Even as Steve Jobs left Apple as its CEO last August, people were wondering what the future held for the tech company. With Jobs' passing on Wednesday, all of the burden of taking Apple into the future will be on the shoulders of Job's CEO successor Tim Cook. ABC News reports that Apple likely had a plan for future products that Jobs helped to set up. That plan will take it through the next few years. But once that time period has passed, Apple will truly be without direction from Jobs.
Back in August, Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, stated, "Apple is Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs is Apple, and Steve Jobs is innovation. You can teach people how to be operationally efficient, you can hire consultants to tell you how to do that, but God creates innovation."
Time magazine's web site has an editorial on Apple's future on Steve Jobs. It points out that before Apple, the electronics company that generated innovative products was Sony. It states, "And just like Apple, Sony was propelled forward by personality – well, two personalities, in fact – co-founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka. The two of them were behind everything Sony did, much like Jobs at Apple."
While Sony is still one of the biggest technology and consumer electronics companies in the world, Apple took its place as an innovative organization in this area of business years ago. In other words, Sony was never really the same after its two co-founders left the company. It seems like Apple can take some lessons from what happened with Sony and continue to innovate instead of just sticking to what Apple has released in the past. It will be interesting to see if Apple will be held back or will push forward after the passing of Jobs.
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