What’s next for Apple?
Posted on Thursday, August 25, 2011
It will take some time before the effects of Steve Jobs’ departure hit Apple. The company is, after all, coasting right now. The existing products will carry it through for possibly years to come as it taps into the huge Asian markets and continues to dominate in markets where it is already strong.
But to be clear, it will not last. Apple’s success has always been about Jobs.
Flashback to 1997 when Apple was drowning – plagued by crippling financial losses and a record-low stock price. This was the year Steve Jobs would return to the company he founded in 1977 and was essentially fired from in 1985 following a bitter dispute.
Now on to 2011, 14 years after Jobs’ return: The latest quarterly results revealed record revenue of $28.5 billion. The company now has $76 billion in the bank, and recently passed Exxon to become the world’s most valuable company by market cap.
What is most telling is that this turnaround can be neatly chronicled to show how the projects Jobs directly initiated, led, and carried through, resulted in tens-of-billions in entirely new revenue streams. No on else could have done it. No one else would have even come close.
Just look at the 2010 revenue brought in from the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, all Jobs’ babies: Of the total revenue for the year of $65 billion, these three products pulled in $8 billion, $25 billion, and $5 billion respectively.
In the most black and white terms possible: In 1997 total annual revenue was $7 billion. In 2011 it will exceed $100 billion.
Jobs always kept tight control over product design. But it was more than that. He was also the visionary behind the products – the inventor. It is simply unrealistic to think someone else can build in that same way.
As a wrap up, a very cool look back at a charismatic and confident 28-year-old Jobs.
“But to be clear, it will not last. Apple’s success has always been about Jobs.”
I thought it was about their products. Little did I know I was buying his left pinkie instead of a laptop that was more reliable than a WIN machine; had a system wrapped around a UNIX kernel (which is really awesome and delicious like a deep-fried Snickers…) or even in the case of aesthetics, a computer from anywhere in the last 14 years, which was more beautiful than anything else out there.
I guess I better start learning my Vista shortcuts.
C.
ps : When you decide to switch over to PCs in the office, I’ll gladly *dispose* of those iMacs you won’t be using any longer. You let me know; I got a guy with a van ready at a moments notice.
Another interesting fact was that Apple now has more cash in hand than the US government.