Michael Barbella, Managing Editor02.18.15
"The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” — Charles Kettering
Some homecoming.
Steve Jobs was back on top at Apple Inc., having returned from a 12-year exile in the summer of 1997 to save the company he co-founded. The reunion, though, was hardly joyous: In his absence, the once quixotic firm had gone woefully astray, hemorrhaging profits, bosses, market share, and most regrettably, influence as it struggled to overcome the loss of its graphic user interface monopoly in 1994.
Jobs’s successors largely were responsible for the company’s downward spiral—none could match his incredible vision or innate ability to truly comprehend the relationships between wildly disparate life experiences and technological advancements. Their best attempts resulted in a spate of failed products—i.e., the Newton, the Pippin, the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh—that eventually cost Apple billions of dollars in lost sales.
Jobs had known his company was in trouble but the damage was far worse than he realized. Stock was trading at historic lows ($3.19), a
Some homecoming.
Steve Jobs was back on top at Apple Inc., having returned from a 12-year exile in the summer of 1997 to save the company he co-founded. The reunion, though, was hardly joyous: In his absence, the once quixotic firm had gone woefully astray, hemorrhaging profits, bosses, market share, and most regrettably, influence as it struggled to overcome the loss of its graphic user interface monopoly in 1994.
Jobs’s successors largely were responsible for the company’s downward spiral—none could match his incredible vision or innate ability to truly comprehend the relationships between wildly disparate life experiences and technological advancements. Their best attempts resulted in a spate of failed products—i.e., the Newton, the Pippin, the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh—that eventually cost Apple billions of dollars in lost sales.
Jobs had known his company was in trouble but the damage was far worse than he realized. Stock was trading at historic lows ($3.19), a
Continue reading this story and get 24/7 access to Orthopedic Design Technology for FREE
FREE SUBSCRIPTION
