Will Apple Keep the Lead?

This time round make sure they keep SJ around. Then it will be OK.

I personally know of converts to the computers line that the iPod is making. Even so much as 10-15% marketshare seems to me like an impossible mirage, anymore. Maybe I'm just too jaded from desperately hoping. But surely OS marketshare has got to improve as a result of the iPod.

Originally posted by desdomg
This time round make sure they keep SJ around. Then it will be OK.

That's really only part of the equation. I think that Apple needs to get serious about corporate governance. Apple could use two or three independent board members (pretty much everybody on the board right now is a friend of Steve), the kind that won't give SJ lucrative stock options regardless of the company's performance. Jobs' compensation agreement is a joke. He gets what he gets regardless of how Apple does that year. Not only that, Jobs only owns two shares of Apple's stock. That's not exactly a quality I'd be looking for in a CEO.

Originally posted by desdomg
This time round make sure they keep SJ around. Then it will be OK.

Steve was destroying Apple. He may have saved them from certain doom, but his ousting wasn't the cause of turmoil. If that were the case, we would expect that every company he touched would come out ahead. As we saw with NeXT, Steve was not then prepared to lead a corporation.

I have these terrible bouts of anxiety, sometimes, considering Apple's future. I think of a world controlled by the Dells and the M$s of the world and how it would take all (or much) the fun out of my computing. Other times I am overjoyed and supremely optimistic. I'm looking for that feeling in two days.

Dan

Originally posted by Daveman Deluxe
Not only that, Jobs only owns two shares of Apple's stock. That's not exactly a quality I'd be looking for in a CEO.

When Steve worked with only one share (when did it become two?) it was supposed be a sign that he had returned because of passion, not money. We now see that Steve has lots of cash coming in, as you mentioned, but why is this an issue? Sure, the scale is a little too full, for many of our tastes, but Apple is doing fantastically.

I've gotta tell you, their stock doesn't really have a lot farther to go, unless it works it's way back into the $100s just to split (we all want that, yes). Apple is often undervalued (IMO) because they are a huge risk (fact). They are niche. They always will be. This is Apple at it's best in ten years, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Dan

Originally posted by alset
I have these terrible bouts of anxiety, sometimes, considering Apple's future. I think of a world controlled by the Dells and the M$s of the world and how it would take all (or much) the fun out of my computing. Other times I am overjoyed and supremely optimistic. I'm looking for that feeling in two days.

Dan

I firmly believe Apple will survive. Jobs seems to content with being a boutique computer maker, comparing the line to BMWs: high performance, high style, high markup (not necessarily the qualities Steve himself has listed ;) ). I believe that's a winning model no matter what the Dells and Microsofts of the world do.

Maybe I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek. Apple's not entirely a boutique dealer. They're trying hard to make inroads into the server market and enterprise in general. The iPod is ubiquitous. But by and large Apple seems to be happy with its marginal status.

As an outsider to all this all I see is that Apple with Steve are a success and without him they are not.

If Pixar can be a success and not own 95% of the film industry then why can't Apple's current success be equally respected?

Originally posted by Awimoway
I firmly believe Apple will survive. Jobs seems to content with being a boutique computer maker, comparing the line to BMWs: high performance, high style, high markup

Look at all the software Apple owns. It's all at the high-end, and don't think for a moment that Apple won't leverage it to get people to migrate to their hardware. Ahhh, that's the other half of the equation. Workstation class hardware to complement the professional level applications. Turn-key systems two steps ahead of either Avid or Adobe.

This also raises the question of Apple getting away from the consumer. I don't see that happening, as evidenced by the success of the iPod. Look at Sony and Panasonic. They both make tons of consumer level appliances and such, but they also make professional level stuff like Videotape recorders costing tens of thousands of dollars.

This is only barely on-topic, but since most MR posts lately are about 2004 and what to expect next week, this seems appropriate.

I just finished looking over the iBox discussion from an earlier post and I'm amazed at what nobody has yet noticed. Jobs has been asked if Apple plans to offer a download service for movies like iTunes. His response has been along the lines of how nobody wants to watch movies on their computer and it takes forever to download. But it seems like a natural progression to go from iTunes to a movie download service. I wonder if the iBox (if it's for real) will prove to be the missing link in the rumors of an online movie service a la iTunes. The iBox would be to a movie download service what the iPod would be to iTMS... the hardware component designed to work with the service.

Maybe it's farfetched, but if such a box could be done including all the features it is rumored to have already, it would be a killer piece of equipment.

Originally posted by inkswamp

Maybe it's farfetched, but if such a box could be done including all the features it is rumored to have already, it would be a killer piece of equipment.

The one thing that makes me think this is possible is the acquisition and implementation of the Pixelet Codec.... bring it.