- Impact
- 6
heres a link to an interview with Co founder of Apple Steve Wozniak
http://www.gulf-news.com/business/Technology/10251107.html
makes for interesting reading
here is the full article
Apple founder fears dotcom collapse
By Rupert Neate, The Daily Telegraph Limited, London 2008
Published: October 10, 2008, 23:53
Steve Wozniak was such a chronically shy teenager he could barely summon up the courage to speak to his peers. Instead, he would spend his evenings tinkering with calculators and dreaming of super-computers.
He's a different man today. Wozniak, or 'Woz' to use one of his many nicknames, has just had a roomful of high-powered business people in stitches as he recounted the rocky beginnings of one of the world's most loved companies.
Wozniak is the electronic engineering genius who co-founded Apple with marketing ace and teenage friend Steve Jobs. His first love was a super-computer, a poster of which he had pinned to his bedroom wall. "I told my dad I wanted to buy one - he said it would cost as much as our house," remembered Wozniak. "I replied: 'That's OK, I'll live in an apartment'."
During his years studying electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California (Berkeley), he started down the road to professional technology development by taking on freelance commissions to design software.
When given his first commission to design a computer game for Atari, he could barely contain his excitement. "I thought Oh my God, it would be the highlight of my life to design a game that kids would actually use. Steve and I didn't sleep for two days to get it done on time."
His enthusiasm and creativity are clearly undiminished: he still dreams of the next world-changing "killer app".
Different Steves
The two Steves were polar opposites but their differences made their company, which now has market capitalisation of $92 billion (Dh338 billion), work. "Steve [Jobs] was into everything hippy, he ran around shouting 'free love man' and eating seeds," says Wozniak, who became known as 'the second Steve'.
Even when he landed his dream job at Hewlett Packard (HP) developing calculators, he was "still the sort of person who would never have a wife or a family", so he would go home, watch a little Star Trek and then work on projects all night.
Indeed, Apple may never have seen the light of day if HP had recognised Wozniak's flair. His idea for the Apple I computer, which would transform personal computing, was turned down by his employer no fewer than five times. "Oh my God, I wanted it so badly," recalls the 58-year-old Californian.
Bill Hewlett, co-founder of HP with Dave Packard, later simply said: "You win some, you lose some."
Despite the constant knockbacks, Wozniak was "almost too ethical" to leave HP when "the angel" Mike Markkula offered the Steves $250,000 to set up their own company. "I thought I owed it to HP to stay. But Steve [Jobs] got at all my family and they convinced me I had to do it."
Although he has been "basically retired" from Apple since 1987, Wozniak's love for the company is still obvious. He was never in it for the money, as his surprisingly frank comments on the future of the company and the technology industry testify.
Last week, Apple shares tumbled nearly 20 per cent after two analysts downgraded the stock on fears that the consumer spending slowdown could seriously hit future profits.
Wozniak says the downgrade was "correct", an admission which could wipe further millions off the shares, down from a high of $179 in August to hovering around $90.
"It is time for the whole computer industry to maybe have a bit of a slowdown," he adds. "For 20 years we have been in this replacement and upgrade market. It is very easy to postpone that when there are financial uncertainties."
He says investment houses' over-valuation of Web 2.0 and social networking sites could even lead to a minor version of the dotcom crash which saw $5 trillion wiped off the market values of technology companies between March 2000 and October 2002.
I begin to wonder whether he was even briefed by the Apple press office when he predicts the imminent death of the ubiquitous iPod.
"The iPod has sort of lived a long life at number one," he says. "Things like that, if you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, they kind of die out after a while. You get to a point when they are on display everywhere, they get real cheap and they are not selling as much."
Wozniak even speaks out against the iPhone 3G, Apple's latest cult product which caused chaos in the West End when it was launched in Apple's Regent Street store this summer.
Users' influence
"Consumers aren't getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down," he says, comparing the iPhone's closed operating system to the new Google phone with its open-source system. "I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed," he laments.
If consumer spending on technology plummets, and the indications are it will, Apple should be better placed than others as so many of its customers buy its products with almost missionary zeal. Yet Wozniak claims he and Jobs "don't like the fact that it's a bit of a religion".
"I would like to have the users influence the next generation," he says. "With a religion you're not allowed to challenge anything."
Despite his frankness, he clams up when pressed about future products, claiming "nobody, not even Steve Jobs" knows what's next. "I think he would be sitting there [unaware] right up until the day it is introduced." However, Wozniak does let slip that Apple's future could lie in an "iWatch".
His teenage shyness may be long gone, but his inner geek certainly remains. Who else but the co-founder of Apple would name his dogs X, Y and Z, and consider naming his child Zowoz "because it's a palindrome"?
http://www.gulf-news.com/business/Technology/10251107.html
makes for interesting reading
here is the full article
Apple founder fears dotcom collapse
By Rupert Neate, The Daily Telegraph Limited, London 2008
Published: October 10, 2008, 23:53
Steve Wozniak was such a chronically shy teenager he could barely summon up the courage to speak to his peers. Instead, he would spend his evenings tinkering with calculators and dreaming of super-computers.
He's a different man today. Wozniak, or 'Woz' to use one of his many nicknames, has just had a roomful of high-powered business people in stitches as he recounted the rocky beginnings of one of the world's most loved companies.
Wozniak is the electronic engineering genius who co-founded Apple with marketing ace and teenage friend Steve Jobs. His first love was a super-computer, a poster of which he had pinned to his bedroom wall. "I told my dad I wanted to buy one - he said it would cost as much as our house," remembered Wozniak. "I replied: 'That's OK, I'll live in an apartment'."
During his years studying electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California (Berkeley), he started down the road to professional technology development by taking on freelance commissions to design software.
When given his first commission to design a computer game for Atari, he could barely contain his excitement. "I thought Oh my God, it would be the highlight of my life to design a game that kids would actually use. Steve and I didn't sleep for two days to get it done on time."
His enthusiasm and creativity are clearly undiminished: he still dreams of the next world-changing "killer app".
Different Steves
The two Steves were polar opposites but their differences made their company, which now has market capitalisation of $92 billion (Dh338 billion), work. "Steve [Jobs] was into everything hippy, he ran around shouting 'free love man' and eating seeds," says Wozniak, who became known as 'the second Steve'.
Even when he landed his dream job at Hewlett Packard (HP) developing calculators, he was "still the sort of person who would never have a wife or a family", so he would go home, watch a little Star Trek and then work on projects all night.
Indeed, Apple may never have seen the light of day if HP had recognised Wozniak's flair. His idea for the Apple I computer, which would transform personal computing, was turned down by his employer no fewer than five times. "Oh my God, I wanted it so badly," recalls the 58-year-old Californian.
Bill Hewlett, co-founder of HP with Dave Packard, later simply said: "You win some, you lose some."
Despite the constant knockbacks, Wozniak was "almost too ethical" to leave HP when "the angel" Mike Markkula offered the Steves $250,000 to set up their own company. "I thought I owed it to HP to stay. But Steve [Jobs] got at all my family and they convinced me I had to do it."
Although he has been "basically retired" from Apple since 1987, Wozniak's love for the company is still obvious. He was never in it for the money, as his surprisingly frank comments on the future of the company and the technology industry testify.
Last week, Apple shares tumbled nearly 20 per cent after two analysts downgraded the stock on fears that the consumer spending slowdown could seriously hit future profits.
Wozniak says the downgrade was "correct", an admission which could wipe further millions off the shares, down from a high of $179 in August to hovering around $90.
"It is time for the whole computer industry to maybe have a bit of a slowdown," he adds. "For 20 years we have been in this replacement and upgrade market. It is very easy to postpone that when there are financial uncertainties."
He says investment houses' over-valuation of Web 2.0 and social networking sites could even lead to a minor version of the dotcom crash which saw $5 trillion wiped off the market values of technology companies between March 2000 and October 2002.
I begin to wonder whether he was even briefed by the Apple press office when he predicts the imminent death of the ubiquitous iPod.
"The iPod has sort of lived a long life at number one," he says. "Things like that, if you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, they kind of die out after a while. You get to a point when they are on display everywhere, they get real cheap and they are not selling as much."
Wozniak even speaks out against the iPhone 3G, Apple's latest cult product which caused chaos in the West End when it was launched in Apple's Regent Street store this summer.
Users' influence
"Consumers aren't getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down," he says, comparing the iPhone's closed operating system to the new Google phone with its open-source system. "I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed," he laments.
If consumer spending on technology plummets, and the indications are it will, Apple should be better placed than others as so many of its customers buy its products with almost missionary zeal. Yet Wozniak claims he and Jobs "don't like the fact that it's a bit of a religion".
"I would like to have the users influence the next generation," he says. "With a religion you're not allowed to challenge anything."
Despite his frankness, he clams up when pressed about future products, claiming "nobody, not even Steve Jobs" knows what's next. "I think he would be sitting there [unaware] right up until the day it is introduced." However, Wozniak does let slip that Apple's future could lie in an "iWatch".
His teenage shyness may be long gone, but his inner geek certainly remains. Who else but the co-founder of Apple would name his dogs X, Y and Z, and consider naming his child Zowoz "because it's a palindrome"?
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