Were I to have blogged about this class and case a day earlier, I would still be talking about the genius of Steve Jobs and anticipating things he could contribute to the company in the future. I'd long since known that Steve Jobs was terminally ill, and somewhat had in mind that he was going to die one of these days, and definitely before his time, but the fact that it actually happened, just like that, yesterday afternoon was kind of an abrupt shock. It was like that news broke of Michael Jackson's death. I'm not particularly a devout fan of either MJ or "Master Jobs"(don't own any apple products except an ipod that I essentially never use), but something like this shows that the Gods of today's society are still very much human.
I took Professor Sudek's MGMT 437 course last semester, and the story of Apple was something that was covered in detail. We even watched the film about Jobs and Gates "Pirate of Silicon Valley". The case we covered in capstone on Tuesday, however, filled in the gaps for me after the movie and lectures in my previous class left off. That class dealt more with the creation of Apple, and went into detail about how they developed the Apple I, Apple II, and Jobs as a stringent boss who demanded perfection.
New things that I learned about Apple: the fact that it focused on the education marketplace. There was not much focus in the previous class on Apple's marketing strategy as an entire company, just that it developed innovative products but had a hard time dealing with the competition. Also new too was the fact that Apple, despite what seems to be its wild success(at least on the Chapman campus-why does it seem as though every student has some manifestation of the macbook or macbook pro?), really only had about an 8% share of the PC marketplace. Although, in retrospect, it does make sense in the context of the entire PC market, because of the image Apple has developed. Because Apple exudes a young, sleek, yet rebellious image, there is a certain appeal to college aged and early to mid 20's people. I know the main reason I want to try a macbook sometime in my lineup of computers IS because of the image appeal. However, business professionals, for example, are turned off because it has a reputation of being for youth, and artists. Also, many programs are not mac compatible.
I can only hope that the new CEO of Apple is competent in his own right. No one will ever be Steve Jobs, but someone has to carry on the legacy he created.
On a different and somewhat humorous note, Apple's trend of i-something names can inspire some really clever things. I heard on the radio that twitter is trending iSad in tribute to Steve Jobs. And, as for a convoluted phrase from my own mind, I think Apple in the future should make some kind of multi-function machine and dedicate its name as the iJobs. Because it will be able to do all Jobs. Ok, cheesiness time is past...
Businesses are VERY slow in adopting Apple machines in their lineup; business is still Wintel centric. I fully expect their new CEO, Cook, to try to move closer to business, especially after the flow of "cool" consumer products slows down....
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