Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Altaire4_2dot0]

You won't find brilliance in Spreadsheets.

BTW, when you say, "would this have happened without Steve Jobs ... I don't think so" I wonder what you think would have happened if Steve Jobs had been killed in a plane crash and Fred Anderson was elevated to interim CEO. Do you think Fred would have just sat there like a bump on a log and not either negotiated the purchase of Moto's microprocessor division or done a deal with IBM? Are you under the impression that there was anything Jobs did in those meetings or negotiations that would not have been done by anyone in his position with even a modicum of intelligence and skill?

Lang, Fred is a brillant accountant but lacks the technical savvy to run a company like APPLE. While companies like Dell and Gateway are content to reverse engineer known PC designs(Example: Compare The Dell Latitude and the Apple G3 Wallstreet design) Apple continues to focus on re-engineering and improving Apple's System designs.

It takes a special person to coordinate and direct a Technical and Managerial staff to produce outrageously good hardware and software designs, on time, and on budget .... which will sell. All you have to do is look at the lame Apple system designs that came out after the Mac II CX then compare those designs to those after Jobs return.

Who was in charge of Apple during the time they started losing massive share of the PC market ? Sculley, Spindler and Amelio ...... so its important to understand what Jobs contributes to Apple besides his ego.

I think that Jobs has been successful at differentiating Apple, based on both system design and software. A huge feat when competing up against MSFT and Intel.

Jobs was smart not to get into the CPU fabrication business. Its a tough business and expensive to stay ahead of the curve. Look to Sun,Moto and IBM to learn why fabricating CPU designs is a tough business.

Altaire4 .... Go AAPL !!!