How did Apple do it? By 1997, Apple was keeling over, and believed to only have less than a decade before it disappears ignominiously into obscurity. Then Steve Jobs came back on-board in the same year, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, Apple is considered as one of the most valuable company, if not the most, in the world. It has a stock valuation of over USD$500 billion, and a cash reserve of nearly USD$150 billion. No other company, except Google perhaps, has such influence, and leverage in the technology industry.
It was Steve Jobs who rescued Apple from the brink; and one his central tenets is to 'keep it simple.' By streamlining, and 'keeping the product line simple', Apple was able to concentrate resources of products with market viability in their respective target demographics. He passed away in 2011, but his legacy, and impact in the world of consumer hardware and software cannot be denied.
There are other strategies Apple pursued under Steve Jobs, and these are the following:
- Make Apple’s design a game changer again … by returning to the classic values of “simple is best,” invigorating the products through fresh ideas, and re-focusing the overstretched product lineup.
- Make peace with Microsoft and Bill Gates. The Macintosh platform had been eroded to low single-digits market share, and Apple needed to tap into the life-saving software suite, Microsoft Office. Therefore Steve had to repair Apple’s relationship with Microsoft. In the “peace talks” that followed, Bill Gates actually came to Steve’s family home in Palo Alto and, during several walks around the block the two men forged the beginnings of a working relationship. Afterward, Microsoft invested $50 million in Apple. The announcement of their alliance at the MacWorld conference in Boston was greeted with boos from Apple’s die-hard fans, but both the alliance and Microsoft’s support built trust in the marketplace — and helped Apple’s battered balance sheet.
- Make Apple a leader in “digital consumer technology” by converging “consumer electronics” into digital technology and media content. Convergence already was a reality; computing and communication were converging, along with media content from information to music to movies, with the Internet and the Worldwide Web providing an asynchronous distribution platform. Within the new marketplace these advancements were creating, Steve’s biggest concern was Sony, [which], as a leader in micro-electronics that also owned Sony Music and Sony Studios, could be Apple’s most dangerous competitor. But … Sony was asleep at the wheel, as was Samsung and a number of mobile phone companies such as Motorola and Nokia, who were expected to move into the emerging market of universal digital convergence. These companies made good and well-designed products, but they didn’t understand that they actually were putting computers into people’s hands, which could enable them for a totally new experience and culture. . . . We advised Steve to take on the competition with a product strategy focused on people’s real needs and proven innovations — a strategy that would avoid stupid risks. Instead of looking for inspiration in the developments of its existing and potential competitors in the space of consumer technology — whether Dell, HP, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Samsung, Canon, or others — Apple needed to focus on creating new ways to exploit the potential of proven technology to fulfill people’s unrealized dreams. In fact, Apple had to make real the dreams people didn’t know were dreamable.
- Create a Virtual Apple “community.” By connecting its customers, followers and fans and enabling them to communicate with each other, Apple could establish its brand beyond technology, as part of a lifestyle. In that environment, innovation would be defined by what people could achieve with an Apple product, rather than by the product’s level of advanced technology.
- Out-innovate and integrate television, audio and communication into a new paradigm. We projected that digital technology was going to replace analog line-interlace standards in television (NTSC, SECAM and PAL) and so Apple should create its magic and put away with the primitive user interfaces that still reigned in those technologies. Sound had already made the digital leap, both in 44.1KHz CDs and 92KHz PCM tapes.
- Explore and pioneer smart physical-virtual devices and useful robotics. We encouraged Steve to make Apple interfaces “human,” with controls activated by gestures, speech and emotional sounds. We also recommended that Apple form strategic partnerships for co-creation with MIT and other top universities around the world with programs in mechatronics, nano technology and advanced brain research.
- (Jonathan Ive’s and Thomas Mayerhoffer’s sensational iMac design would become the urgently needed game changer, and Jonathan Ive also would reconnect Apple’s design approach to its Snow White roots. Steve made the right move and had Jonathan Ive working as an Executive Vice President directly with him. Again, leadership in design was at the top, and ranked equally with all other top executives at Apple. . . . There is no other way to make design the core of a human-centric company.”
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