Steve Jobs Resigns As CEO Of Apple

Title says it all. More to come. For now, the letter from Steve Jobs himself:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Update: Apple has confirmed that Apple COO Tim Cook will replace Jobs as CEO, following Jobs’ own recommendation. Considering that Cook has filled in for Jobs in the times of his medical leaves (including the one he has been on this year), this has been widely expected if and when it came time for Jobs to step down.

Also as requested, Jobs has been elected as Chairman of the Board and will remain with the company in that capacity. Cook will join the Board as well.

Innovative Products That was Defined by Steve Jobs

Bangalore: Steve Jobs is one of the founding figures of the modern computer industry. He has twice run Apple: once from its creation in 1976 until he was ousted in 1985, and again, 20 years later, when he returned to rescue a company on the brink of collapse. His innovation put Apple at top at the international front.

Today Apple's creative is identical to Steve?s personality hence lets travel through the products that speaks of Steve Jobs itself. 

iPad

Steve Jobs tries to wow the world with the "magical" new device and unveiled the innovative iPad which marked a fundamental shift in the way the computer industry works.
The latest tablet has 9.7 inches LED-backlit Multi-Touch display, IPS technology, Fingerprint-resistant coating. Dual Core Processors which makes up to 2x faster CPU & up to 9x faster graphics with low power consuming processor. 

iphone

iphone is an Internet-enabled smartphone developed by Apple. The iPhone includes a 3.5-inch multi-touch screen, rather than a keyboard, that can be manipulated by users wit 

h by two finger touches. The iPhone runs on a special version of Apple's Mac OS X operating system 

iPod

Steve job made iPod is a revolution in the line of portable media players. It was designed and marketed by Apple and announced on October 23, 2001, and released on November 10, 2001. 

The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touch screen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle. iPod serve as external data storage devices and its storage capacity varies by model, ranging from 2 GB for the iPod Shuffle to 160 GB for the iPod Classic. 

iMac

Steve gave a different computing experience with iMac to its consumers. One could not have thought that Destop computers can provide such a smooth experience. Today the iMac co

mes with 3x faster graphics, thunder bolt and a FaceTime HD camera. 

itune store

It is a disarmingly simple concept: sell songs in digital format for less than a buck and let buyers play them whenever and wherever they like as long as it is on an Apple iPod. Jobs had proved the idea back when he launched the Music Store for Mac users. 

The store simplified the process and brought together tracks from all the major labels. The store became the largest music retailer in the United States in 2008. 

Macintosh

It's really amazing how forward thinking these guys were. Consumers loved how Jobs kept pointing out the fact that the Macintosh was designed so well that it actually 

had fewer chips than a standard IBM video card. It's also pretty incredible to see how Steve Jobs" devotion to making designs that are as simple and elegant as possible was exactly the same as it is today. The Macintosh computer was released in January of 1984, with 128K RAM of memory. 

Next computer

Next computers was a creation of Steve Jobs after his exit from Apple in his initial years because of the tiff with the then CEO. He started Next computers in the ye 

ar 1985 which went on till 1990 as later it was bought by Apple which marked Steve re-entry in the company. 

Major Corporate Battles in History

Bangalore: Competition is very important in today's world. At the end of the day, one is branded as the winner and the other as the loser. But in the larger picture businesses compete to see who has the larger market share and how successful they are. Especially in the tech industry, competition is notoriously intense. Through their competition, the tech industry has drawn unparalleled innovation with iteration which helps far-fetched concepts to take shape into reality. Some of their innovations have become indispensable tools which run our lives and businesses. IT companies like Google, Apple, and Nokia have fascinated us with their products and services, but what drove their innovations? It was the rat race for the top positions. 

Here is the list of the tech competitors who had the toughest battle to be the number one in their markets:

Google v/s Yahoo:

It is hard to ignore the fact that Yahoo set the mile stone for search engines. It was undoubtedly the leader in the search world. It gave stiff competitions to the then search engines like Lycos, Excite and AskJeeves. Yahoo! grew rapidly throughout the 1990s. Like many search engines and web directories, Yahoo! diversified into a Web portal. It also made many high-profile acquisitions. Its stock price skyrocketed during the dot-com bubble. In 2000, Yahoo! began using Google for search results. In 2000, Yahoo had about 56 percent of search engine referrals, six times its closest competitor. Over the next four years, it developed its own search technologies, which it began using in 2004. Yahoo! also revamped its mail service to compete with Google's Gmail in 2007. The company struggled through 2008, with several large layoffs.

Compared to Yahoo in the year 2000, Google was just a fraction of Yahoo holding on to 1 percent of the market share. In 2001, Yahoo started using Google's algorithm which instigated the competition between the two giants for market share. By 2002, Google had become very popular among the users and it referred about 31.8 percent of all searches compared to Yahoo's 36.3 percent. During the next eight years, Google grew exponentially and gained the monopoly in the search engine market. According to Comscore, in July of this year, Google had more than 65 percent of market share, while its closest competitor, still Yahoo!, had just 16.1 percent. Microsoft is trying to compete with Google by introducing the "Bing" search engine but has not seen any success till date. 

HP v/s Dell:

Dell produced its first computer way back in 1985 called the "Turbo PC." Dell Computer Corporation began expanding globally in the 1988. In 1996, Dell began selling computers via its web site. In 2003, the company was rebranded as simply "Dell Inc." to recognize the company's expansion beyond computers. In late 2006, Dell lost its lead in the PC-business to Hewlett-Packard. 

Both Gartner and IDC estimated that in the third quarter of 2006, HP shipped more units worldwide than Dell did. Dell's 3.6 percent growth paled in comparison to HP's 15 percent growth during the same period. The problem got worse in the fourth quarter, when Gartner estimated that Dell PC shipments declined 8.9 percent (versus HP's 23.9 percent growth). As a result, at the end of 2006 Dell's overall PC market-share stood at 13.9 percent (versus HP's 17.4 percent). 

Apple v/s Nokia:

In the fourth quarter of 2007, Nokia was leading the phone market with about 50 percent of worldwide market share. The RIM based Blackberry was far behind it with 10 percent and Apple was just 5.2 percent. 

The year 2010 was a major breakthrough for Apple and they slowly made it over to the top. The market share of Apple was 16 percent in 2010 which was half of that of Nokia's 28 percent. With Steve Jobs's innovative ideas, the company released some amazing products which brought them into the lead. As of the second quarter of 2011, according to IDC, the company had 19.1 percent market share with an annual growth rate of 141 percent. Nokia, which has moved into third behind Samsung, had a 15.7 percent share, with a growth rate of -30.7 percent. 

Facebook v/s Myspace:

The Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation purchased the ever emerging Myspace for $580 in 2005. Facebook was still in its college days (was restricted to college students) then. In May 2007, Facebook's monthly users were hardly a 30 million while Myspace was peaking with around 70 million users. 

Two years later saw a completely different story. In May 2009, Facebook equaled and then surpassed Myspace's unique 70 million users. In 2011 Facebook emerged as the sole leader. In May 2011, Facebook had almost 160 million users. Meanwhile, Myspace has dropped to 40 million and the numbers have been steadily declining. In June this year, Murdoch sold the dying company for $35 million, 93 percent less than the original purchase price. 

Technologies That Missed the Bus

Bangalore: The world of technology keeps us buzzing with new trends every now and then. However that's not an unusual phenomenon, but the crux of the matter is if the hype lived up to the expectation and delivered the results in sales and revenue. 

Let's look at the pages of technological history and go through some incidents where the products ditch its inventories.

1. 3D glasses/3D TV:

Movies with 3D effect has been doing pretty well, however bringing them to home theaters did not seem to turnout as a good one. 3D TV and 3D glasses surrounded huge euphoria during its released; however it did not click well in the Indian market. Companies like Sony, Samsung has ventured into this arena with high aspirations but failed. 

2. EBook Reader

EBook Reader gives the feel of reading a real raw book on hand and makes a perfect addition to travel gadgets. Companies like infibeam, thewinkstore, Amazon' 

s Kindle were very optimistic about their invention, EBook Reader. But their hopes seem to fade away as it EBook Reader did not click as expected. 

3. Firewire

Firewire got a phenomenal release by Apple's Steve Jobs and was viewed as one of the greatest technological boom. However with the introduction of USB 2.0 six in 200 

1 its superiority war erased. Firewire has never managed to take off and is rarely included on laptops or desktop PCs these days. 

4. Biometrics

As far as security is concern, technology has given enormous invention in this filed. Gadgets like laptops have tried to installed and make use of this technolog 

y where fingerprints, eye retinas are used as additional security. However this technology did not seem trustworthy as cybercriminal are smart enough to get through this technology. 

Anna fever hits the US

Thousands of Indian-Americans living in the New York area have gathered at Madison Avenue for the annual India Day parade to commemorate the 65th independence day of their homeland, and used the occasion to extend their support to activist Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement.  The 31st 'India Day Parade', organised by the Federation of Indian Associations, saw Bollywood stars and politicians rub shoulders with the Indian population living in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut as Madison avenue was flooded in shades of the Indian tricolour.  Actress Rani Mukherjee was the grand marshall for the parade, which is touted as the biggest Indian parade in the US.  Noted classical singer Pandit Jasraj, actor Gulshan Grover and singer Shibani Kashyap were also present at the parade that ran for 10 blocks in the heart of New York city.  Supporters of Hazare's Lokpal bill also turned out in large numbers for the 'Walk Against Corruption'. Wearing the 'Anna cap', the supporters waived banners and placards and shouted slogans of 'Remove corruption, save India', 'Enact strong Lokpall bill', 'We want Jan Lokpal', 'We are with you Anna Hazare' and 'India is with you, the world is with you Anna.'  Vamsi Veeramachaneni of the 'India Against Corruption' organisation said that Indians living abroad are "frustrated" to see the growing level of corruption in India.  "All the Indians have gathered here to support Anna Hazare as he represents the future of a corrupt free country. We want to see a corruption-free India. We have had independence for over 60 years and we are yet to tackle corruption, which continues to be the biggest problem in the country," he said.  Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo, who is of Indian descent, was the guest of honour at the parade. The parade comprised floats by US-based Indian organisations and dance performances showing the cultural diversity of India.  Mukherjee waived out to the crowd and said it was "fabulous" to see Indians living abroad celebrate their independence day with such fervour. Seeing the large turnout of Indian-Americans at the parade, Mukherjee said she felt as "if I am in India today."  FIA said Mukherjee will preside over a ceremony at the Empire State building where the tower of the iconic New York building will light up in colours of the Indian flag.  Mukherjee will also ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange today. Last year actress Preity Zinta had rung the bell at the exchange in Times Square.  The parade's official theme was 'My Earth, My Home' and sought to raise awareness about environmental pollution.  In Chicago, rain could not deter the spirits of the Indian community to attend 65th Independence day celebrations.  About 25 floats were paraded in the hub of Indian businesses here on Devon Avenue including India Against  Corruption, Western Union, Lions CLub, Asian American Hotel Owners Association etc.  Bhaygyashree of "Maine Pyaar Kiya" fame also attended the parade and said that she was happy to see the crowd and wished them on the occasion.  At the beginning of the programme, a huge Indian flag was carried on the street on Devon Avenue, the hub of Indian businesses in Chicago.  A Scottish band set the right tone, and led the parade, even in the rain.  Bhagyashree sang the national anthem, said "Jai Hind", shook hands and took pictures with people at Saahil Boutique on Devon Avenue.  Last Saturday on August 13, another parade was held in Schaumburg by the other faction.  Alderman Joe Moore (democrat) of the 49th district attended with his wife Barbara, Clerk for the Circuit Court of  Cook County Dorothy Brown, Chairman of the Water Reclamation District Patricia Horton all attended and wished the Indian community "Bharat Mata Ki Jai".  Also taking advantage of the Independence Day at Devon Avenue, IAC attempted to spread the word about Anna Hazare and the anti-corruption movement.  They wore "I am Anna" caps, holding the tri-color Indian flag and wearing T-shirts they raised slogans and T shirt with 'I support India Against corruption' message they raised slogans like 'Kill corruption Save lives', Take back joke pal, Give us Jan Lokpal, 'Anna Tum Sangharsh Karo Hum tumhare saath hai'.  They distributed pamphlets summarizing differences between Lokpal and Jan Lokpal. IAC Chicago helps in spreading the movement throughout America.

Anna fever hits the US

Govt agrees to Anna's demandsIt is massive victory for Anna Hazare as, according to the sources, the government is ready to give in to the social activist's demands. Sources have said that the Jan Lokpal Bill would be discussed in both Houses of the Parliament tomorrow (Aug 26)....