Jobs splitting up Apple again?

Remember how Steve Jobs managed to create a rift between the Macintosh group and the rest of Apple before his departure in 1985? Reading this, I feel that Jobs is getting ready to part the seas again. His intention to position Apple as a consumer electronics powerhouse is obvious. Earlier this year, Apple dropped the Computer from its name to formally become Apple Inc. Now we hear that Leopard engineers were pulled to the iPhone group to expedite the development of the phone's OSX version. They surely have their priorities set straight! I can bet that the iPod/iPhone division in Apple is going to take the largest piece of the cake in the coming months and years.

Not that there's anything wrong with that :). The man has an iconic vision and once he sets his mind to something he devotes all his time and resources to it. In the context of the evolving technological world, this might be a wise choice as well. Clearly, Apple's recent phenomenal successes are hedged in its consumer electronics devices and not in its Mac business. Having just sold 100 million iPods, there's a lot of reason for Jobs to provide a renewed focus to the company. I just hope that this time, the Mac group is not kept locked out of the iPod/iPhone buildings!

There's one thing to note here with respect to Microsoft. Given the size of Apple, I'm amazed at the efficient transitions it makes in its core. PowerPC to x86 happened so quickly that it has already become a thing of the past. And with Jobs at the helm, Apple is starting to show its teeth in the phone business, without being bogged down by the Macintosh side. Microsoft should take a page out of Jobs' book if it wants to maintain its non-PC relevance in the next decade or so. I just read that Google bought out DoubleClick for US$3.1 billion! Wise choice or not, one thing's for sure, Google's going after a market with the aggression made famous by Microsoft in the 90s. The company really needs that back.

permalink 0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment