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Image: Sachin's Posterous One of the countless people influenced by Steve Jobs was former Apple engineer and Posterous founder Sachin Agarwal. Agarwal talked to us last year about how Steve Jobs fostered a startup culture at a multibillion dollar corporation. It was an environment where the engineers made decisions, not managers.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer just gave a shout out to the Zune business in a speech to financial analysts.
He did it in the context of talking about Microsoft's seven core businesses -- the Zune definitely isn't one of those.
But as he said "Zune has been important to build out to power some of our devices and provide services."
Specifically, the Zune music service means that Microsoft has an iTunes equivalent for Windows Phone -- and it didn't have to build it from scratch.
The Zune service is also available on Xbox Live, giving Microsoft a nice edge over Sony, which had to build its own subscription music service from scratch.
The point: Microsoft makes a lot of investments. Even the ones that fail -- like the Zune device -- sometimes add value to other businesses.
This is why it's so important, Ballmer believes, to keep making bets on things like Bing, and to keep playing in both the consumer and enterprise spaces.
We'll have more details from his speech when it finishes up in about an hour.
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Philip Greenspun is a semi-retired American computer scientist, educator, and early Internet entrepreneur who was a pioneer in developing online communities. … but they would have declined (or at least slowed in growth) anyway.
A lot of the value in Apple has come from the ineptitude of other companies and the passion and willingness of early adopters to spend huge money. There are inherent limits to growth fueled by those two factors. For example, the early adopters with the greatest willingness to pay for smartphones (and associated service) have already purchased smartphones.
Now the big market is from people in emerging countries, such as China, and the average consumer in developed countries. The record companies were so poorly managed that they gave up 30 percent of their digital music revenue because they were too lazy to run their own Web site. What other industry is going to give Apple 30 percent of its revenue in exchange for Apple running a server?
So let’s not be too hard on the new Apple CEO (Tim Cook, who seems to be more experienced with logistics than product design). If revenue and profit growth flattens it might well have done the same under Steve Jobs. For Apple to justify a comparable market cap to Exxon’s (which owns oil wells, after all) would require a lot of things to go right over the next decade.
The current P/E ratio of 15 doesn’t look that high, but since Apple is a tech company that issues a lot of stock options they may end up diluting current investors so much that a public holder of a share of Apple stock may never receive his or her full $383 worth in dividends and capital gains.
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During Steve Jobs' run as head of Apple, the creations of his company impacted a huge number of industries.
Perhaps the most affected, however, was the media world.
From the rise of the personal computer through the iPad, Apple's white devices popped up everywhere and changed the face of the media landscape.
More often than not, they led the way and others were forced to follow.
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The stock market obviously views Apple as Steve Jobs -- shares are off 5% in the wake of his retirement announcement.
But Apple is a company with more than 45,000 employees, including some of the greatest product designers, engineers, and marketers of any company in the world.
Apple has an incredible product pipeline: the iPad 2 is the only tablet that matters, the iPhone takes the lion's share of profits in the smartphone market, and the Mac is the only personal computer brand that's growing as the rest of the market is shrinking.
All of those products have at least one, maybe two, more updates already in the pipeline.
Strategically, Apple is in the right place: both Google (with the Motorola acquisition) and Microsoft (with its Nokia partnership) have basically acknowledged that they need both hardware and software to compete in smartphones.
Apple is behind those two companies in terms of online services -- the third part of the equation -- but at least it's recognized the problem and will try to address it with iCloud.
But two or three years down the road? If Jobs does not come back, here's what Apple will lose:
The ultimate arbiter. A lot of big companies are bogged down with bureaucratic infighting -- it's endemic at Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard's botched earnings/strategy/acquisition announcement last week point to political problems there as well. That has never been a problem with Steve Jobs in control of Apple. Everybody there respects him, he knows what every part of the company is doing, and he's not afraid to make big changes when something's broken. Other CEOs may be as smart and as strong-willed, but they can't possibly garner the same level of respect as the founder who returned to bring his company back from near death.The product planner. Jobs is obsessed with simplicity and leaving things out: he culled the Mac product line down to a couple models when he returned, refused to let the Apple mouse have two buttons, and insisted that the iPhone NOT try to do everything at once. Other Apple employees understand that, but it's unknown whether anybody else will be able to execute that art as well as Jobs has. Especially when product groups and individuals see a new and fresh chance to gain status and get their ideas heard (see last point).The recruiter and magnet. Apple already lost its retail planner Ron Johnson, and product design head Jony Ive was reportedly making noises about leaving as well. More to the point, everybody wants to work at Apple today. That's party because of the company's record of success -- but it's probably also in good part because of the mythos of Jobs.Pop culture icon. Steve Jobs's keynotes are packed with press -- including popular press. Will the media fawn over Tim Cook or Phil Schiller when they talk? Don't count on it. And that means that you might not see every Apple product announcement featured on the local TV news as it has been.Case in point: look at Microsoft under Bill Gates, and Microsoft under Steve Ballmer.
Apple will still be a juggernaut for a long time. But the company's competitors have to be viewing today's news with at least a small twinge of ... let's call it anticipation.
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Image: APSteve Jobs introduced just about every flagship product Apple ever launched. Well, at least the ones that mattered.
We took a look at the most important product announcements that helped shape Apple into the company it is today.
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This is actually barely any drop at all.
And that suggests two things:
First, that the market was expecting this news (and was obviously wise to be expecting it, given Steve's medical leave and health condition).
Second, the market thinks Apple will do just fine without Steve.
And I think the market's right about the latter, at least over the next couple of years.
Steve Jobs' contribution to Apple cannot be overstated. Steve singlehandedly resurrected the company after it had been run into the ground by idiots and then left for dead. In about 15 short years, Steve led Apple from tech-industry roadkill to the most valuable company in the world.
Under Steve's leadership, Apple has produced products that are as beautiful and revolutionary as they are coveted and beloved. It is likely that the world will never again witness such an amazing and inspiring performance by a founder and chief executive officer of a company. So, losing Steve is obviously a tremendous blow to Apple.
That said, Steve's departure comes at a good time.
Thanks to Steve's vision, Apple has created two massive new product categories out of thin air: iPhones and iPads. These products did not exist 6 years ago--at any company--and now they are much bigger than Apple's legacy PC business.
These two products are also very early in their lifecycles in terms of global market penetration. This means that Apple should be able to drive enormous growth in both categories for years without a revolutionary new vision. The company just needs to stay one step ahead of the competition and maintain its obsessive focus on user experience and quality. And the latter now appears to be deeply baked into Apple's DNA.
Apple has also pulled off one of the hardest and most valuable tricks in technology: It has created a "closed system," or platform, that provides customers and developers with a major incentive to continue using Apple products.
Image: Dan Frommer, Business Insider
But as Microsoft and others have demonstrated in the past--and as Apple is demonstrating now--once you own the dominant platform, your market power is extraordinary.
With an installed base of hundreds of millions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac users, and with so much of the world coalescing around the Apple platform, Apple is in an extremely strong competitive position.
Apple also has a management team that is used to running the company without Steve around. Tim Cook has already demonstrated that he can lead Apple day-to-day, and it is likely that Steve has been grooming him to take over as CEO. There will no doubt be power struggles in the wake of Steve's departure--there always are--but Apple is in much better shape to handle Steve's departure than it would have been two years ago.
Tim CookIn short, Apple is now a diversified, global company with three mega-hit products: iPhones, iPads, and Macs. iPhones and iPads are still early in their adoption curves, and Macs still have only a small slice of global PC market share. And the Apple platform--iOS and iTunes--ties all these products together, providing an incentive for customers to standardize around Apple. So even if Apple never develops another new product category, it should have years of strong growth ahead of it.
And if, by now, enough of Steve Jobs has been transferred to the DNA of the company, even some of his "vision" can be maintained.
Eventually, if Apple is to continue to revolutionize the world the way it has over the last 15 years, the company will need another visionary. Perhaps Tim Cook can grow into that role. Or perhaps Apple has another quiet genius waiting in the wings. But the company has time to find this person.
Again, it's impossible to overstate the value of Steve Jobs to Apple, and losing him is a huge blow to the company and community.
But Steve has done such an amazing job over the past 15 years that--for several years anyway--the company should be fine without him.
SEE ALSO: The Life And Awesomeness Of Steve Jobs
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Image: Asa Mathat, All Things DigitalThough Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO of Apple, he will remain a key figure in the company, writes All Things D cofounder Walt Mossberg: To be very clear, Mr. Jobs, while seriously ill, is very much alive. Extremely well-informed sources at Apple say he intends to remain involved in developing major future products and strategy and intends to be an active chairman of the board, even while new CEO Tim Cook runs the company day to day. So, this is not an obituary. But his health is reported to be up and down, and even an active chairman isn’t the same as a CEO.
What might be the next revolutionary product from Apple? Mossberg suggests it will be an Apple TV:
Now, rumors are rife that Apple is working on re-inventing another common device: the TV. The secretive company won’t say a word about that, but nobody should be surprised if it happens, just based on Mr. Jobs’ track record.
Mossberg isn't going to just toss out some random rumor at the end of a big post on Jobs. This is probably the next big thing Apple has cooking up. So, if you're worried about the company's future, this should provide some solace.
Read Mossberg's full essay ?
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News about Steve Jobs is still coming in after the bombshell that he's stepping down as CEO.
Bloomberg is now reporting that Jobs was housebound for the last few weeks, but worked a full day today before his resignation was announced.
The story emphasized that he didn't resign because his condition is suddenly getting worse.
Here's the relevant bit:
The day of the announcement, Jobs was in Apple’s Cupertino, California office for the entire work day, and he attended a regularly scheduled board meeting, according to a person close to Jobs, who was not authorized to speak about the executive’s health. While Jobs has been housebound for the last few weeks and his condition is weak, the resignation was not indicative of a sudden worsening, this person said.
Don't Miss: Actually, Apple Will Be Fine Without Steve Jobs
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Where were you when you heard Steve Jobs resigned?
One of the greatest entrepreneurs, leaders, and CEOs of our time has given up his post at Apple, and everyone has something to say about it.
We've put together reactionary tweets from top tech pundits to give you a feel for how Steve's departure from Apple has effected them.
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