34: Steve Jobs

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  • Posted By: Fakecommentator @ 12/20/2008 5:21:54 PM

    What is the purpose of this "article"? I mean really, have you no integrety whatsoever? The sentence "later, word leaked that Jobs had undergone surgery in the spring," as you well know when you wrote that sentence, purposely misleads the reader to assume that the surgery addressed a recurrence of cancer -- what the whole construction of the paragraph is taking great pains to imply -- when in fact in all likelihood it was to address nutritional deficiencies that are a well known side-effect of the Whipple procedure he underwent to treat the original cancer. No one has ever been able to substantiate a recurrence of cancer, but you are all too happy to insinuate it.

    Fears were only flamed by so-called journalists with nothing substantial to write, so they have to manufacture drama. What you again conspicuously did not mention is that not only is he not giving the keynote but Apple is pulling out of the trade show all together after this year. Cringely has the best explanation I've read. That the whole this smacks up Jobs snubbing the trade show because he probably did not get some demand he wanted. That's why he is not only sending Phil in his place (probably because stuff is already paid for this year so no sense to completely pull out now) but that Apple announce in the press rather dramatically that it's never going back. (Otherwise, why announce that now if not to stick it to the trade show? As a part of some elaborate Apple subterfuge?) The "asked about Jobs' health" sentence is also skewed to insinuate Apple is hiding something.

    How many of these bogus death-watch articles are you going to write? Isn't this like the third one this year?

  • Posted By: scarletscar @ 12/20/2008 4:58:42 PM

    i don't get how he got booted out of the company in '85 and then bought pixar in '86

  • Posted By: jabberwolf @ 12/20/2008 4:46:41 PM

    So basically you know as well as the rest of those in the REAL computer world that steve jobs is only a marketer to the lemming masses.
    He is VERY replacable to those that know better, but to the trendy sheep, he is unreplacable. Well if image is anything, the loss of Steve Jobs to Apple being signifigant just proves how much Apple is mostly is image.

  • Posted By: BiobotCoop @ 12/20/2008 4:22:31 PM

    MrSatyre is correct and the author is clueless. I worked for Apple during this period. After nearly running Apple into the ground Steve was fired. He went on to start NeXT, a high end Unix-based engineering workstation that was a total failure in the marketplace. When Steve, still Apple's largest shareholder, was rehired to return to Apple part of the deal was that Apple spend about 70 million USD to buy him a private corporate jet and that they pay a premium for NeXT.

    He did take over Pixar and turn it into a success.

    In his waning days at Apple Steve refused to permit any investment in the Apple II, which was the company's lifeblood. He went so far as to hang a pirate flag over the Mac development building. And this is while he was the Chairman of the Board.

    The Apple II succeeded in large part because Apple believed in opening the architecture to third party hardware and software developers. Once IBM came along Apple's response was the Apple III, which was closed to 3rd party developers of hardware. It took Apple 3 years to release a software developers guide! The Apple III was a colossal failure. He went on to head up the Lisa, the Mac's precursor with engineers hired from Xerox PARC. This too was closed to 3rd party developers and it too was a total flop. Steve has a real problem with sharing the wealth even though that is how Apple succeeded.

    Eventually the Mac did succeed despite Jobs' fighting the Internet every step of the way. It was the Internet that allowed the Mac to succeed since the Internet does not require Windows compatibility.

    The Newton was Apple's answer to the PDA market and it too was a total failure in the market. Granted the iPod has been a screaming success. But please, Steve is no demigod and Apple will survive without him.

  • Posted By: MrSatyre @ 12/20/2008 3:49:27 PM

    I'm no Apple or Jobs expert, but wasn't Pixar always a software company and not a hardware company? I recall using Pixar Typestry graphics software a looooooong time ago, way before Toy Story. And I recall Next being the specialized hardware company Jobs started after being booted from Apple. I don't remember Pixar ever being renamed, let alone selling hardware. But then, what do I know? Maybe it's not the same Pixar???

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