MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Your words: "But to suggest that Jobs was not a visionary is just plain stupid. "

Since that is what I had indeed suggested, you were calling me stupid.

Don't be so sensitive - calling an idea stupid does not equate to calling the individual stupid. I have found your posts to be quite intelligent and insightful although I disagree.

Dude... You need to get laid.

I've been married 24 years, I've gotten used to it....

I thank you for your contributions in this thread and consider you a friend

This is the bottom line. If someone wants to make the argument that he was a visionary of executive leadership, or even marketing, I can totally get on board with that. However, every "product" (in quotes because Pixar movies aren't traditional consumer products) that was successful under him was possible because of the designers that created it underneath him. I think to pretend that Steve Jobs was the "visionary" that created these things is not only inaccurate, but it distracts from the areas where he truly was brilliant.

The first area where he was brilliant was determining market direction. Jobs could look at the direction a market was moving, pounce on it before it even had a chance to find success, and then make it his own. He did that for the personal computer, he did it for animated movies, he did it for portable music players, he did it for smartphones, and he was trying to do it for tablets.

The second area he was brilliant was in corporate leadership. Look at just some recent examples, Netflix and Hewlett-Packard. These are two companies that are spinning and sputtering over the weak decisions of the executive leadership. Especially HP, they've burned through two CEOs in as many years, wasted billions on technology they're ultimately going to throw away, and look like amateur hour in their industry. Compare that to Apple; no matter whether you agreed with their direction or not, you could rarely say, under Steve Jobs, that they didn't HAVE a direction. Jobs knew where he wanted to go, and he was going to take everyone there, whether they agreed or not. He brought a sense of stability to his company that very, very few other companies have emulated successfully (and very rarely channeled through a single voice).

And finally, the third area, he was simply a great marketer; the guy could flat-out sell. He worked very, very hard at this. You could see, especially earlier in his career, that he was nervous about having to sell, but he worked at it. He meticulously planned and prepared his keynotes. For the corporate marketing campaigns, he was not only actively, but INTIMATELY involved with their individual marketing strategies. Compare that to most other CEOs in America, and I bet few of them could even tell you what their last marketing campaign was.

Steve Jobs was not an inventor. Comparing him as a modern-day Edison is completely inaccurate. The inventing/engineering came from people like Wozniak, Lasseter/Catmull/Smith, everyone at Xerox PARC, Jony Ive, etc. He was brilliant though, and his brilliance allowed the creations of others to shine through and reach people in ways that would otherwise not have been possible.

I disagree with Enrico in several respects. I see Jobs as a guy who had a vision and had to wait for technology to catch up. He also saw opportunity in areas other than computing that could be tied in to Apple's computers.

As I wrote in another post what Jobs did in his 2nd go round was not repeat what nearly sunk Apple before he was aked to leave the first time. Apple made the first commercially successful PC. When IBM and later Compac, HP saw what a lucrative market Apple had created they moved in and made Apple a maginal player.

What Jobs did when he returned was build on what could have had successful the first time except the components to make it happen weren't available. Mac was a major success in desktop publishing and pretty much was the impetus to wipe out the typesetting industry. He continued the closed OS system. More control.

iMac took advantage of the better components and helped recapture the education market. It also exposed a lot of children who then helped convice parents to buy an iMac.

macbook- laptop existed Jobs just made the laptop better looking with design and kept on improving OS to work with the other products and be more interactive like serching for updates

iPod - Jobs knew flash drives needed to be cheaper and have a friendly, easy to use interface on the computer to manage music. Once components got small enough he took Sony out of the business they created, personal portable music , much the same way IBM took the Apple2 out of the PC business.

iTunes was nothing but giving music producers a venue to sell and Jobs convinced them 99 cents was better than nothing and with iTunes it was a one stop easo of use shop.

iPhone was getting into a much bigger market. The number of people who use mobile phones dwarfs the computer market. Just 5% is a ton of money. Plus he incorporated iPod into iPhone. Why have 2 devices when you can get both in one.

iPad was actually on the drawing board before iPhone but the components to make it the way Jobs saw it were 5-7 years behind the concept. One reason the iPhone and iPad seem similar is the iPhone was based on some of the concepts of iPad and iPod. iPad created a market. So far its a small market but growing.

The desire to own and brand loyalty like Enrico's in-laws was part of a carefully designed marketing program. You don't but Apple products you join a community. A lot of warm fuzzy softsell that results in people willing to pay a premium for design, ease of use and connectivity, especially with other Apple devices. He went to an exclusive Apple Store reducing the need to depend on middlemen who may or may not pay for inventory. The stores are designed so you never see a cash register or designated point of purchse. Then he cut distribution smaller groups and added companies like Target, Best Buy who are stable.

I switched to a MacBookPro after Office for Mac was released after years of MS OS. I am very happy I switched. But I haven't run out to get iPhones or iPads and my iPod is still going strong.