Ruth Ann S. Basnillo                                                                                                                     6/2/2008

SYSANAL

O0A

APPLE

Story:

            Apple Computer was founded in 1976 by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. It all started with the dream of Steve Wozniak to have a computer someday, mixed with his huge dedication, a lot of motives to do it, and values. Back then, he was designing different types of computers during high school at home for fun. One remarkable design he did was the blue box which was designed for making free phone calls. And the other one was the video terminal he did while working at Hewlett- Packard. Steve Jobs was the one who always suggests him to sell his designs.

            The idea of Apple I began with the first meeting of Homebrew Computer Club when he found out what a microprocessor was. He bought one that is very cheap and decided to build the hardware with the terminal he designed before. Then, he wrote a simple little program. After developing the whole Basic, he brought the computer every two weeks at the Homebrew Computer Club and showed it to people with Xeroxes of his schematics passed to them.

            That was the time when Jobs suggested that they start a company when many people already wanted to build their own computer but don’t know how to solder altogether chips. They thought of having a company that sells built-in PC Boards. Apple was launched on a rapid ascent when Jobs landed with a contract with the Byte Shop for 100 preassemble machines.

            The next greatest design he did was the Apple II designed efficiently with very few parts and an added color. it was presented to the public at the first West Coast Computer Faire on April 16 and April 17, 1977.When Wozniak found out that games are easy to be written in Apple II and the games became software, the machine became open to other people who wanted to do anything on it like typing in programs on their own Apple II.

            While Apple II became the largest selling computer in the world in the years 1980-83, they focused on to advertising Apple III which unfortunately never sold in that time frame. That is why by 1983, IBM PC took over and sold more computers than Apple

II.

            Apple Computer went public in 1980 in the largest IPO. They improved Apple II which made it to be the machine that brought computers onto the desks of ordinary people. Apple’s success was really because of its two great founders who really fit nicely in terms of their skills.

Three Things Learned:

Apple Computer was really founded with a very powerful team whose abilities are very promising. And with how they come up to Apple was really extraordinary making me learn many things in doing startups.

            First of all, I learned from Steve Wozniak that when you’re into something and you don’t have a lot of money, you have to learn to optimize things and design it with very few parts so as to be efficient in your work. If you work on something and you use every resources you have, but in the end that thing will just come up to nothing, then it’s better for you to be resourceful by saving every parts that you can save. With every little detail of the product, there are lesser things to be thought of.

            The second thing I learned is that in a startup, there will always be a need for sacrifice. Just like what Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs did. They funded their company out of their own pockets by selling some of their properties.

            And lastly, I learned that a good startup really needs well division of labor among its founders. I believe Apple came up to what it is right now because of the good founders who built it. The two never had a big argument onto something. Both of them had their responsibilities and one of them never claimed about it. Steve Wozniak focused on how to create products for Apple and Steve Jobs do the negotiation and advertising processes. They really fit together nicely in terms of their skills and that made the difference.