Chapter 20 Chapter 4

From 2004 to 2006, both Jobs and Apple experienced two major catastrophes, but both survived miraculously. In 2004, Jobs suffered from cancer, and doctors estimated that he could live up to 3 to 6 months.When the doctor advised him to go back and get everything in order, he was actually implying that he was "preparing for the funeral".The doctor immediately operated on him. Fortunately, it was a rare and curable malignant tumor.After surgery, he recovered quickly.This experience gave Jobs a real understanding of death.He believes that death drives the evolution and change of life, and if the old does not go away, the new does not come.Now, new people and new technologies will gradually become old and be eliminated in the near future.Instead of basking in the success of the iPod, Apple stepped up development of new products.

Apple has not been going well in the past two years, and has experienced product obstruction and option turmoil. Wall Street always expects listed companies to continue to create miracles of revenue.In order to obtain further growth, after monopolizing the player market, in 2003 Apple began to seek a share of the highly profitable music market.At that time, the entire music market in the world was monopolized by five major record companies, EMI and Universal, including their subsidiaries Polygram, Warner Brothers, Sony and BMG.The latter two have merged today.These five companies basically signed different artists, sold their own music, and jointly maintained a highly profitable market.Most listeners may have an experience that everyone may only like one or two songs in an album instead of all of them. However, when buying a CD, you must buy the entire CD together.Apple suggested that record companies work with it to develop a paid music download market, and sell an album into individual songs, so that listeners can only choose what they like to download.This idea is of course very good, the problem is how the record company and Apple will share, of course, everyone wants to get more.Jobs was a very good negotiator. He put Sony, which was the toughest in terms of price, at the end. He reached an agreement with the other four companies.Since Apple launched paid music downloads, downloads have grown much slower than expected.Throughout 2006, Apple's performance in the stock market was not good. At this time, Apple's option scandal broke out again, which made the situation worse.There are many media reports about this incident, the general situation is as follows:

If you want to understand American high-tech companies, you must understand its stock option system.In a traditional company, an employee's income and benefits include cash such as bonuses and pensions.Regular employees do not own part of the company.Many high-tech companies, in order to bind the interests of employees with the future of the company, issue some stock options (Stock Option) to employees.The so-called option is the right to buy stocks at a certain price, such as the current market price, within a certain period of time, such as within ten years.Employees who receive stock options will have a sense of responsibility as owners of the company.If the company's stock rises, people with stock options can buy the stock at a low price in the past, the so-called exercise, and then sell it at the current high price, earning the difference.Equity only makes sense when the company's stock keeps going up.Sadly, no company's stock just goes up and down, so ownership can sometimes become meaningless.In order to make the equity meaningful, some companies have manipulated the middle, modified the equity grant time, and awarded the stock to the management and employees at the lowest price.That's where Apple stumbled. In 2006, the US Securities Regulatory Commission began to investigate Apple's behavior.After a long investigation, the China Securities Regulatory Commission had conclusive evidence, and Apple finally bowed its head and paid a fine.In the end, Apple's chief financial officer, Fred Anderson, was fined for it.

Judging from the development of the situation later, the fired financial officer felt aggrieved and went to the "Wall Street Journal" to complain.Jobs dealt with the investigation of the Securities Regulatory Commission on one hand and developed new products on the other hand. At the end of 2006, Apple launched AppleTV. AppleTV is not a TV in any sense, but a computer the size of a block of tofu. This box can store thousands of hours of music or dozens of hours of movies.One end of it can be connected to the Internet to download music and movies, and the other end can be connected to the TV and stereo at home to play surround sound and high-definition audio and video.Don't underestimate this tofu block, which is about the same price as an iPod. It is likely to become the entertainment center of every family living room in the future.Many people believe that after the personal computer, the entertainment center in the home will become a new industry.In fact, ten years ago, Gates predicted in his "Road to the Future" that audio-visual products would be digitized and could be downloaded and stored in a server according to the special needs of users. This server could manage and control all home appliances.Now this dream of Gates is almost realized, but it makes Apple one step ahead.Right now, there are three candidates in this space, Apple, Microsoft, and Sony, the latter two relying on their consoles as home entertainment centers.Apple has the largest iPod user base, Microsoft has a strong technical reserve, and Sony has the leading Blu-ray (Blu-Ray) DVD technology. Who will have the last laugh?

Apple's second new blockbuster product is the iPhone, which was launched not long ago.I had the privilege of seeing and trying this revolutionary product for the first time.Honestly, this is the best phone I've seen.It has gone beyond an ordinary mobile phone and iPod player, and it also has the main function of a complete, networked computer and ordinary TV.The experience of checking emails and surfing the Internet with it is different from using a normal mobile phone.As for other cool features, there have been many reports in various news, so I won't go into details.Although its price of 600 US dollars is a bit expensive, but according to the rule of halving the price of electrical appliances in 18 months, the iPhone is likely to become a popular mobile phone in the future, and become a new growth point after Apple, that is, the iPod. It will even impact the traditional mobile phone industry.

If we compare Apple's products ten years ago with the current products, we can easily find that Apple is no longer a pure personal computer manufacturer, because it has a large number of products similar to home appliances, such as iPod, AppleTV and iPhone.Therefore, some experts believe that Apple is transitioning from a computer company to a home appliance company.However, these products are different from traditional home appliances. Everything gives people a refreshing feeling.Today, Apple has become a brand of fashionable home appliances.If you want to ask what is innovation, this is innovation!