e Week has published a year in review look at Apple in 2004 in which the magazine says that Apple thrived. Citing the companyis mounting successes throughout the year, while fairly and accurately noting a couple of speedbumps for the company, columnist Sean Gallagher says that Apple has been the surprise performer of the computing industry. From the article:
If you had told someone five years ago that Apple would someday have a rapidly growing business in the server market, a huge share of the Unix desktop market, and commanding mindshare in the digital music business -- so much so that Hewlett-Packard licensed its hardware -- that someone would have probably asked what kind of irrational exuberance you had been smoking.
Yet somehow, Apple turned into one of the biggest success stories in the computer industry. The company more than doubled its server sales this year, and introduced 64-bit servers. Apple can now claim an installed base over 12 million Unix-based Mac OS X desktops. And the iPod has helped move Apple into the consumer electronics and music distribution markets in ways that no amount of irrational exuberance could have predicted back when the company was killing the Newton.
Thereis much more in the full story, which we recommend as an interesting read that puts many of Appleis actions in perspective.