Happy Birthday Apple!
It's no joke--you were founded 34 years ago today. Apple, this is your life!
Founded on April 1, 1976, the huge multinational corporation we've all come to know and love was brought into being by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in order to sell their first marketed creation, the Apple I computer kit. The kits, handbuilt by Wozniak, weren't what would be considered today to be a personal computer, as they only consisted of a motherboard.
With the financial backing of Mike Markkula, Jobs and Wozniak incorporated Apple Computers in January of 1977 and introduced the Apple II in April of that same year. The Apple II blew its competition out of the water by offering up an open architecture and color graphics. By the end of the decade, the small company had hired on a merry band of computer designers and with the revenue that flows from a reputation for excellence, they were able to set up a production line. Apple Computers launched the initial public offering of their stock in December of 1980, a move that generated more millionaires than any other company in the history of the universe.
Not too shabby for only being four years out of the gate, huh?
The next few years of the company's history were something of a mixed bag of infighting and political intrigue, but it didn't stop Apple from giving us the Macintosh, unveiling it during Superbowl XVIII in a commercial directed by Ridley Scott. Both Scott's commercial and the Macintosh have both come to be acknowledged as masterpieces.
After close to a decade of growing success, it was a given that some dark clouds were going to crop up sooner or later.
The infighting that started in the earliy eighties came to a head in 1985, when then Apple CEO John Scully and 50 percent of the awesome that brought Apple Computersinto being, Steve Jobs, had a major parting of opinions, which quickly turned into a parting of ways. Apple's Board of Directors sided with Scully, forcing a wounded Jobs into a position where for pride's sake, he had no choice but to resign.
Over the next decade, Apple's fortunes came to rise and fall.
The rise?
Apple Computers introduced the revolutionary Powerbook in 1991!
The fall?
They only came to the revelation of the Powerbook after releasing the not-very-portable Macintosh Portable in 1989.
The mid-90's saw Apple Computers introduce and promptly spit a number of CEOs faster than poop through a goose. Scully was replaced by Michael Spindler, who was ousted by Gil Amelio, who in 1997 was kicked to the curb as a consequence of his being at the helm of the company during massive layoffs amd the lowest stock prices Apple had seen in three years. It wasn't until 1997 that Steve Jobs returned, and began to slowly turn Apple's fortunes around.
It seems so long ago, but in the time since he took on the duties of CEO, we've been given the iMac, iBook, MacBook Pros, the iPod and OS X. We've seen the dawn of the Apple Store, iTunes, and the Mac Pro. We've watched as Apple set the bar for mobile devices with the advent of the iPhone, and this Saturday, the iPad.
That's a lot of awesome packed into 34 years.
This long weekend, as you tear open the box of that new iPad, or sit down to your tried and true Powerbook G4, don't forget to remember what Apple's given us, and look forward to the next 34 years.
