1990 era
By Rahul
- 8 IG A
“Good artists copy, great artists steal” Steve
Jobs was a great artist. For example, he took he mouse from XEROX and embedded
it into the Macintosh. He was an entrepreneur who took big risks. You won’t
even imagine how Apple struggled during the time. But still, Steve Jobs brought
the company back to the way it is today. Let’s see how this genius brought
Apple back from near bankruptcy in the 1990 era.
The new
CEO
Steve
Jobs was a very dynamic person. He could hire people easily.
At
the time, he wasn’t that confident in leading the company. As a result of
which, he went down to the CEO of Pepsi.Co, John Sculley. Although he didn’t
agree to run the company at first, Steve’s next line changed his mind. You
might have heard it - “DO you want to spend the rest of your life selling
sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”
Things were going fine until Steve and John got
into a fight about the Macintosh. They couldn’t get to a final decision, so
they went up to the board. The board needed to some time to decide. The
decision later made wasn’t good. It was one of the biggest mistakes made. Steve
Jobs, the founder of Apple, was asked to step down as leader of Macintosh team.
Eventually, Steve stepped out of the company he founded. The upcoming road for
Apple wan’t a good one, it had lots of potholes and bumps.
NeXT
A competitor to Apple arises, founded by the
founder of Apple. The company was called NeXT.
As
Apple rapidly went downhill, Steve Jobs founded another company, NeXT.In the
hardware department, NeXT didn’t hold a large place. But it shined in the
software department.It’s software, NeXTSTEP. It’s OS was far more advanced than
any OS at the time.It’s customers loved it, unlike Apple, which was loosing it’s
customers.
During that time, Apple was struggling,
struggling to retail it’s market share and revenue. It was on the path to
bankruptcy. The reason was simple: it’s product line. It’s product line was
confusing and disorganized. Each product has a dozen model numbers making it
hard to decide on what to buy. Which lead to customers moving away.
The
launch of new Products
NeXT was growing in the software department,
while Apple accelerates downhill.
Since John Sculley came as CEO of Apple, he
introduced a flood of Macintosh models. It consisted of confusing product
models that confused customers a whole lot more. The number if customers buying
Apple’s products decreased further and further.As the year passed by, it became
more and more bankrupt.
It got to the point where Apple was going to fade
into history any day. And it would have happened if the board hadn’t done something
about it.
Post-Sculley
The way
things were going, Apple had to fire Sculley.
After Sculley, a wave of new CEOs came and faded
away. But when Gil Amelio came, is when everything changed. Gil Amelio made a
big decision, to buy NeXT. There reason was to make MacOS even better. The only
other company which got software right at the time, was NeXT. But the biggest
thing about the purchase, would be that Steve Jobs would come back as CEO of
Apple.
Steve
Jobs returns as CEO
In July of 1997, Steve Jobs took his first step
into Apple after returning as CEO.
It was astonishing that he got kicked out of his
own company that he founded. But behind it all, it was kind of his fault. In an
interview in 2002, he admitted “I hired the wrong guy…”.
Right after getting into his office, he started work. He wanted to organize and
clean up the product line. It was now disorganized and messy It made customers
confused about what to buy. One product had quite a few model numbers, which
made it all that more confusing.
Steve
Jobs started from scratch, removing all the current products. He made a simple
2x2 square box, which later would be filled with the top-sell-ing products of
the time. Not only that, it would get Apple back in shape.
iMac,
Gets Apple back in shape
Since Steve cam back, he had a goal: refine the
product line and get Apple back in shape. He did that.
In 1998, the iMac came along. It’s unique design,
oddly shaped mouse and fantastic user interface asked for attention. The iMac
redefined what a computer should be and it changed the industry, making the top
selling computers look small and bad. It became the top-selling computer. The
iMac sold like hotcakes.
It was so popular, they next year they made the
rainbow iMac. It came in a wide variety of bright colours that sold even
better.
In that time, Apple filled up the other 3 boxes
with other great products. Such as the iBook, PowerMac etc.
You
see how Apple struggled and was brought back to the company we know today. If
someone who has only seen today's Apple, and hears this story, they wouldn’t
believe it.
Around 1995,
Apple, almost out of sight, now one of the top companies of the world. Apple is
the world’s largest company by Market Cap. It wouldn’t be the company we know
today, if it weren’t for that moment.
Sources
Sources
Wikipedia: www.wikipedia.com/wiki/steve_
No comments:
Post a Comment