Back from the dead- How Apple came back to rule the world
In 1996, Business Week put Apple’s famous trademark on its cover to illustrate its lead story: “The Fall of an American Icon.”
CEO Gil Amelio struggled to keep Apple alive in a world being rapidly dominated by Windows-Intel-based PCs. Wired magazine carried an article titled “101 Ways to Save Apple.” It included suggestions such as “Sell yourself to IBM or Motorola,”
By September 1997, Apple was two months from bankruptcy. Steve Jobs, who had co-founded the company in 1976, agreed to return to as CEO to save the company. Die-hard fans of the original Macintosh were overjoyed, but the general business world was not expecting much.
Within a year, things changed radically at Apple. Although many observers had expected Jobs to invest in the development of advanced products, or engineer a deal with some major corporation Sun, he did neither.
What he did was, unexpected. He shrunk Apple to a scale and scope suitable to the reality of its being a niche producer in the highly competitive personal computer business. He cut Apple back to a core that could survive.
Steve Jobs talked Microsoft into investing $150 million in Apple, exploiting Bill Gates’s concerns about what a failed Apple would mean to Microsoft’s struggle with the Department of Justice. Jobs cut all of the 15 desktop models back to one. He completely cut out all the printers and other peripherals. He cut development engineers. He cut software development. He cut distributors and cut out five of the company’s six national retailers. He cut out virtually all manufacturing, moving it offshore to Taiwan. A new Web store sold Apple’s products directly to consumers, cutting out distributors and dealers.
The power of Jobs’s strategy came from directly tackling the fundamental problem with a focused and coordinated set of actions.
We all know Apple went to create world-changing products like I-Phone, I-Pod, Apple watch. But had Jobs not saved the company with his astute strategy we might never have known Apple as a company as we know it now.
Apple in 2012 became the most valuable company in history, with a market capitalization of $621 billion. Its upward trajectory didn’t stop there: in 2018, Apple's market cap of $1 trillion. Quite a legacy that Steve Jobs left for the rest of the world.
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