The Press Reacts To Steve Jobs' Departure — in 1985 207
harrymcc writes "After reading a ton of stories about Steve Jobs' decision to step down as Apple's CEO, I turned the clock back and read a bunch about the first time he did so — unwillingly — in 1985. Some observers thought his departure would have little impact on Apple; others seemed to believe it was a great idea. And the Washington Post's T.R. Reid figured out that an Apple that chose to eject Jobs would be a profoundly lesser place."
Re:Let's not forget ... (Score:5, Informative)
No, that $150M Microsoft invested in Apple was purely a confidence move. It basically told investors "Apple is here to stay".
Apple didn't the money ($150M? They still had at least $10B in the bank). But the public needed to see that Microsoft was investing in a "dying platform". They tossed money in (and got double back a few years later when they cashed out), but more importantly, they committed development resources.
Investors saw the cash as "Apple can't be dying if Microsoft was willing to put up money", and developers saw the Office and IE commitment as "the two biggest apps on the planet - for Mac!".
Really a brilliant business maneuver - the money was a lot to most people, but for Apple it barely even registered on the stockholder's reports and was barely needed.
Business is a confidence game, and Apple wasn't inspiring any. By getting Microsoft to make a trivial investment, the confidence in Apple skyrocketed.
Re:Brilliant idea! (Score:5, Informative)
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I thought NeXT was his greatest creation. Had they had more powerful CPUs, that thing may even have been a success.
NeXT is the core of OS X and iOS, so it's actually been insanely successful.
Re:Brilliant idea! (Score:2, Informative)
Apple was gambling big back then because they had to... spending a ton of money they couldnt really afford to spend by picking up NeXTSTEP (because their own OS was in the toilet...) and then having to make a deal with the devil (aka Microsoft) in order to stay afloat...