Steve’s Two Jobs by Michael Krantz and

Meet the New Macintosh by Joshua Quittner

Time Magazine, October 18, 1999

Know your customers and what they want.

Product quality is more important than quantity.

Profile of Steve Jobs:

· Pixar Chairman

· Apple Computer interim-CEO-for-life

· Embodies personal computer revolution

· Infamously fiery, with anger-management issues. Many Apple employees still fear getting in an elevator with him, lest they get fired before they reach their floor

Steve Jobs: Version 1.0

No management training, no business skills, “my way or the highway”.

Departed from Apple in mid-’80s.

Steve Jobs: Version 2.0

Returned to Apple after a succession of vision-free CEOs had left the company coasting on fumes of past innovation, with a convoluted welter of products and no idea who its customers were.

Jobs replaced about 75% of the management team.

Jobs slashed back to four product lines:

• A laptop for consumers - iBook
• A desktop for consumers - iMac: Ordered his design team to make Macs look hot again. The iMac DV Special Edition has a classy “graphite” color and a clear plastic casing that lets you ogle its innards.
• A laptop for professional users – Macintosh PowerBook
• A desktop for professional users - Power Mac

Jobs has a messianic zeal for his vision of Apple as the bridge between the average citizen and the mysterious world of the computer

“The roots of Apple were to build computers for people, not for corporations,” Jobs says. “The world doesn’t need another Dell or Compaq.”

Single-Minded Pursuit of Quality and Excellence

• There has been a return to excellence in design and to listening to the consumer.
• Apple is now a model of manufacturing efficiency, reducing inventory from $2 billion in early ‘96 to $17 million today.
• The industrial design team defined the new Apple by creating the smash-hit candy-colored Mac - a rare blend of hot tech and cool aesthetics.

Pixar and Disney

In 1986, Jobs bought a stake in the digital animation studio Pixar.

Pixar Animation Studios produced Toy Story and A Bug’s Life.

Toy Story made Pixar the first serious threat to Disney’s 60-year monopoly on big-ticket animated films. Toy Story 2 now being promoted - Disney will distribute the film

Vision for the Future?

Jobs has bet the farm on the convergence of his two companies’ products. Digital video is “the next big thing.” Jobs thinks iMac owners will want to play DVDs and edit digital videos, which they can do with the new iMovie, a consumer-oriented program for editing digital video. iMovie allows you to plug a digital camera right into the iMac, add sound tracks, titles, music, and special effects and edit.

Jobs has a history of divining the high-tech future, often recognizing it in technology other people invented: the mouse, the laser printer, and the wireless laptop.

Conclusions

Judging by his track record, and the emails he receives from fevered Mac-heads around the world, Jobs still has good instincts about what his customers want. So, Apple should emphasize the digital video capabilities in its marketing campaigns.

In the design and manufacture of future products, Apple must concentrate on maintaining the highest quality standards, both functionally and aesthetically.

Apple should always focus on features that appeal to individuals rather than corporations. The new, wild colors and odd shapes have set the bar high for future designs. The market will be eager to see Apple’s next attempt to merge art and technology.