It was inevitable. After years of declining health and seven months after
taking his second extended leave from daily operations as Apple s (NASDAQ: AAPL
) CEO, Steve Jobs has resigned from the post at the company he helped found.
Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook will take over for the most iconic wearer of
turtlenecks since Carl Sagan. Of course, Jobs was bound to step down as CEO of
the company. Even if he wasnt a younger man in ill health, Jobs isnt immortal.
He is not, contrary to the fervent belief of Apples more enthusiastic fans, more
than a man. Panicked investors, whose sky-is-falling attitude caused shares in
Apple to dip 5% after Jobs announced his resignation, would do well to remember
this. It also is important to remember that Steve Jobs will continue in part to
be the face of Apple, staying on in an advisory role and, health permitting, he
will undoubtedly make public appearances to help promote new products and
initiatives to the public. But now is the time to marvel at what Jobs was able
to accomplish during his second stint with Apple a tenure that saw the San
Francisco native transform a computer company that was little more than a
punchline in the mid-1990s into the most valuable technology company in the
United States. These are Jobs greatest hits from 1996 to 2011. iMac and OS X
When Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, he brought his other brainchild, the
computer technology company NeXT, with him. Apple bought NeXT for $429 million,
a major purchase that turned out to be one of the companys most profitable as
the NeXTSTEP operating system was what eventually would transform into the OS X
operating system. It was OS X that dramatically changed consumers perception of
Mac computers as being unwieldy to use compared to Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT )
Windows machines. OS X, of course, never would have made an impact without an
attractive device to sell it, and it was the simple-to-use, candy-colored iMac
line that made Apples products desirable for the first time since the mid-80s.
It was these products that cemented Jobs as permanent CEO by 2000 rather than
just an interim executive. iPod and iTunes The media player that put a portable
hard drive in 297 million pockets and the digital distribution business that
transformed an industry the impact of the iPod and iTunes on modern business
cant be understated. While both products were designed by teams of individuals,
Jobs was instrumental in the creation of both, with his influence driving the
simple, usable interface used in the classic iPod and the iTunes store. Jobs
made took what appeared to consumers like complicated technology, and he made it
simple to plug in and use. He also did more to transform the music recording
industry than even Napster, bringing record sales fully into the digital age.
iPhone and the App Store The only thing the iPod couldnt do by 2007 was make
phone calls. Considering that some 100 million iPhones have been sold since
then, phone calls clearly were something iPod users wanted to make. The iPhones
legacy is more than just great business, though. The device has been responsible
for making touchscreen technology ubiquitous for the first time in history,
taking it beyond niche applications like PDAs and video game devices, a major
shift in the way people interact with technology. It was Jobs that pushed Apple
to pursue touchscreen technology. The App Store, in turn, transformed how people
access and think of computer programs, making both development and commerce
accessible to everyone, even people still mystified by using a web browser. No
small feat. iPad Even though he helped grow Mac sales far beyond what anyone
might have predicted 15 years ago, Apples computers still are no match for the
sales of Windows-based PCs made by Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ ), Dell (NASDAQ:
DELL ), Lenovo and Acer. Thanks to the final major product to release during
Jobs reign as CEO, however, Apple no longer needs to beat the PC market at its
own game. The iPad tablet has, much to the chagrin of an entire industry,
splintered the consumer computing market. Rather then buying laptops and desktop
computers, people are buying tablets. Not even tablets, though. Just iPads . For
the second time in a decade, Jobs helped his company define and dominate an
entire segment of the technology industry. As of this writing, Anthony John
Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on
Twitter at
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