Steve Jobs announced his resignation as CEO of Apple.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Steve-Jobs-Resigns-as-CEO-of-Apple.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Letter-from-Steve-Jobs.html
Jobs turned Apple around from the brink of bankruptcy. It was no small feast to say the least. What he and Apple impressed me most was the way Apple jumped in and woke up a very competitive and already booming cell phone industry by introducing iPhone. In 2007, more than 1.1 billion units of cell phones were shipped, while there were only 271 million units of PC shipped in 2007. Among those, more than 110 million units were smart phones. The number one cell phone vendor in 2007, Nokia, owned at least 36% of the overall cell phone market and over 50% of the smart phone market. Nokia had a record revenue in 2007 at €51 billion, which was approximately $80 billion dollars on an average exchange rate of 1 EUR to 1.5 dollar. While the whole electronic-hardware industry looked at the cell phone industry as the main source of demand, Apple walked in with iPhone and told everyone the king has no clothes on. Given an average lead time of two years for a brand new cell phone, the iPhone project might have started in early 2005. In 2005, North America was only a barren field for smart phones.
Apple's stock fell only slightly to $373.72, a drop of $2.46 or 0.65% today. It seems that the market believes Apple now stands firm on the ground, not on Jobs' shoulder. No matter it is an impression or a reality, Apple will eventually out-grow Jobs. Some people in the Valley refer Jobs as "micro-management". That is an expression of their own preferences. After all, Jobs delivered products, revenue and profit to underscore his leadership style. Not many CEOs on earth can say the same, no matter what their preference in leadership styles is.
