S teve Jobs is an interesting person; so much so that many books and articles have been written about him and his enigmatic management style. Another subject that seems to capture the attention and the imagination of the media is what goes on in the minds and labs that inhabit the inner recesses of 1 Infinite Loop; volumes of speculative text have been offered to anyone willing to read it about what might be the next big thing from Apple.
In a New York Times article appearing in the Oakland Tribune, author John Markoff, takes a look at Steve Jobs, Apple, and what magic the kingdom that Jobs built may produce next. From the article:
As a result, Apple is acting less like a computer company and more like brand-brandishing, multinational companies such as Nike and Virgin. The success of the iPod is also the clearest indication that Jobs, if he is to complete his mission of revamping Apple, will ultimately win not by taking on his PC rivals directly, but by changing the rules of the game.
Jobs, who says he has a 70 percent share of the market for legal music downloads and a 45 percent share of the MP3 market, sees the shift as sweet vindication. "Weire getting a chance to see what Apple engineering and Apple design can really do once we get out from underneath the 5 percent Macintosh operating system share," he said.
To some people in the industry, Jobs, of late, has even outshone his old nemesis, Bill Gates of Microsoft - not in market share, of course, but in innovation. "Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs arrived with the idea of digitizing the world, but Gates has lost his way," said George F. Colony, the chief executive of Forrester Research, a computer industry consulting firm. "Despite all of his warts, Jobs has kept the dream alive, whether itis movies, music or photos. I call him the digitizer."
The lengthy, but very readable article goes on to elaborate on the current state of Apple, and what may be the next thing. It is a worthy read, so stop by the Oakland Tribune for the full story.