Apple plus Willy Wonka Jobs equals cult

Stan Beer
Sunday, 19 October 2008 11:08

Opinion and Analysis

I had a curious dream last night in which Steve Jobs was giving a demonstration of a new Apple product to a few journalists. The demonstration went haywire and Steve was so embarrassed that he offered one of the journalists a once in a lifetime opportunity of an exclusive warts and all interview. Although an improbable scenario, the dream illustrated a major problem at Apple.

Although founded by the two Steves - Jobs and Wosniak - in 1976, it was Steve Jobs who led the company to where it is today.

It was Jobs who presided over the launch of the Macintosh in 1984. Some may argue that the company did just fine for five years or so after Jobs was ousted by John Sculley in 1985.

However, it was under the successive failed leaderships of Sculley, Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio that Apple plumbed the depths of near financial ruin by 1997 when Jobs returned, after his company NeXT was acquired by Apple.

The rest of course is history. Since Jobs' return, Apple has made one of the great business comebacks of all time.

Among other things, over the past 11 years, Apple under Jobs has released the iMac, Mac OS X, opened the Apple Stores, launched iPod, iTunes, transitioned to the Intel platform, launched the MacBook range and of course let's not leave out the iPhone.

Looking at the array of successful products that Apple has produced with Jobs at the helm - including before 1985 - it's not hard to imagine that the company and its products are merely a reflection of his technology dreams.

Steve Jobs is the Willy Wonka of consumer technology. And that's the problem.

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