Steve Jobs resigns!

[Jason]

Glad to see Cook is taking the bull by the horns at Apple

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by Jason

Glad to see Cook is taking the bull by the horns at Apple

Canceling their phones and tablets to focus on printers? Cook totally stole that idea from HP.

[Deftones]

I don't see how anyone can consider a product released to mass market a "hobby" for the CEO of a company. Yeah, will it may have been a hobby for him to work on, once it becomes a product, it's not a hobby anymore.

[Jay G.]

That Onion article reminded me that Apple used to make printers. Back when we had an Apple IIGS, we has an Apple ImageWriter II dot-matrix printer that could print in color. I used the hell out of that machine.

Any idea on why Apple dropped out of the printer market. From what I could find on Wikipedia, their last LaserWriter printer was released in 1997, and it just mentions increased competition as a reason. Were printers something Jobs terminated when he returned to Apple?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageWriter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter

[al_bundy]

Originally Posted by Jay G.

That Onion article reminded me that Apple used to make printers. Back when we had an Apple IIGS, we has an Apple ImageWriter II dot-matrix printer that could print in color. I used the hell out of that machine.

Any idea on why Apple dropped out of the printer market. From what I could find on Wikipedia, their last LaserWriter printer was released in 1997, and it just mentions increased competition as a reason. Were printers something Jobs terminated when he returned to Apple?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageWriter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter

the #1 rule of business according to Jack Welch. if you aren't #1 or #2 in a market with a product, get out of that market. Apple is #1 in terms of profit share in computers, tablets, PMP's and tablets. and apple doesn't believe in taking a loss on the main product to make it up in consumables. they make a profit on everything they sell

[Deftones]

somehow i doubt apple was #1 or #2 in profits for computers 10 years ago, yet they continued along in that market.

[CRM114]

Originally Posted by Shazam

A decade? No way, nothing changes in IT in a decade. Way to put yourself out there

We aren't talking eMachines or Gateway 2000. We are talking about a behemoth juggernaut company with a stranglehold on phones, portable electronics, and the music industry. So, yes, 10 years is pretty significant.

[al_bundy]

Originally Posted by Deftones

somehow i doubt apple was #1 or #2 in profits for computers 10 years ago, yet they continued along in that market.

that was their major source of revenue back then. even with the ipod in the middle of the last decade most revenue still came from Mac's.

[CRM114]

I don't think Jobs really cared too much about the side products. MobileMe was an attempt to monetize what everyone was doing for free. Ping was some lame attempt to jump into the social networking sphere. Jobs would even goof on how shitty MobileMe was in his keynotes. He knew but his team couldn't deliver.

Now the iPhone and iPad. You know Jobs was all over that and absolutely would not release them until it met his expectations.

The Cube was a precursor to the downsizing of the desktop. I think Jobs intentions were good but they couldn't manufacture them at a reasonable cost. It's price is what killed it, not the design itself. The design is pretty awesome actually. I have one (I got it off the scrap heap, I didn't buy one. )

[nevermind]

Originally Posted by al_bundy

that was their major source of revenue back then. even with the ipod in the middle of the last decade most revenue still came from Mac's.

Which has nothing to do with your original post. Apple's major source of revenue in 1997 was macs != #1 or #2 in profits for computers in 1997

[CRM114]

Just makes a point that Jack Welch is a moron. Like Michael Dell.

[al_bundy]

Originally Posted by nevermind

Which has nothing to do with your original post. Apple's major source of revenue in 1997 was macs != #1 or #2 in profits for computers in 1997

and common sense says when most of your revenue comes from a product you don't dump it even if it's not doing well in the marketplace

they dumped almost everything else since it wasn't making any money and turned the Mac around to where they used it to fund future products.

they dumped servers last year because they weren't doing very well
rumor is that they are going to dump the Mac Pro, but i don't believe it
and they just repositioned FCP X from the very high end of the market to be aimed at the middle range of the market

[al_bundy]

Originally Posted by CRM114

I don't think Jobs really cared too much about the side products. MobileMe was an attempt to monetize what everyone was doing for free. Ping was some lame attempt to jump into the social networking sphere. Jobs would even goof on how shitty MobileMe was in his keynotes. He knew but his team couldn't deliver.

Now the iPhone and iPad. You know Jobs was all over that and absolutely would not release them until it met his expectations.

The Cube was a precursor to the downsizing of the desktop. I think Jobs intentions were good but they couldn't manufacture them at a reasonable cost. It's price is what killed it, not the design itself. The design is pretty awesome actually. I have one (I got it off the scrap heap, I didn't buy one. )

that morphed into the Mini. They just didn't market it properly by pushing it to the business/professional customers who keep a machine for a long time and upgrade it

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by al_bundy

the #1 rule of business according to Jack Welch. if you aren't #1 or #2 in a market with a product, get out of that market. Apple is #1 in terms of profit share...

I'm pretty sure that Jack Welch was referring to market share, not "profit share," which is nebulous and nearly impossible to know.

Also, Welch applied the #1 or #2 rule for GE, but he doesn't say that every company should work this way:
http://www.welchway.com/Principles/Differentiation.aspx

Every company has strong businesses or product lines and weak ones, and some in between. Differentiation requires managers to know which is which and invest accordingly.

To do that, of course, you have to have a clear-cut definition of “strong.” At GE, “strong” meant a business was #1 or #2 in its market. If it wasn’t, the managers had to fix it, sell it, or as a last resort, close it. Other companies have different frameworks for investment decisions. They only put their money and time into businesses or product lines that promise double-digit sales growth, for instance. Or they only invest in businesses or product lines with a 15 percent (or better) discounted rate of return (DCRR).

Now, we generally don’t like investment criteria that are financial in nature, like DCRR, because the numbers can be jiggered so easily by changing the residual value, or any other number of assumptions, in an investment proposal. But our point is the same: differentiation among your businesses or product lines requires a transparent framework that everyone in the company understands. People may not like it, but they know it and they manage with it.

Note that even at GE, they didn't automatically drop a product line if it wasn't #1 or #2. Fixing a product line was also an option, although that article doesn't detail how long of a chance a line was given to be fixed.

Originally Posted by Deftones

somehow i doubt apple was #1 or #2 in profits for computers 10 years ago, yet they continued along in that market.

That was Apple's only real product line 10 years ago. They would've had to have closed up shop if they had cut all the products in markets they weren't #1 or #2 in.

Even now, they're only #3 in US sales, and not even #5 in worldwide sales of PCs.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...mains-soft.ars

[kefrank]

Originally Posted by Jay G.

That Onion article reminded me that Apple used to make printers. Back when we had an Apple IIGS, we has an Apple ImageWriter II dot-matrix printer that could print in color. I used the hell out of that machine.

Apple IIGS was our first home computer when I was a kid and I was pretty obsessed with it. I played Tetris, Prince of Persia, Space Quest and Lode Runner on that thing like there was no tomorrow. (I never had a game console as a kid, so the IIGS was my first real foray into gaming).

I also messed around with a little bit of BASIC programming on it. I'm sure whatever I coded up at the time was incredibly lame, but at 11 years old, I can pinpoint that as the experience that spawned what is now my career in computer engineering. Good memories.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by CRM114

I don't think Jobs really cared too much about the side products. MobileMe was an attempt to monetize what everyone was doing for free. Ping was some lame attempt to jump into the social networking sphere. Jobs would even goof on how shitty MobileMe was in his keynotes. He knew but his team couldn't deliver.

This sounds like rationalizing to me: "The flops are ok because they were only side projects". Keep in mind that the iPod was originally a "side project."

Also, if true, it's pretty condemning of both Apple and Steve Jobs. It implies that unless Jobs gave a product his full attention, Apple would screw it up and release a terrible product. This is damning for Apple, who now without Jobs will logically release flop after flop. And it's damning for Steve Jobs, since he allowed products that he knew he didn't give his attention to out into the market.

The point still remains that there were several flops while Jobs was CEO. Was he visionary? Certainly. He wasn't infallible though.

Originally Posted by CRM114

Now the iPhone and iPad. You know Jobs was all over that and absolutely would not release them until it met his expectations.

The iPad was released too soon. It took them over half a year to get a fully functional version of iOS onto it. Of course, since it was Apple and was really the first moderately affordable tablet, and could leverage Apple's existing App Store, people bought it anyway and put up with its shortcomings until they were fixed. Android tablets are in a similar boat right now, but since those manufacturers aren't Apple, people are more willing to wait until the OS is fully developed before paying several hundred for a tablet (or just go with the more developed iPad).

And the iPod line had flops with Jobs as CEO, such as the 3rd generation iPod Shuffle, where they removed the buttons from the device. Now, I don't know if it was a flop financially, but when the 4th gen iPod shuffle returned to the look of the 2nd gen shuffle, you know that Apple knew they effed up.

was a precursor to the downsizing of the desktop. I think Jobs intentions were good but they couldn't manufacture them at a reasonable cost. It's price is what killed it, not the design itself. The design is pretty awesome actually. I have one (I got it off the scrap heap, I didn't buy one. )[/quote]

Originally Posted by al_bundy

[The Cube] morphed into the Mini. They just didn't market it properly by pushing it to the business/professional customers who keep a machine for a long time and upgrade it

The Cube cost more than any Mac Pro, yet was less powerful than the least expensive Mac Pro. The only thing it had going for it was aesthetics.

Now, the Mac Mini had a similarly reduced form factor, but also came with a significantly reduced price tag: cheaper than any other Mac. It allows Apple to have an "entry-level" Mac on the market, without eating into the sales of their other PCs too much.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Jay G.

The Cube cost more than any Mac Pro, yet was less powerful than the least expensive Mac Pro. The only thing it had going for it was aesthetics.

The cube was $1799. The entry level Mac Pro has always been around $2499.

What killed the cube was poor marketing. It was introduced at the same time as the $3000 Cinema Display, and all the ads showed the cube hooked to one. Although they never said it, it was strongly implied that the cube required a cinema display.

Plus, the case cracked easily, destroying the illusion that this magical kleenex box was floating in mid-air.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by Jason

The cube was $1799. The entry level Mac Pro has always been around $2499.

My bad. Here's what I was thinking of:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...ac_g4_400.html

...costing more than the cheapest PowerMac G4, the 8"x8"x10" Cube was positioned somewhere between iMacs and PowerMacs when it came to power and functionality.

The PowerMac G4 400's original price was $1599:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...ac_g4_400.html

Of course, the Cube was less powerful than that PowerMac. The Mac Pro line replaced the PowerMac when Apple switched to Intel processors.

[Matto1020]

From TMZ... he looks awful

[Traxan]

I really wish you hadn't posted that. I am so disgusted with TMZ right now.

[edstein]

Cancer has no price tag.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by CRM114

We aren't talking eMachines or Gateway 2000. We are talking about a behemoth juggernaut company with a stranglehold on phones, portable electronics, and the music industry. So, yes, 10 years is pretty significant.

MS, Nokia, Sun, Netscape and Wang Computers would like to have a chat with you.

And Apple doesn't have a stranglehold on the phone market. Android does - by basically destroying Nokia in NA.

[nevermind]

Originally Posted by Traxan

I am so disgusted with TMZ right now.

Just right now?

[Deftones]

why is steve jobs wearing a skirt?

[nevermind]

I refuse to see if TMZ posted any back story to it. I'm not giving any paparazzi shitbags any clicks.



A coworker of who died from his esophagus cancer spreading to his liver couldn't wear pants to work the last 3 weeks he was there. The pressure was simply too painful. He did something similar.

Or he was leaving treatment and it could very well be his own hospital gown.