56-year old Steve Jobs, the ailing tech visionary who founded Apple Inc announced his resignation on Aug 24 on account of health reasons. He said he was unable to continue as the chief executive of the technology giant and after he submitted his resignation to the Apple board of directors on Wednesday, he recommended chief operating officer Tim Cook as his successor.
The news of resignation widely affected the stock market wherein the shares slipped as much as 7% in after-hours trading. According to some analysts, the resignation of Apple Inc’s chief executive Steve Jobs marks the end of an era, but his departure is not likely to make an immediate impact of the company and its successful line of products.
More about Apple
Apple is a multinational corporation having a strong foothold in the growing field of information technology. Apple has been one of the highly successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of what corporate culture should look like in organizational hierarchy. As the company has grown and been led by a series of chief executives, each with his own idea of what Apple should be, some of its original character has been lost, but Apple still has a reputation to foster individuality and excellence that draws talented people into its employ.
In the past, Apple has created the Apple Fellows program, awarding individuals who made extraordinary technical or leadership contributions to personal computing while at the company. Apple evolved as maker of cool personal computers. It grossed $65 billion in fiscal 2010 and looked headed toward revenue of atleast $120 billion in fiscal 2011. A lot of reports suggest that Jobs’ resignation will not shake up the company because he has spent more than a decade building his management team and preparing the board for this transition.
According to Forrester analyst Charles Govin, the impact on American multinational corporation Apple will not be noticeable for some years because the company’s upcoming products, including the new iPhone 5 have likely already been developed. He also opined that Jobs will likely have a continued hands-on role in shaping future Apple products. Steve Jobs has already announced that he would continue his connection with Apple by becoming the newly elected chairman of the board.
Some factors strongly suggest that Apple is likely to feel the impact of Job’s resignation.
1. Steve Jobs has single handedly managed the company at several levels. Most CEOs do not have any control over the creative and marketing aspects of their company. But Jobs was controlling the entire show behind every one of Apple’s biggest innovations. He also took charge of product design and also looked at marketing aspects. He also held back products when he did not feel they were ready for the market yet.
2. Steve Jobs is the person responsible for the rise in Apple iPad 2. With great experience in product design, he had a keen sense of what kind of product would work among the masses. In fact, he has supervised the Apple devices slated to enter the market in the near future. But the products that come after those may not be as desired by users.
3. There were some products that Jobs “shot down” even before their release, as he did not think they met industry standards. Maybe those products will now begin to see the light of day.
4. Apple is a giant of a company and would undoubtedly be able to stand on its own, post Steve Jobs’ step-down. But it would also miss having a superior showman at its helm, the very one, who had the unique ability to project Apple products as sheer poetry in motion and not just as regular boring mobile devices.
5. Jobs’ resignation may negatively impact the Apple App Store. Jobs’ absence may actually turn out better for Apple developers, who would now gain more free rein to produce more apps for iOS devices. On the negative side, though, app sales may show a slight fall simply because there would be no one to introduce new apps and features to the masses with the kind of panache Jobs did.
Rival companies see more opportunities to takeover Apple’s tiara
Since the power and authority over Apple will be in someone else’s hand, rivals are looking for vulnerabilities to steal market share. Samsung Electronics’ smart phone and tablet computers,which run on Google Inc’s Android operating system, could be Apple’s main competition. A senior analyst at Standford C Bernstrin and former director at Samsung, said, “Even before Steve Jobs’ resignation, Samsung was getting more and more optimistic that they can actually take on Apple in the smart phone arena.” Meanwhile, another competitor, the Taiwan-based electronics company, HTC Corp could be a potential competitor for Apple.
