• Steven Paul Jobs

    A visionary that changed the way we use computers

    In the seventies innovative ideas and a drive for business were enough to produce very successful companies and some of the wealthiest men nowadays. The person who had the vision that would change the world of computing was Steven Paul Jobs who co-founded Apple –computers and NeXTStep.This man thanks to his unbounded energy and his striving for perfection has provoked profound changes in our world and he has given to the world the best animated movies such as Toy Story and Monsters Inc.

    Steven was adopted in 1955 by Paul and Clara Jobs, he was an orphan. During the school years he worked for Hewlett –Packard in Palo Alto,California where he met Stephen Wozniak with whom he co –founded apple computers in 1976.

    The two designed and built the apple 1 in Jobs` House and had to sell their belongings to start the company that was named apple in memory of a happy working summer in a farm.The apple 1 was the first computer at that price that could load programs from an external source and it was ideal for hobbyist.The following year they developed the apple II that was going to compete against IBM thanks to the marketing skills of the people that Jobs brought into the company. Apple grew at a 150% rate a year between 1978 and 1983 but it was now time to make its machines IBM compatible as the Colossus developed the PC and Apple needed to acquire a slice of the business Machines market. In 1984 Jobs after a couple of failures due to some incoherence in the development of apple products (for instance the fact that the computers developed so far had different operating systems) introduces the Macintosh, which became a big hit thanks to its flexibility and adaptability. At this point the president of Apple who was recruited by Jobs felt that his attitude was slowing the development of the company.

    In 1985 Steve takes a decision he will leave apple to start another company which is going to build a next generation of personal computers competing with apple after the litigation on Steve’s alleged misconduct. An eight-year struggle will bring Next to close down the hardware division and concentrate on the way the software is developed, used and marketed.

    In 1996 he buys Pixar animation Studios from George Lucas.

    In 1988 Jobs finds out how useful could object oriented programming be, because of the need of quickly develop software for the NextStep first machine: the cube. Thank to some reviews the fact that NextStep was a good platform for programmers to create libraries, and maintain the software begins to spread. They needed to advertise how their computer can make companies more productive so they compared the NeXT product to the number one competitor built by Sun Microsystems showing the superiority of the NextStep machine. In 1995 Pixar went public making him a Billionaire overnight

    In 1997 Jobs sells NeXT to Apple and he rejoin the company in the rivalry against Microsoft which, he says, is slowing down the innovations that happen in the computing world putting a lot of companies and talented people out of business. It is interesting to hear that the biggest fan of Apple within Microsoft is apparently Bill Gates from what Jobs says. Microsoft has also invested $150 million in 1997 in its competitor although it could have been a move to get rid of some pressure from the antitrust authority.

    Back to Apple Steve Jobs has been very active and the Company is performing well. Over the past two years lots of new Apple products have been a success. The OS/x operating system has got great capabilities and the computers produced at the moment have the best specifications on the market and are still the machines for creative people.

    Many colleagues described Him as a charming and motivating man with a drive for perfection. His Management skills have been criticised in many ways as he was of the most intimidating bosses and for the lack of coherence at some point during the eighties.

    He had and still has the power, the capabilities and the ideas that can change the way the computer world develops, as he has been one of the most influential people in three revolutions. During the hardware revolution he introduced the personal computer, he managed to reduce it in size and cost, and he has given it a friendly interface.

    Over the software revolution he has backed up the development of Object Oriented Programming. Finally he has revolutionised the way we watch films through the software for animations and special effects at Pixar.

    References

    http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Jobs.html

    http://www.economist.com/

    Alex Barns