February 16, 2012
SouthAmerica: Reply to Nine Ender
Steve Jobs and Apple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
...After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets.
NeXT was eventually acquired by Apple in 1996, which brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and provided Apple with the NeXTSTEP codebase, from which the Mac OS X was developed."
Jobs was named Apple advisor in 1996, interim CEO in 1997, and CEO from 2000 until his resignation. He oversaw the development of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad and the company's Apple Retail Stores.
In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd, which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer.
He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1_percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2006, making Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder at seven_percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.
*****
Sept. 16, 1985: Jobs Quits Apple
Sept. 16, 1997: Jobs Rejoins Apple
Apple stock closing prices:
Sept. 16, 1985: $ 16.75 per share
Sept. 16, 1997: $ 21.94 per share
* Close price adjusted for dividends and splits.
During these 12 years (9/85 - 9/97) the Apple stock managed to go up in value by 30 % - nothing to write home about it.
Note:
Sept. 16: It's an auspicious day in the history of Steve Jobs. It's the day he quit Apple and the day he returned.
Jobs resigned as chairman of Apple Computer on Sept. 16, 1985, after losing a boardroom battle for control of the company with then-CEO John Sculley.
On the same day he resigned, Jobs submitted incorporation papers to the California secretary of state for the name of his new company, NeXT Computer.
NeXT produce a fantastic operating system, NeXTStep, which many praised as ahead of its time.
In December 1996, Apple bought NeXT for $400 million. It wanted NeXTStep to form the basis of a new, modern operating system, one that didnât crash every time Netscape Navigator was launched.
Jobs came on board as an informal adviser to then-CEO Gil Amelio. But within months, the board fired Amelio after Apple suffered one of the biggest quarterly losses in Silicon Valley history.
Jobs was initially reluctant to take a role at Apple. His other company, Pixar, had just released its first movie, Toy Story, to great acclaim. But he soon found himself putting in more time at Apple, working hard to whip it into shape.
On Sept. 16, 1997, Apple announced that Jobs had officially been named interim CEO, or -- as the company cleverly put it -- iCEO.
***
The Steve Jobs effect (magic):
Apple stock closing prices:
Sept. 16, 1997: $ 21.94 per share
Feb. 16, 2012: $ 500.00 per share
In a nutshell:
If Steve Jobs had not returned to Apple in 1997, today Apple would have been a complete different company and I am sure not as successful as Apple have been since Steve Jobs returned to Apple.
Without Steve Jobs on board at Apple, many of the products that makes that company so successful today it would never been launched such as iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
Just God knows what Apple would look like today, or even if they still be in business without the Steve Jobs return to Apple in Sept. 1997.
The magic is gone forever (Steve Jobs), and we will find out in the coming years how successful Apple can be without Steve Jobs.
My gut feeling says that the magic is gone from Apple with Steve Jobs death, and that after the Steve Jobs effect fades away that company will become just another ordinary high-tech company from Silicon Valley...
Time will tell who's right. But I would go with my gut feeling....
By the way, Apple stock is trading right now at $ 503 per share with very heavy volume.
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