Hewlett Packard‘s CEO Meg Whitman has her work cut out for her. It’s not just the losses due to alleged fraud committed by the management at Autonomy prior to its acquisition by HP. HP, a $25.05 Billion company, is writing off losses of $18.3 Billion to $18.5 Billion in calendar year 2012. The losses equate to 73.0% to 73.8% of the company’s value.
Many of us want to change the world. And we all to to varying extents. Some for the better, some for the worse, some significantly and dramatically, others less so.
Steve Jobs changed the world significantly, dramatically and in many ways for the better.
Because of their focus on “Computers for the rest of us” he and Steve Wozniak could have called the company they built “Prometheus Computers.” The Apple II, Lisa, Mac, Newton, iPod, iTunes store, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, are, in a sense, like the fire ‘stolen’ in the myth by Prometheus and given to man. Jobs, however, while known for being tough, was not known for being pompous.
He will be missed by his family and friends. His ideas will be missed by the rest of us.
Goodbye Steve, and thanks.
Farshad Manjoo, “10 Lessons from the Coolest Company, Anywhere,” in Fast Company, offers some interesting history and observations on Apple. He writes:
The one-time underdog from Cupertino is the biggest music company in the world and soon may rule the market for e-books as well. What’s next? Farming? Toothbrushes? Fixing the airline industry?
As much as I respect Steve Jobs, I don’t see him changing farming or fixing the government, as is suggested in the Fast Company article. The cool iPhone / iPad apps that identify trees and constellations can not tap a maple tree, milk a cow, slaughter and butcher a cow, hog, or chicken. The iPhone can’t even scramble eggs or make a cup of coffee.
Apple makes mistakes, as the “Death Grip” on the iPhone 4 proves. And they are on and overloading the AT&T network; maybe they should switch to another carrier. Be that as it may, as Manjoo says:
Right now, it seems as if Apple could do all that and more. The company’s surge over the past few years has resembled a space-shuttle launch — a series of rapid, tightly choreographed explosions that leave everyone dumbfounded and smiling. The whole thing has happened so quickly, and seemed so natural, that there has been little opportunity to understand what we have been witnessing.
Dancing Naked On The Bridge – While You’re Building It
Part 3 in a Series.
Robert Quinn describes wresting with uncertainty as “Building the Bridge as You Walk Across It” (ISBN 0-7879-7112-X Amazon / City Lights)
I just spent a day configuring an iPhone to “talk” to a Microsoft Exchange email system, to transmit “packets of data” back and forth. We humans call these “packets of data” “email messages.”
The Blackberry, by Research In Motion , is really easy to configure, even if you’ve never done one. Blackberries have been around for about 10 years, and have been tightly integrated with MicroSoftOutlook and Microsoft Exchange for all that time. Most implementations use a Blackberry Enterprise Server, aka a “BES” or “BES Server.” They are really easy to configure. Apple‘s iPhone is very new. Apple looks forwards, not backwards, so configuration with Exchange 2007, the “current” release is easy. Implementation with Exchange 2010, the next release, will also be easy. Implementation with Exchange 2003, the most recent release, is easy – after you’ve done it. The first one is a gangbuster, humdinger, man-eater, meat-grinder. I spent hours on the phone with network security people, Apple tech support, and email gurus.