Hi friends,

Huhh…! I got at least some time out of a very hectic schedule after a long time…! Actually, I promised you people that I’ll write regularly on the blog, but, you know, it is very difficult to take time out of the series of events for your favorite activities. Recently the news has come that the iPhone has finally arrived in India, much easier, through the Vodafone route. Masha-allah…! What a phone! It is a kind of phone that is made, not of plastic or mettle, but of three and a half inches scratchproof bright optical glass. That means that the entire phone is a screen, wherein there is practically only one button for switching the phone on and off…! Along with the key-pad, everything is touch screen! The phone recognizes only the finger! The dimensions of the wallpaper changes automatically as you move the phone up and down, right and left!

Let us stop our talk on the iPhone, because we have to talk about something different today. No! I am not going to talk about i-Pod, Macintosh computers, iMac, iBook or even the Apple Corporation. I have to talk about the wide vision which was behind the creation of one of the 100 greatest companies of the world. We have to talk about Mr. Steve jobs, the creator of Apple Corporation, and his roller coaster ride like life. We have to talk about his phoenix like encounters with his life from top to bottom and from bottom to again top. We want to talk about Steve’s apple!

In 1984, an advertisement was very famous among the American youth in which a Big Brother is shown to be taking in trap the huge bunch of people and everyone was trying to get free of him. Suddenly, a young man in vibrant colorful clothes comes in the scene and helps the mob get free. The Big Brother was symbolic to another great company, called IBM. And the young guy was symbolic to the new company Apple Corporations. At the end of the ad, there comes the slogan, Think Different. That was the time when the IBM was the largest company in the computing industry. Desktop P.C.s were not as popular as they are today. The laptops were not even in the offing. Mobile phones were like fantasy films. Other IT products were the businesses of losing money. IBM was manufacturing huge dabba-like machines which were out of common men’s understanding. And it was still two decades to go for even conceiving the Intel Core 2D processors!

In 1984, a young scientist called Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh series which were quite user-friendly. This young and extremely intelligent twenty nine something guy was having the dreams of making the computers which were not like huge vessels for storing wheat and rice, but like the gorgeous girls of the swimsuit round of a beauty pageant…! At that time, he used to get the clerical job of writing the softwares done though some other company. This company, which was working under Apple, was… Microsoft! And the man in whom Steve had a lot of confidence and gave him a lot of work was none other than Bill Gates!

Steve got huge success in launching the Macintosh. People accepted the offering with both hands. However, Steve was very much ethical from toe to head. He was a man or pure hearts. He believed that the world can be conquered only through your mind and intelligence and not through malpractices in business. So he always believed in giving the best products to customers.

Meanwhile, Apple was getting bigger and Steve needed some professional people to run the business. So he roped in forty eight something Mr. John Schooly of PepsiCo in 1985 to run Apple. Now he wanted to conquer new avenues and new markets of world. He wanted to see his company at the top of all the business magazine surveys. He wanted the car of the growth to run faster and faster. But…but…but…! The car ran faster, and the driver was thrown out of his own car…!

The new CEO, Mr. Schooly, was not happy with his young boss’ unconventional style of running the business. He disliked Steve’s management practices and his ‘mindless’ ideas. He played a boardroom game, exactly like an Ekta Kapoor soap opera. In the very crucial board meeting, all the directors of the company voted against the founder director and creator of the Macintosh product, Mr. Steve Jobs, to drive him out of his own company…! Steve was shown the doors of the company which he himself created and led to the top! The directors believed that Steve was very much purist and idealistic. His ideas would work only in the laboratories, and not in the market. Steve did not know the ‘wise’ business practices. He always insisted on newer innovations and newer technological advancements, rather than business profits. Probably his ideas were dangerous for the future of Apple!

More than shocked with the series of events happening in his life, Steve said, “It sucked my whole youth!” He, later on added, “At 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone and it was devastating. I really did not know what to do next. I felt like I had let down the entire generation of entrepreneurs.” It was like the game of snake and ladder. Just think for a while, how you or I will feel if we get failure after reaching at the top. When you reach your manzill, suddenly someone comes in and pushes you only to drop you again on ground zero…! The half of your life’s perseverance is sunk. You have to recite the entire alphabet again! Later on Steve himself said that getting out of his company was actually a blessing in disguise for him, because he could shed all the burden of responsibilities of being successful from his shoulders and could start his innovations again.

The Mr. Nobody, Steve, started again once he was out of his super rich, super successful period. After three years, he founded a new company, ‘Next’. He launched Next Cube. It was an extremely powerful and much expensive machine at that time and probably, an offering to an immature market. It failed miserably. Then Steve and his company, Next, moved to the making of softwares and operating systems. His money and property were not with him, but his creative mind was. He showed an interest in George Lucas’ company, the Pixar Animations. George Lucas is considered the father of modern special effects in the films. Lucas was not interested in Pixar, so Steve took charge of the company in 1986. He entered into a contract with Disney in 1990. Pixar made the animations and Disney did the marketing and distribution of the animation films. Steve could read the future five years ahead. In 1995, the ‘Toy Story’ proved to be the huge success in Hollywood and Pixar never looked back.

But now this Steve was not the Steve of 1080s. He gradually became Zen Buddhist. Meanwhile, he saw Bill Gates climbing the success ladder with sheer business techniques and not with orthodox ideologies. By the way, the flagship product of Microsoft, the Windows operation system, is nothing but an adaptation of the ideas of Steve’s Macintosh computer. Bill Gates proves to be an extremely practically businessman who along with working for Apple also copied the technologies of Apple Macintosh!

Oh! You would ask what happened to Apple after Steve’s exit! Imagine a body without its soul! This is no exaggeration. After leaving its soul, the company instead of running, started crawling. Without Steve, the entire computer business in the world changed in the decade of 90s. Nobody could match the steps with the changing times. Apple Corporation was about to announce bankruptcy and it was about to become insolvent.

At that time, the then Apple’ boss, Mr. Gil Emilio took an unprecedented decision. He decided to buy a new operating system for the Mac computers. And the best and advanced operating systems were made by only one company in the vicinity, and that was Steve Jobs’ company, ‘Next’…! As per the contract between the Apple and the Next, Steve re-entered his own company after 12 years….! And that too, just for a salary of $ 1 a year…! But this time the new Steve was different from what he used to be back in 1980s. This Steve came with a lot of learning from life. Now it was his turn to stage the boardroom drama. In 1997, in the board meeting Steve once again was elected the CEO of the Apple Corporation. The new all-powered Steve created ‘Ometra’, the contract; wherein all the employees were made to agree to the term that the boss’ decision is final in any matter! Steve had already tasted the fruits of being the ‘ideologist’. Now he was a shrewd businessman, with a lot of practical mind setup. He knew that Apple did not have enough funds to carry out its research projects. So he played one big master stroke. He invited none other than, Mr. Bill Gates to invest in Apple…! Bill Gates was more than ready to invest in Apple, because the person, who copied the technologies of Steve, had to have the greatest trust in his capabilities! Apple was now on track again.

Steve was still purist and idealistic as far as the technological innovations and the aesthetic looks are concerned. He made the new ‘OSX’ operating system, which was a huge success in the market (In OSX, we already have different versions like, Chitah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger. Recently we have seen the successful launch of its Leopard version in 2007). Steve also launched the transparent computers in the market for the first time in the name of iMac. Then, we got the super finely designed, iBook laptop from Apple. In 2001, Steve made portable digital music player called, the iPode. Steve always considered the Windows operating System an inferior product as compared to the Macintosh products (which to a large extent is even true). He always called Windows as ‘Working in Hell’. But this Steve was ready to compromise with his beliefs for the success of his company. He, eventually, started making the Windows enabled Macintosh computers. The unimaginable success of iPode literally scrambled the pillars of world music industry! Just two years ago, he sold out his animation studio Pixar to Disney and in return, got the life-time directorship on the Disney’s board.

Steve re-entered Apple by playing the gimmick of taking a salary of $ 1 per year. But he, after getting into his company again, proved very influential and last year he was the highest-paid CEO of America! But amidst such an entire scenario, the time and life struggles had taken their toll on Steve’s health. He was diagnosed with Pancreas cancer. He fought with his cancer also and came back victoriously.

He sensed that the mobiles with music player were giving tough competition to his iPode. So, he decided to enter an entirely new market segment for Apple, the mobile market. And the result is in front of us…! The iPhone…!

Apple’s creativity has got a support in the face of a ruthless, hardcore, practical businessman. The Apple Corporation, today, is valued at more than $120 billion. Bill Gates has failed to proceed further from Windows. And Steve, with his mind power, has gifted us with some of the greatest innovations of our time. When the ever struggling and always winning Steve recently, in a function, told Bill Gates that ‘we have more past moments to cherish than deciding on the future road map’, everybody around could easily see tears in the eyes of both long time friends! He gave a very emotional, touching and quite inspiring speech to management students on their Commencement in the Stanford University in 2005.

This life story is much more exciting than watching a fantasy film, isn’t it? The story is of a young man getting all the glitz and glories in his heydays, losing everything because of dirty corporate games, and again through his own intelligence, coming back to the top! The story can inspire anybody who really wants to do something eventful in his/her life.

So, see you guys very soon in my next post again with some more exciting baatein…!

Till then, live and lead a successful life…

Asta-la-vista-babe!