet market down to 65 percent in just a few months as Google does exactly what they did to the iPhone now to the iPad.

The rest of Jobs' products have been miserable failures like Apple TV and others.

The only real success Jobs ever had at Apple was the iPod.

His legacy will be nothing more than a footnote in the history of computing. A prick who sold overpriced consumer electronics to the hipster douchebag Starbucks crowd.

Somebody is bitter about not buying Apple at $10.

--
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine

Ford got zorched by MBAs, too. But recovered. by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2011-10-25 14:47 · Score: 3

âoeThere is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.â - Henry Ford

It seems somewhere between Ford and outsourcing everything we can to india and china, industrialists became looters.

Actually it's that some business schools taught their students to be parasites on successful businesses:

1) Find a company with some sound guts that's fallen on temporary hard times.
2) Get hired on as CEO with big blocks of stock options and rules approved for bonuses that condition them on short-term bottom line.
3) Bring in your cronies on similar terms, replacing the upper layer with people loyal to you rather than the company, its shareholders, or its workers.
2) Cut investment in the future to make the bottom line good short-term, for a few quarters. Stop the research, fire the personnel that design the future products. Replace the local personnel that build the PRESENT product with cheaper offshore people (who have no loyalty, lore from the company's past, or connections to the company's remaining local engineering).
4) After a few quarters, announce you've turned the company around. Declare victory. Move on to the next sucker and cash out. (Profit!)
5) Let your successors take the blame when the house of cards to which you've reduced the company finally collapses.

These aren't the "industrialists" who built the enterprises. These are the predators who take it down and get the first and best chunk of meat from the still-struggling carcass.

Some time after Henry died, Ford Motor Company fell prey to such, and started to deteriorate. But the Ford family still had controlling interest. Eventually they saw what was happening, threw out the jackals, installed some better heads, and turned the company around again. Soon Ford products were better than the best Japanese and European imports. Come the recent economic troubles, while GM and Chrysler went down and got taken over by the government, Ford didn't need any bailouts and is still prospering.

--
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by antifoidulus · 2011-10-25 14:55 · Score: 1

You really should read some of Woz's(almost certainly a better engineer than you will ever be) quotes on the early days of Apple. To put it succinctly, without Woz, there would be no Apple. Without Jobs, there would be no Apple. Either of them alone probably would have done alright, but it was the brilliant play between them, how they complemented each other perfectly that really allowed Apple to get off to such a good start. After Jobs came back it was pretty much the same thing, the engineers and Jobs complimented each other perfectly.

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Monstar L

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by Broolucks · 2011-10-25 15:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why not? Caring more about products than profits does not mean you don't care about profits. It means that your first priority is to create great products, and then you minimize the costs of fabricating them, you maximize your profit margin, and you obstruct competition as much as possible.

Getting parts built in sweatshops and suing others on spurious grounds is perfectly consistent with prioritizing product quality. What it isn't consistent with is being a decent human being.

Re:How long... by ATMAvatar · 2011-10-25 15:03 · Score: 1

They sucked his dick when he was alive. Now... they still suck his dick... only more.

It becomes easier with rigor mortis, that's all.

--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Re:Jobs' Legacy Is Shit - Nothing Can Change That by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 15:08 · Score: 1

The iPhone is getting destroyed by Android 2.5 to 1 in sales

The iPhone is a single model of phone. Android is an OS that ships on many models of device from many manufacturers. Apples(!) and oranges.

The iPhone out-ships any model of Android device.

iOS devices as a whole outship Android OS devices as a whole. (iPhone only accounted for about 40% of iOS sales last time I looked.)

Compare like with like and Android isn't quite the winner you make out.

The iPad has dropped from some 95 percent of the tablet market down to 65 percent in just a few months

Those analyst stats refer to shipments, not sales. If you don't know the difference, you should look into what having large shipments without sales did to the HP Touchpad. Dead in 7 weeks. You should wait for the next set of proper market share figures to come out.

The rest of Jobs' products have been miserable failures like Apple TV and others.

Were you Rip-Van-Winkle during the decade of the iPod?

Yeah I know. Trolling. I don't usually bother looking down in the -1 slime.

Re:How long... by Grishnakh · 2011-10-25 15:12 · Score: 1

Obviously not, since he was angry about Google being painted as evil. Ballmer, lying turd that he is, could never say something like that because he hates Google so much.

Re:Jobs' Legacy Is Shit - Nothing Can Change That by BasilBrush · 2011-10-25 15:13 · Score: 1

Note, Apple still sells more than half of all tablets, and with a much higher margin than Android sellers. A smaller, but more profitable, product share has worked out well for Apple, so no reason to consider 65% share a failure, as you assert.

I'm pretty sure Apple still sells more than 95% of tablets. That 65% figure didn't come from one of the regular market share studies, it was a one off from an analyst and considered Android tablet shipments, not sales. The HP Touchpad failure illustrated the difference between shipments and sales.

Re:Jobs must have went by Grishnakh · 2011-10-25 15:24 · Score: 2

iPhone and iPod weren't that different. Both of them were copies of existing products, but with much better execution than the competition. There were other MP3 players before the iPod came around; remember the famous Slashdot posting which called it "lame" because it had a FIrewire port and no USB. Then Apple came along, took the concept, and made their own version with the clever and easy-to-use click-wheel, and it took off. Then they added the iTunes store and it took off even more. Somewhere along the line they finally added a USB port (honestly I'm not sure how the thing took off at all before that point since PCs usually didn't have Firewire ports then, and still frequently don't).

Same with the iPhone. Crackberries and those shitty WinCE phones were out many years before iPhones arrived. But iPhones were sexy and really easy to use, and didn't require a silly stylus to use. And of course they had an appstore very quickly which sealed the deal.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by Grishnakh · 2011-10-25 15:26 · Score: 1

Don't forget that the types of engineers are different. The software and hardware engineers who would design the 1st-gen iPod, for instance, are not the same kind of engineers (or "web developers") who make late-90s websites. These are very different skillsets.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by Grishnakh · 2011-10-25 15:28 · Score: 1

Getting parts built in sweatshops and suing others on spurious grounds is perfectly consistent with prioritizing product quality. What it isn't consistent with is being a decent human being.

Just like Edison was idolized around the turn of the 20th century, Jobs is being idolized now. And both of them were big jerks, though Edison probably has Jobs beat on that feature.

the real Steve by epine · 2011-10-25 15:30 · Score: 1

One thing about Steve, while he was alive, the truth was out there ... never to be apprehended. I'm really enjoying the tidbits about what really made him tick, as opposed to the crap he pushed onto small minds.

Perhaps part of his genius was the invisibility field lurking behind his potent reality distortion field. I'm from the dull quadrant that regards the truth as cool, and hardly anything else, so I was destined to be an outsider on this pageant since day one.

not really by mldi · 2011-10-25 15:31 · Score: 1

He didn't solve a dilemna. This argument is completely set up from the start. For one, Apple is one of the richest companies in the world. iTunes is a huge part of their success, but also their Apple branded products. Being as how insanely expensive the majority of it is by comparison, and how much of a choke-hold they had on profit margins whenever their products were sold, I'd say profits was a very large business goal and not just a "side effect". Not that that's bad or anything, it just makes Jobs out to be some kind of saint that was only in it for the inventions when he was actually just one helluva marketing guy. The innovator in Jobs was only a step to where Apple ended up.

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If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.

They do it for the lulz. by Avarist · 2011-10-25 15:36 · Score: 1

I'm sure Apple isn't concerned one little bit about profits. That's why they have the largest profit margin on their products in the entire IT world. Oh wait....

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In Capitalist US, the commerce controls the Government.

Re:They do it for the lulz. by gum2me · 2011-10-25 16:05 · Score: 1

The point is, when you focus on great products, profits follow.
Re:They do it for the lulz. by Avarist · 2011-10-26 03:20 · Score: 1

The point is, you didn't seem to understand my comment. Or did you just choose not to read "profit MARGIN" which, if I remember correctly, has nothing to do with the quality of the products.

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In Capitalist US, the commerce controls the Government.

Re:Cue the haters by Moridineas · 2011-10-25 15:43 · Score: 1

You mad bro?

Re:How long... by ganjadude · 2011-10-25 15:45 · Score: 2

zombie jobs will be back on the 100th anniversary of the apple II, its one of the things on this "tablet" that I have acquired.

~Moses 2.0

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have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same

Re:Jobs must have went by djrobxx · 2011-10-25 15:50 · Score: 1

I have to disagree with "People didn't want the iPhone before it was out there". At a time when clunky Windows Mobile phones were popular, I think just about everyone knew that the cell phone experience left a lot to be desired, especially when it came to browsing the web. They call it the Jesus Phone for a reason: When rumors came about that Apple was working on a phone, many followers demonstrated their near-religious faith in Apple that their phone would save everyone from the awful crap that preceded it. While not perfect, it largely delivered.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by ediron2 · 2011-10-25 16:00 · Score: 2

Spurious grounds: opinion, not yet held up in court. I was around for the first Look n Feel lawsuit, and I didn't have skin in the game like Jobs... once you've been burned by the legal system like that, you're an idiot if you don't learn SOME sort of lesson.

sweatshops: tarring Jobs with that is a cheap shot. My Tevas' manufacture went overseas. Ditto every other bit of outdoor gear I buy. Design in america, make in (insert cheap nation). Congressmen get tens of thousands of dollars per cycle from Samoa businessmen running sweatshops in international free trade zones there. My accountant has data entry done in India; if I checked, I bet my medical records are similarly transcribed/maintained. And most importantly, you are just as guilty of supporting sweatshops if you're BUYING that shit as he is for making it.

Re:How long... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 16:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

>> he was angry about Google being painted as evil

Why don't you go back and check the front page stories about Google for last seven days? Then compare the number of Steve Jobs/Apple/iphone The Greatest Evaaar stories. This is not about opinions, but about facts. The stories are picked with clear bias against Google (some of them are clear troll/flamebaits), and some of the summaries are just plain stupid and do not belong to slashdot.

Here is the list for you - I will leave checking the summary to you:

How Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator's Dilemma
FTC To Monitor Google's Privacy Practices For 20 Years
Concerns Over Google Modifying SSL Behavior
Microsoft Now Collects Royalties From Over Half of All Android Devices
Android ICS Will Require 16GB RAM To Compile
A Decade of Apple Oddities
Google Not Reciprocating On IFrame Usage?
Siri Envy? Iris Brings Some Voice-Assistant Features to Android
Meet Siri's Little Brother, Trapit
Jobs Wanted To Destroy Android
Android 4.0 Source Code Coming "Soon" ..

Re:How long... by ThorGod · 2011-10-25 16:03 · Score: 1

I love my Apple products, just full disclosure, but all things come to an end. Lives and the discussion about those lives all eventually end.

Though we might be talking All Jobs All The Time, for now, it wont always be this way. That doesn't belittle his memory in the slightest, of course.

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PS: I don't reply to ACs.

Re:How long... by Nyder · 2011-10-25 16:08 · Score: 1

If Christianity is any metric to measure this by, we're going to be hearing about Steve Jobs for at least the next 2100 years...

Not when Steve Jobs comes back to life as the Anti-Christ.

=)

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Be seeing you...

Re:Jobs must have went by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 16:12 · Score: 1

Making things people want to buy isn't earth shattering. Finding out what people want before they know *is*. People didn't want the iPhone before it was out there. ... Why didn't anyone else do it first? Why have phones been around for 20 years before that happened...

I worked at Motorola in the early 2000s. In 2001 I started working on UMTS network equipment and we needed a UMTS phone to test with. There was no such thing - commercially - at the time and wouldn't be for years. So we got prototype phones that Motorola was working on. One of these phones had the same form factor as the iPhone and had a large touchscreen with a row of 3 or 4 buttons along the bottom (quite similar to what many Android phones look like now). It had a custom UI, but I'm pretty sure it was running Linux; we did video conferencing, surfed the internet, watched movies, and made a phone call or two. It was actually made of blue plastic that seemed somewhat inspired by the iMac. Way back then, Motorola was still producing CPUs for Apple and a lot of engineers even had Mac desktops.

Motorola actually intended to sell the phone, but right before the launch party someone decided that nobody would want a phone like that, canned the project, and laid off the team that built it. There are hundreds of people floating around Chicago that can corroborate this story.

Steve Jobs was one of the very few executives who could see a trend years before it materialized. Most places squander the talent of their employees; Apple didn't.

Re:How long... by Grishnakh · 2011-10-25 16:14 · Score: 1

Yes, it does appear that there's a pro-Apple and anti-Google bias in the Slashdot stories lately. But that's irrelevant; I was just pointing out that Steve Ballmer would never say anything remotely positive about Google. He starts throwing chairs as soon as he hears the word "Google", after all.

Re:Cue the haters by Moofie · 2011-10-25 16:17 · Score: 1

Do you need a hug?

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!

Re:How long... by dave87656 · 2011-10-25 16:46 · Score: 1

I was noticing that too. I find it odd, since Google is doing exactly what I thought we all wanted a truely innovative company to do. Apple made some great stuff but they also were/are pretty adamant about patents, many of them questionable, even though they owe a lot of their success to "stealing" (Steve Jobs words) other peoples ideas.

It was all about dealmaking by Animats · 2011-10-25 17:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

You're all missing the point here. When Jobs returned to Apple, what resulted was a set of more or less "meh" Mac machines, a detour through the PowerPC, and a kludged up version of the Next OS. Apple desktop market share remained in single digits through that period.

What worked was the iPod. The reason the iPod was successful was deals with music labels. Jobs was good at deal making in Hollywood. As CEO of Pixar, he was a studio head, at the top of the Hollywood food chain. The labels had to listen.

That's what made the iTunes store go, which is what really drove the product. The hardware was secondary.

Re:It was all about dealmaking by NateTech · 2011-10-25 17:49 · Score: 1

iPod was funded by the original iMac and strange but interesting designs like the Cube.
The real trick was in the tight integration of iTunes to the devices and making it simple enough for any idiot to get their chosen music, in a time when geeks were enamored with the user interface of WinAmp and were ripping their CDs with clunky interfaces and the command line.

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+++OK ATH
Re:It was all about dealmaking by CrackedButter · 2011-10-25 19:44 · Score: 1

Great use of reductionism there bro.

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Jonathanjk.com
Re:It was all about dealmaking by rolfwind · 2011-10-26 02:53 · Score: 1

You're all missing the point here. When Jobs returned to Apple, what resulted was a set of more or less "meh" Mac machines, a detour through the PowerPC, and a kludged up version of the Next OS. Apple desktop market share remained in single digits through that period.
You're really simplifying things. While I was no fan of the clamshell notebooks or early iMacs... the biggest difference in Job's immediate return is that he discontinued a metric ****-ton of computer lines that all overlapped on each other and many of which were unprofitable. The company made or at least branded printers for ****'s sake.
It might not seem innovative, but even today in every other manufacturer comes out with model names like MLO987XNYX. I see it when I go search on Amazon or browse Best Buy, like in the camera. Apple went with the Good, Better, Best approach to products, which is a lot more in line with how most people think, or really want to buy.
It also allowed Apple to free up their resources to make the early hits (iMac) and have the resources to make things like iPod.
But I agree about the part of Job's, Pixar, and his connections also helping get iTunes off the ground though.
Re:It was all about dealmaking by gknoy · 2011-10-26 04:27 · Score: 1

You realize that you can say 'fuck' on Slashdot, right? :) The rest of us are (for the most part) mature enough that we know exactly what you're redacting, and don't often really see it as a word worthy of special treatment or taboo.

Re:How long... by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2011-10-25 17:22 · Score: 1

To the people who spent their mod points to silence my post: 215 comments and counting.

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"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

What he read and believed in killed him by IT · 2011-10-25 17:44 · Score: 1

macrobiotical

Re:How long... by hairyfeet · 2011-10-25 17:51 · Score: 1

Exactly, its no different than all the "Will (insert new Linux thing) finally bring about Linux on the desktop?" or variations thereof, or the "Here is another Windows article on Windows (insert number or just general OS)" as its pretty common knowledge a good flame war generates a hell of a lot of comments and that translates into a hell of a lot of ad views. hell sites like El Reg and Winsupersite and anything by Nichols are practically nothing BUT giant pieces of trollbait to crank up the flames. Its just business folks, nothing personal.

As for TFA here is basically everything you need to know about Jobs summed into a single sentence "Steve jobs was an asshole with very good taste". and just like every other rich tech guy that is both loved and hated, Gates, Ellison, etc he was in the right place at the right time with the right product and had the brains to capitalize on it. you'd think that would be easy once you had the hit but that is actually the hard part and why there are very few that have had the staying power of Gates, Jobs, and Ellison, because they tend to lose sight of the forest for the trees and shoot themselves right in the head. See DBASE, Netscape (which i'm sure some will try to blame on IE but as someone who lived it NS4 killed Netscape, it was the buggiest POS I'd ever had the misfortune of using) Commodore, Atari, etc for examples. Hell we nearly saw that with Apple thanks to the Pepsi guy and if they aren't careful Ballmer and his "Me too! Ooooh me too!" stupidity like giving Win 8 a cell phone UI may do the same to MSFT.

in the end it all comes down to being able to capitalize on that big break and having the brains not to kill the company and like him or hate him jobs did have the brains and the vision to not only build a corp from nothing but to basically have to do it all over again after years of mismanagement and managed to turn it into one of the biggest companies on the planet. Even though I don't use Apple products I give credit where credit is due and the man definitely knew his shit.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by Rubinstien · 2011-10-25 17:55 · Score: 1

Jobs wasn't around for the Look and Feel lawsuit, though, even if you were:

- Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985 by the Apple Board of Directors and John Sculley.
- Apple sued Microsoft in 1988, when Windows 2.0 was introduced and it finally had resizable and overlapping windows.
- Apple lost its final appeal in 1994, mostly because Sculley had licensed designs for 179 of 189 GUI elements they were claiming infringement on back in 1985, after Steve was gone. Microsoft had previously licensed some of the same ideas from Xerox, and Apple had licensed them from Xerox for $100M in stock. This figured into the dismissal of the other 10 claims, since copyright only covers an original expression of an idea.
- Apple bought NeXT in 1996.
- Steve became iCEO of Apple in 1997.

Good reading: http://bit.ly/me36I (note that Steve was not involved).

The license certainly contributed to Microsoft's victory in court. Digital Research, which had no such license (and a much better implementation) lost a similar suit by Apple in 1985 over GEM, which nearly duplicated the Mac GUI, and was forced to change the look of some features and remove others; due to issues of infringing "trade dress." This is sort of like Kodak suing other film manufacturers for boxing their film in packages using the same orange-and-black color scheme. I think there is some merit in protecting a "look" from being exploited by commercial competitors, and GEM was certainly intended to look like the Mac as much as was possible. A shame, really, since it had a lot more going for it, and was in development by a former Xerox PARC employee before the release of the Mac. A few extra hours invested to make it look unique as opposed to identical would have benefited everyone. Interesting reading here: http://www.computernostalgia.net/articles/GEM.htm .

I have used all of these GUIs (and many others) at one time or another. I still have a GEM box sitting on a shelf in my office here at home, just for nostalgia, along with my Ventura Publisher manuals, etc. That was the most productive GUI I ever used on a PC prior to OpenStep.

Re:Jobs must have went by mrxak · 2011-10-25 18:02 · Score: 5, Interesting

Tim Cook is going to get 10 million shares of AAPL if he sticks around another 10 years, so they pretty much have him locked down. Tim Cook is a practical man, but he's a true believer.

Jeff Williams is a Tim Cook operations kind of guy, and without a doubt much of Apple's success was because of operations under Tim Cook. Operations will continue moving along quite well for the foreseeable future.

Jonathan Ive is absolutely a true believer, and Jobs set up Apple to give the man free reign of the company. I don't doubt Jonathan Ive is living his dream job, and he'll stick around as long as they let him and he'll keep the Jobs way going. Realistically, much of Apple's success has been a collaboration between Jobs and Ive, not Jobs alone.

Scott Forstall is probably also living his dream job, I doubt he'd jump ship either, and he's certainly a true believer as well. He's also got a reputation as being rather Jobs-like in his aggression, so he'll be a watchdog as well for Apple culture.

I'm sure Eddy Cue, Bob Mansfield, and Phil Schiller will stick around too, and that pretty much rounds out the executive team.

The Apple board let Steve Jobs pretty much do whatever he wanted during his tenure as CEO when he came back, and he used that power to set up a group of managers and culture under him to carry Apple forward as an innovative company. For all the talk of Jobs being a brutal, nasty boss who bludgeoned people into doing things his way, what that really means is he forced people out that weren't, in his mind, Apple material. The only people left are the true believers.

The spreadsheet monkeys won't have an easy time worming their way back in.

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-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You

Re:How long... by Opportunist · 2011-10-25 18:27 · Score: 1

Oh snap, why didn't he copyright that? He could have cured iHV singlehandedly. Ok, with the help of his legal department.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:How long... by Opportunist · 2011-10-25 18:32 · Score: 1

It was.

Welcome to /.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by bonch · 2011-10-25 18:51 · Score: 1

They're suing Samsung because Samsung is ripping them off. That shot isn't from a iPad.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by sydneyfong · 2011-10-25 18:54 · Score: 1

http://www.slashgear.com/steve-jobs-pledged-thermonuclear-war-on-grand-theft-android-21189861/

âoeI donâ(TM)t want your moneyâ Jobs told Schmidt as the two men met in a cafe in Palo Alto early last year. âoeIf you offer me $5 billion, I wonâ(TM)t want it. Iâ(TM)ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, thatâ(TM)s all I want.â Unsurprisingly no settlement was reached, and the legal battle between Android OEMs and Apple continues to this day.

The lawsuits are about the product, not the profits.

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Don't quote me on this.

Re:Jobs' Legacy Is Shit - Nothing Can Change That by gnasher719 · 2011-10-25 19:10 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure Apple still sells more than 95% of tablets. That 65% figure didn't come from one of the regular market share studies, it was a one off from an analyst and considered Android tablet shipments, not sales. The HP Touchpad failure illustrated the difference between shipments and sales.

I am quite sure Apple's share will drop again when the next company with a product that is half decent, but not quite there with the iPad, is sold with a $300 loss per device. However, every time that happens one of Apple's competitors disappears permanently.

Re:Cue the haters by Rubinstien · 2011-10-25 19:29 · Score: 1

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-jobs-patents.html

He is credited in 317 Apple patents so far. He is principle inventor or designer on 33 of them. I think this list actually misses a number of them from outside of Apple; NeXT filed patents under several different names, among them, NeXT, Inc., NeXT Computer, and NeXT Software. There are also still a boatload of pending patents with his name on them, some as principle inventor.

Re:Here we go by Rubinstien · 2011-10-25 19:37 · Score: 1

No, you aren't. At least, once they put the little dent on the front, it was great. But then, I have small hands, and it fit perfectly well into my palm. I always liked the DEC 'puck' mice too (still have a couple), but they were a little too big and heavy.

Re:Cue the haters by CrackedButter · 2011-10-25 19:41 · Score: 1

The trouble is, those other geniuses need to be explained to the world as nobody knew who they were. Even then, the general public don't care. Sad but true.

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Jonathanjk.com

Re:How long... by beelsebob · 2011-10-25 19:49 · Score: 2

That's... exactly what the story is saying Jobs didn't do. It wasn't "if the big will eat it, I'll give it to him", it was "if we make a really cool interesting meal, not just pigs, but humans too will eat it".

Re:Jobs must have went by istartedi · 2011-10-25 19:53 · Score: 1

Making things people want to buy isn't earth shattering. Finding out what people want before they know *is*.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

To counter balance that though, It looks like Ford never said that and he was eventually forced to give into trends brought by GM. Apple doesn't have the color problem (at least they didn't on the original iMac and on iPods). They certainly have other problems. There are probably things that customers want, and Apple won't give them or can't because it would upset their business model. The next prize goes to whoever can figure out what those things are. Whether they use their imagination or a focus group, it doesn't really matter. If you have a great imagination that trumps focus groups, use that. If you have a room full of analysts who know how to interpret the results from focus groups, and consistantly produce the correct answer, use that.

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For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?

Re:How long... by Hognoxious · 2011-10-25 20:24 · Score: 1

The reality distortion field has become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

Or should that be iMagine?

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

Re:Jobs must have went by im_thatoneguy · 2011-10-25 20:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's the real miracle of Steve Jobs.

It's not that Steve Jobs is particularly exceptional. What's exceptional is that someone like Steve Jobs got into a position of power and authority.

If Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs the designer he would have probably been fired for not playing politics and that would have been the end of it... hell it even happened once! The only reason Steve Jobs was able to be Steve Jobs was because Apple failed miserably and they were desperate. With nothing to lose someone with above average creativity and common sense was able to purge the Excel Jockeys.

Learning from Apple's past mistakes by bkmoore · 2011-10-25 21:53 · Score: 1

Apple, especially in the middle-years under John Sculley released a lot of crippled computers to prevent direct competition between Apple's product lines. The LC / Performa Macs come to mind. I think this product-differentiation strategy annoyed most customers and was one of the reasons Apple almost tanked, because it put blatently profits before usability and expandability. Now days, Apple has much more subtle ways to pull in the money.

Apple is not disrupting their own market by 91degrees · 2011-10-25 22:08 · Score: 1

The iPad didn't disrupt the iMac. Newer models of Apple computers don't distrupt the old ones. Enhancements to existing technology aren't disruptive. Businesses love these. They sell a similar but better product to the same people. And ultimately the iPhone is still an evolution of the iPod, that Apple can sell for more money and sell apps for.

The actual disruptive businesses are the ones where Apple followed. DRM free music suddenly made iTunes/iPod less desirable, and Apple had to drop DRM from iTunes. Android offers the choice of hardware vendors that Apple can't offer. Apple actively resists certain technologies, such as third party enhancements for their existing products. Hell, they don't even want to make it easy to program for the iPhone outside of their set of languages. Think Flash would be desirable? Apple doesn't want it disrupting their marketplace.

The reason this hasn't caused a problem is that none of these technologies is important enough to displace their existing tech. Should someone produce a killer app that works in Flash, and Flash becoem so good that it can compete with the App Store Apple will have this same dilemma as any other innovator.

Re:Cue the haters by syousef · 2011-10-25 22:17 · Score: 1

He is credited in 317 Apple patents so far. He is principle inventor or designer on 33 of them.

He's credited with ending world hunger, curing AIDS and cancer, turning water into wine and walking on water too. Doesn't make it true.

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These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

Re:Jobs must have went by mcvos · 2011-10-25 22:47 · Score: 1

Jobs must have gone to the same low rent executive training program that we send our executives too because making products people want to buy so that you can make money isn't really earth shattering.

Yet a surprising number of companies try to make money by making bad products. Or average products.

Laying off thousands of people, cutting hundreds of product lines to focus on three main products which are beginning to stagnate is hardly 'innovative'. It's hardly a good idea either.

It's certainly not always a good idea, but for Apple it very obviously was. Had they not done that, they wouldn't exist anymore. Now they're the most valuable company in the world. You really need to ignore 20 years worth of data if you want to claim that Steve Jobs' approach was a bad one.

Give Apple another 10 years and we'll see if this "culture of innovation" supposedly created at Apple continues, or it was just one man with a plan that drove their share price.

That depends on whether they manage to continue in the same direction or not. They might deviate too far from this vision, or they might cling to the status quo instead of continuing to create new markets. It's unlikely that they will manage to do as good as they did in the past 10 years, because that kind of unprecedented, spectacular growth requires unique circumstances. But if they've learned from Jobs, then they might manage to stay on top.

I believe very little about this claim of money by Shivetya · 2011-10-25 23:48 · Score: 1

because you don't rack up nearly a hundred billion dollars in reserves if your not trying to make money. They can claim all they want " it is about the items and not the bottom line " but if that were the case they would not be exploiting the price points they are using.

Face it, it goes with the mystique but somewhere under the layers there is the truth and of course there is that near one hundred billion dollars.

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* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.

Re:How long... by m.ducharme · 2011-10-26 00:02 · Score: 1

Even some of us fanboys are getting sick of the media deluge.

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Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.

Re:Jobs must have went by dwightk · 2011-10-26 00:10 · Score: 1

It will be interesting to watch this executive team and if they can continue to make new products rather than milk the old ones, but I agree that they will most likely carry on the culture of Apple. The question is about the next generation: Did Steve include passing that culture on in the culture itself?

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Like anyone can even know that

Re: by taiwanjohn · 2011-10-26 00:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

A lot of modern capitalists seem to misunderstand Adam Smith. Yes, he said that individual ambition serves the common good, but he never said that "profits come first." In fact, Smith defined "wealth" not as money, but in a more holistic way: "the annual produce of the land and labour of the society."

Also, those who argue for lower taxes on the rich and on corporations are certainly not following Smith's advice:

"The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation."

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC

Re:Apple users bug me by romanval · 2011-10-26 01:01 · Score: 1

My 85 year old dad never understood computers, is arthritic and can't even move a mouse. Yet he can use an iPad with minimal guidance. That's pretty much all you need to know.

Re:Jobs must have went by Hognoxious · 2011-10-26 01:05 · Score: 1

Whether or not Ford said it is irrelevant; his actions are what matters.

And he did predict what people would want with the car, in the same was as St Steve of Jobs miraculously did with all the iThings.

Pretty much anything that initially makes people say "why the bloody hell would anyone want one of those!" falls into that category.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

Re:How long... by elrous0 · 2011-10-26 01:15 · Score: 1

Don't worry. He will return any minute now and rapture the Apple faithful to heaven. Gather at Apple stores and repent, people!

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.

Re:Apple users bug me by Murdoch5 · 2011-10-26 01:17 · Score: 1

But he's not an apple user, he makes use of apple technology to fit his needs, I'm talking about true apples users that buy only apple products because there "apple" made. your dad would be able to use a playbook with the same level of comfort.

Re:How long... by elrous0 · 2011-10-26 01:17 · Score: 1

Yey! Embalming fluid tastes like grape!

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.

Re:How long... by SleazyRidr · 2011-10-26 01:21 · Score: 1

But most of those comments are like this thread, discussing whether or not Apple stories should be posted.

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Is 1563649 a prime number?

solved, eh? by StripedCow · 2011-10-26 01:28 · Score: 1

Instead, he created a new "Innovator's dilemma":

What crap patents does my invention infringe upon? How many legal fees will I have to pay to get my product to market?

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If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by Quila · 2011-10-26 01:46 · Score: 1

If this were true, Apple wouldn't be suing Samsung over who owns the rectangle.

Apple was offered billions by Google over Android, and turned it down. To Jobs it was about the product, not the money, and copycats pissed him off.

Re:Jobs must have went by jalefkowit · 2011-10-26 02:02 · Score: 2

Yet a surprising number of companies try to make money by making bad products. Or average products.

Because that strategy works! As long as everyone else is doing the same thing. If the entire market is made up of average-to-bad products, everyone winds up competing on price, and the way to win on price is to cut as many corners as you can possibly get away with, which leads to more average-to-bad products.

Moreover, in many cases like that, one competitor will try to break away from the pack with a superior product, only to find that in most cases people will not pay more for a superior product. They will buy the cheapest alternative that can plausibly appear to meet their needs over more elegant solutions that cost more. This is why our houses are filled with particle-board furniture and appliances that break every three years, unlike our grandparents' houses, which were filled with sturdy (read: expensive) furniture and reliable (read: expensive) appliances.

(Some will argue that a product that doesn't find a market is by definition inferior to one that does, of course, but that line of thinking leads to the conclusion that the Big Mac is the pinnacle of fine cuisine.)

In other words, the interesting thing about Apple from a business perspective isn't that they made better products, it's that they convinced people to pay more for a better product.

--

Read my blog.

Imagine that... by datavirtue · 2011-10-26 02:26 · Score: 2

It is motivation 3.0. The academic world has discovered the FACT that people do not create or innovate based on a motivation of profit (financial rewards). They do it because it brings them joy to be a part of something and create things--expressing themselves. Outlined in Daniel Pink's book, Drive; is the concept that you cannot offer financial rewards (carrots) to creative people--it backfires! This has been documented through various scientific and case studies. I think most of us programmers/developers/designers already know this. Much of our problem with management is their assumption that we must be compelled (extrinsically) to work, just like a laborer.

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I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock

Re:Jobs must have went by sootman · 2011-10-26 02:30 · Score: 1

> People didn't want the iPhone before it was out there.

Sometimes it's also a case of doing things extremely well. Plenty of people DID want smartphones before they were out. (Basically, everyone who owned both a PDA and a cell phone.) I wanted a smartphone before the iPhone came out but all the smartphones that existed at the time were overpriced and underpowered and came with crap software. I had a high-end Axim--with TWICE the resolution of the original iPhone, comparable CPU, and 2 kinds of removable storage--and it sucked out loud in many ways. (Details supplied upon request.) Sure, it was only a PDA, but there were similar phones, and all the smart phones of the day sucked equally.

Another thing Steve was good at was assembling lots of different pieces--bringing it ALL together and making a good PACKAGE, not just a lone good gadget. The iPhone would not have been the success it was if he hadn't pushed AT&T to offer a cellular data plan at a reasonable price. Why didn't I own a smartphone before the iPhone? Because they lacked both reasonable data plans and had crap browsers. If they would have had one or the other, they STILL would not have been compelling. It takes someone with the big-picture vision like Jobs to make it all happen.

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Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.

Re:How long... by datavirtue · 2011-10-26 02:40 · Score: 1

Google is evil? [citation needed]

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I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock

Re:Jobs must have went by grub · 2011-10-26 02:45 · Score: 1

Great points all.

Jobs spent years embedding his way of doing things into Apple's way of doing things. I think the majority of people at the VP level and up have to be true believers to get where they are. Compare that to most other companies where it's "Just a Job", the resultant work speaks for itself. I don't doubt that any of the SVPs at Apple would do a good job at running any company in their respective fields.

Tangent: I wrote Apple in 1981 for a job and including some 6502 assembly code I had written among other stuff. Actually received a reply to the effect of "We can't hire 15 year olds, but we love what you can do. Try again when you're 18." I never did try again, but have this nagging What-If in my head.

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Trolling is a art,

Please go ahead thinking that... by Brannon · 2011-10-26 03:14 · Score: 1

Apple's market position is in absolutely no risk so long as all potential competitors think that their success is all about 'marketing'.

You've now proven that you know nothing about both business and technology. Presumably you are good at something else? gardening maybe?

If profit is king by gr8_phk · 2011-10-26 05:11 · Score: 1

If a CEO thinks "making money" is what the company is all about, he should sell all the assets and turn it into a hedge fund. Once you acknowledge that you're going to make money by making some product, then by all means do a good job at making that product. Or providing a service or whatever.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by PintoPiman · 2011-10-26 05:20 · Score: 1

I truly believe Steve cared about his products beyond the profit

If this were true, Apple wouldn't be suing Samsung over who owns the rectangle.

1. Enough of the stupid straw man "can't patent a rectangle bullshit." You're either a retard or a troll if that's the best understanding you can muster. Lady Gaga can't restrict the use of the letters 'l', 'a', 'd', 'y' or 'g', or any of the 12 notes in the scale, so I guess that means someone else can go on tour, call themselves "Lady Gaga" and play all her songs... Trade dress isn't one thing, it's a combination of things. And if you can't see that Samsung copied a combination of things, well you're fanboyism has made you blind.

2. Getting into a legal war with Samsung (a major supplier of Apple's - how do you think Samsung "designed" their stuff?) is probably easier to justify as a commitment to product than profit. A patent war is expensive for everybody, and a loss leaves Apple poorer and still being copied. OTOH, If Steve was passionate about the thing he'd made, he'd be more pissed off when one of his business partners took his notes and then went to market with a clone. A pure profiteer would be happy to have a big slice of a big pie. A product guy would be pissed that all his work was being stolen by the folks he'd trusted to build it.

3. This arm-chair lawyering in the comments is starting to feel like a bunch of pissy apple haters. If you want an iPhone, buy an iPhone. If you want an iPhone but hate Apple and therefore need an iPhone that was made by Samsung? Well, get them while you can, but don't bitch when Apple defends its creations. If you wanted competition in the marketplace, you'd get something that could, at a distance of 10 feet, actually be distinguished from the thing that you say you hate.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by s73v3r · 2011-10-26 06:07 · Score: 1

Jobs solved the innovation dilemma by having a lot of engineers circled around him.

You're forgetting the other part: Actually empowering them and listening to them.

There are many, many companies that are filled with competent, some even great, engineers. It's just whether the business will actually listen to them, and give them the tools needed to make successful products.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by s73v3r · 2011-10-26 06:13 · Score: 1

Ugh, what's even worse is when the sales/marketing people are treated as the only ones that actually make money, and everyone else is a cost center. You cannot treat the people that actually make your product, and make your company successful, as a cost center.

Re: by taiwanjohn · 2011-10-26 06:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

IIRC, Smith said taxes should be "easy," which doesn't necessarily mean small or large. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that he would advocate "high" taxes, just that he favored progressive tax rates. In the current (US) political climate, a lot of people are talking about a flat tax, or other regressive schemes, and justify this on the theory of "supply side" economics. You know, we can't "punish the job creators" and all that... Smith would have laughed at such talk.

Basically, we had a very progressive tax system from WWII through the 70's. And that period was a golden age for the USA, just as Smith would have predicted. Rich people still had their mansions, yachts, and limos (or "opulence" as Smith might have put it), and the government managed to build infrastructure, provide services and offer inexpensive education, all without running up massive debts and deficits. And (except for women and minorities) everyone was pretty happy with the situation. Businesses thrived, workers enjoyed generous pensions and health benefits, and opportunities abounded.

Since then we've dabbled with various levels of less progressive schemes. (The income tax is progressive, but when you consider sales tax, gas tax, property tax, etc., the total tax burden is still highest on the middle class.) The idea was that "job creators" would have more money, and therefore they would create more jobs. But they didn't always do that. Increasingly they found it easier to "gamble" their extra cash on stocks and securities. So while the government was running up historic deficits, there was an excess of "hot money" in the markets, leading to speculation and bubble formation.

Oh, and let's not forget deregulation... another exaggeration of Smith's ideas, which gave us the S&L crisis in the 80's and the "Great Recession" of 2008.

But that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish...

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC

Sony was successful because of marketing? by Brannon · 2011-10-26 07:48 · Score: 1

Is that what you are implying? I think Sony is an excellent example for the point of the article. When Sony developed their walkman they were focused on maximizing customer value with a great product, and the profit followed. After that, the MBAs took over and they (a) stagnated, and (b) focused on customer lockin--and the profit went away.

They probably toyed with the idea of creating a iPod-like thing, but refused to do it because they didn't want it to cut into CD sales.

Re:Jobs must have went by AK+Marc · 2011-10-26 08:11 · Score: 1

"Smartphones" were around years before phones were smart. I remember putting in alarms (like a calendar) on an old analog phone in the early '90s. Having features doesn't make them "smart" unless those features are ones people like and want to use. Smartphone features were largely ignored on the iPhone. With the Windows Mobile (PDAs with phone, from long before iPhone), they focused on being a poor desktop extension "just good enough" so that you'd use it occassionally, but didn't do anything new/better/different than other phones if you were sitting at your desktop. The iPhone is a device people sitting at a computer will pull out and use. They made it easy to use where I've seen someone at their computer pull out an iPhone to write a short email, rather than loading up their email on the desktop and typing it out. That's the win. Not just apps/music, but usability. I'd assert that if they didn't have iTunes/music on the iPhone, it would still have been a success (even if not as large of one) because the rest of the phone was what people were expecting from all the others, and nobody else delivered.

--
Learn to love Alaska

Steve may have learned this from Lord Acton by Mysticeti · 2011-10-26 08:34 · Score: 1

"I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money. "
-- Lord Acton

Make parents pay for it... by sirroc · 2011-10-26 08:34 · Score: 1

Why not make parents pay for it? Up until 2010 high school in Japan was not 'free'. Take a typical class of 30 kids charge them $2k/year for extended hours. That is $60,000 per avg. class size. Even with a 50% attrition you still have enough money to pay for that 30% increase. Its not a panacea but it would do the job.

Student apathy is the major player in this; and parents whom want their kids to learn or kids that NEED that time could surely see a difference. Recently I've heard rumblings about Chicago (CPS) wanting to SHORTEN the school week to 4 days. While the mayor is getting huge pushback from the union about wanting/imposing longer school days.

Re:Jobs must have went by Jack+Fat · 2011-10-26 08:42 · Score: 1

Because that strategy works! As long as everyone else is doing the same thing. If the entire market is made up of average-to-bad products, everyone winds up competing on price, and the way to win on price is to cut as many corners as you can possibly get away with, which leads to more average-to-bad products.

Moreover, in many cases like that, one competitor will try to break away from the pack with a superior product, only to find that in most cases people will not pay more for a superior product.

It's not just cutting corners to save money. In many cases it's refusing to move to a different technology because the profit comes from something the technology consumes (which the end-user must continue to purchase). Vacuum cleaner bags, ink cartridges, proprietary laptop batteries, etc.

Dyson's marketing frequently tells the story of how James Dyson couldn't sell his invention because companies manufacturing vacuums didn't want to introduce a bagless vacuum and lose the revenue to be had selling bags. (I'd include a link to a mention on the official Dyson site, but the damn thing is all Flash.)

Every Dyson vacuum owner I know of (including myself) is something of a Dyson fanboi, and Dyson employs very Apple-like tactics selling its products: They are more expensive, but they actually perform better than all the competition, they are well-designed, arguably "sexy," and, most importantly, they tend to perform so much better than the other available products that the end-user winds up with an emotional attachment to the product or brand because the product met or exceeded their expectations and experience. Part of convincing people to pay more for a better product is making the product so good that the people who bought it without needing to be convinced can help you convince the next batch of consumers. It's making products that can turn customers into fanbois.

I'm annoyed by Apple fanboism like many other people here, and there are manifestations of it that are not rational at all, but at the core a lot of it is exactly like my Dyson fanboism: I wanted a product that did X in the most elegant and useful way possible, and holy shit does this product ever do X! I'll never buy anything else to do X again!

Re:Cue the haters by Jack+Fat · 2011-10-26 08:58 · Score: 1

Ha ha I knew fanbois could get irrational about Jobs, but the one who gave him credit for curing cancer really went above and beyond.

Wasn't Jobs' title "interim CEO"... by Radical+Moderate · 2011-10-26 10:56 · Score: 1

...when he returned? When they call you "interim", it ain't cause you got a lot of political capital. I recall a lot of skepticism when he first returned, though I'll admit he probably had some leeway because Apple was so desperate. But if he hadn't started hitting home runs right off the bat, he wouldn't have lasted long.

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Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.

Re:Wasn't Jobs' title "interim CEO"... by khallow · 2011-10-27 02:55 · Score: 1

Yea, that doesn't strike me as a solid job position.

Re:Cherry picking Jobs (correction) by Tablizer · 2011-10-26 12:46 · Score: 1

correction: "we have to become..."

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Table-ized A.I.

Re:How long... by hairyfeet · 2011-10-26 14:14 · Score: 1

I hate to break it to ya, but what Jobs did was appeal to vanity. Everybody WANTS to be rich, or at least make OTHERS feel they are doing better than them. Its called keeping up with the Joneses and living next to what used to be an Apple heavy college (it isn't anymore because Jobs missed a crucial market, the college kids. They found the iPad couldn't really do schoolwork and nobody wanted to risk something as expensive as an Air to lug to class so netbooks and small laptops have taken over) and I have actually watched a couple of guys nearly come to blows over which was "cooler" the air or the top o' the line MBP.

Now don't get me wrong, not saying the man didn't make quality gear because he obviously did, just look at what happened to the Gap when they tried to keep prices high while selling poor quality products. But you have to admit a LOT of what made Apple under Steve was the IMAGE he projected of the company, the whole "cool wealthy thinks outside the box" image he pushed with the think different and Mac VS PC ads. Its no different than how Porsche tried to sell an entry level car and found ALL their sales tank. if Porsche wasn't expensive then their customers simply didn't want it.

let me put it THIS way, can you picture ANY other brand where one could sell a mobile app that simply shown a red jewel and said "I'm rich" and costs $10,000 and actually SELL ANY of them at all? Can you picture that on Android? WinPhone? To say such a thing with those brands sounds like a bad joke, but Apple? frankly it doesn't even sound far fetched.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.

Re:Buncha Apple Fanbois by antifoidulus · 2011-10-26 15:18 · Score: 1

And you are an idiot who completely missed the point, and also seem to assume that you are a better engineer than Woz, which you aren't. GEt over yourself.

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Monstar L

Re:f*** by DocSavage64109 · 2011-10-27 03:37 · Score: 1

What is with the ****-ton of posts criticizing people for not saying FUCK FUCK FUCK lately? I've seen at least 5 in the last month.

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How Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator's Dilemma

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