subject: A Look at Steve Jobs - What Happens to the Apple When It Loses Its Core? Part 3 [print this page] Regarding public perception of a company's stake-holders, Microsoft certainly appears to be addressing the hard problems with the right corporate sensitivities. The succession maneuver that Microsoft implemented shows a meticulously planned agenda set to allow the company to continue to grow. It shows how a leading super ego can take back seat, once the time has come, to the needs of the company. However, we must also recognize that since the change in leadership, Microsoft has been on a steady decline. Is this learning curve? That seems like a fare diagnosis but until the numbers prove the hypothesis, it's just worthless philosophy.
So what does Apple do? The goal shouldn't be to find a replacement for Steve Jobs because that is impossible. The story of Jobs and the story of Apple are too intertwined for the end of one not to signify the end of the other. The mission is to distance the brands from each other. While Jobs' life may have been significantly responsible for leading the Apple brand to its current market position, it need not be responsible for taking it in to the future. For many consumers, the obsession over Apple products has no connection to Steve Jobs at all. Thus, as long as these customers are provided with the same level of innovation, design & utility that they associate with the Apple brand, allegiances will maintain and the sales will follow in kind.
Moreover, the prominent trend throughout Apple's present winning product line is that of the open platform. Apple ads rarely use individuals or branded personalities to market their wares. The famous iPod uses the silhouettes of men & women focusing on no specific type of person and, thus, engaging us all. The iPhone broke the mold as a mobile device selling the platform that can host anyone of hundreds of thousands of applications that each user is empowered to choose or reject. All comparable products before relied on the packaging of a winning concoction of functions to win over the mass marketplace.
Apple Inc. should continue to enforce these ideas. Celebrate the users! Celebrate the consumers! Celebrate Apple not as a store that carries the brilliantly conceived products of a mastermind, but as a lifestyle that offers the nation the opportunity to brilliantly conceive the best products for themselves. The iPhone is just a toolbox waiting to be filled with utilities. The most amazing feature of the App Store is that it just manages the downloading transactions between the buyers and third party developers all over the world. This is awesome! Apple manages a system in which the same people that purchase the products also build the applications. Highlight the world as the true power source that makes Apple great! It's incredible. It promises a phenomenal future with limitless growth & innovation potential. Best of all, it's true. Steve Jobs has been the core of Apple Inc. and he has brought forth a remarkable revolution that shares the credit for Apple's success with the world and not because the world con sumes the products but because, now, the world makes them. Thank you Steve. Thank you apple. Most importantly, thank you world. To The Future!!
A Look at Steve Jobs - What Happens to the Apple When It Loses Its Core? Part 3
