Yes, actually, it's BECAUSE of Steve Jobs.
<dons flame suit>
Personally, I don't like the "Steve would or wouldn't" crap. Why? Because Steve was unpredictable, he did things even HE said he would never do. He once SAID he would NEVER do a phone! And the list goes on and on, by the way.
That aside, one of the business genius components of Steve was the tight supply chain. Steve Wozniak was recently interviewed and talked about even in the early days, how important it was to Jobs that they did NOT have warehouses full of product. That they could accurately predict and produce
only enough product. I believe Woz even said "We will never overbuild" in reference to Apples supply chain. One of the issues Steve saw in the business models of his competitors was big box stores chocked full of products and warehouses full of stuff, but then you create a new product and BAM, you have TONS of useless inventory. Although this HAS happened to Apple a couple of times (Apple IIGS for example), they are really, really good about not letting it happen. With the exception of extremely high volume items like iDevices (which apple conveniently maintains one or two generations back in the supply chain, ever notice that? For the same reason! They have a plan to prevent a stockpile of obsolete unsold devices!), Apple tightly controls who sells their products, they have their own retail stores, and are really 'tight' on how many other retail stores carry their products. You won't find an iMac with a half-crushed box sitting on a folding table marked 'clearance' in the middle of Wal-Mart. That is precisely what Apple wants to avoid.
So, yeah, I think under Jobs, the same would have happened. It's the very business model of Apple, keep tight supply chains and low inventory. Avoid the 'osbourne' effect (A company in the Jobs-Woz era that went under when they produced a TREMENDOUS amount of product, then information got out, partly due to their own announcements, about a next generation of product. People stopped buying, and they could never afford to produce the next generation! I believe Steve and Apple used this as a motivator for keeping absolute secrecy and a TIGHT supply line that doesn't overbuild!)
Just my two cents. I could be wrong! But that's what I think.
Sadly, this is the corporate way.....and, at times this strategy comes back to bite them........something I've never understood (in light of Apple's huge cash reserves and market capitalization is this: Why don't they purchase and or build their own plants for their major products instead of relying on other vendors?
They could buy anything they need and not be hostage to anyone.
When you look at how wealthy Apple is it would be easy to by the screen vendor.....the chip maker.....the graphics card maker......use their R & D departments, let engineering design the new stuff and the Apple could do everything without being held hostage by other vendors.
b3
Why not produce their own stuff?
Just ask Steve. When he came back to Apple, he said he HATED how proprietary Apple was. Look up the WWDC keynote from I BELIEVE 1997 (first one with Jobs back). He talks at LENGTH about how it's a BAD idea for Apple to produce all their own stuff. Basically, you can get better products at a lower price by sourcing from vendors, and only building what nobody else does. Apple DOES 'share engineers' with companies like Sharp, Samsung, etc., to help them design and produce products that will be in the next devices. For example, the iPhone 4's retina display. That wasn't an off the shelf part announced at CES that Apple just decided to buy a bunch of. But they didn't build it either. They worked with panel manufacturers to engineer and design a display, and let THEM build it, which allowed the iPhone to be a sub-$1000 device (much much less than that on subsidy!)
You'll also notice that it was after Jobs' return that Apple started to switch to more industry standards, like getting rid of 'Apple Desktop Bus' and going with standards like USB, using 802.11b Wi-Fi instead of their own proprietary stuff, etc. etc. There WAS a time when Apple pretty much used their own in-house stuff only, and they were, at one point, 90 days away from bankruptcy producing computers that underwhelmed at a price that is 2 or 3 times the price of what they sell now!
Because you see it's not the ports, or the chips, or who makes the parts that makes Apple who they are, it's the engineering and taking those pieces and making them do something great. Apple takes strides to make sure failures like that don't happen but even if they do, they have stellar support and stand behind their products.
-John
