At first, the two companies seem as different as possible. IBM was part of the personal computer’s birth, while Apple has promoted the post-PC era. However, the young tech giant can take a lesson from the veteran computer company in how to survive the departure of a corporate icon. At the front of the class is Apple CEO Tim Cook, once an IBM exec.
Like Apple today, IBM had the same questions of how to survive the passing of a leader who embodied Big Blue. IBM chairman Lou Gerstner, Jr., after pulling the company back from bankruptcy, stepped down in 2002. Like Apple, Gerstner turned the reigns over to the head of sales and operations, Sam Palmasano. Before becoming CEO, Cook had been the Cupertino, Calif. company’s global sales head, Macintosh manufacturing guru and then Chief of Operations.
The key to both company’s success, according to the Wall Street Journal, which interviewed professors at Harvard’s Business School, is converting from a lone-wolf structure where one person has control of all aspects, to a more institutional process.
As IBM did following Gerstner’s departure, establishing company-wide connections rather than what the report calls individual “fiefdoms,” Apple in 2008 established the little-known Apple University to instituionalize Steve Jobs’ though process. Thursday, analyst after analyst pointed to that process as a hopeful sign Cook can continue Jobs’ success in a post-Jobs world.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
18 responses to “Look To IBM To See How Apple Can Survive Without Steve Jobs”
We love you steve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
iSad ?
Steve ! I wish you could “wake up” and say “One more thing…” again
Is IBM really a great example to look up to?
[ SOS ] Complaint with Human Rights Violations by IBM China on Centennial
[ Review ] How Much IBM Can Get Away with is the Responsibility of the Media
http://wp.me/p1hDC3-aL
Tragedy of Labor Rights Repression in IBM China
http://wp.me/p1hDC3-92
Scandal stricken IBM detained mother of ex-employee on the day of centennial
http://wp.me/p1hDC3-8I
[ SOS ] Complaint with Human Rights Violations by IBM China on Centennial
Please Google:
Tragedy of Labor Rights Repression in IBM China
Walt Disney would have been a better example.
The Journal is wrong. Apple hasn’t been a lone wolf for a very long time. Steve was always surrounded by the best talent he could find.
The reason folks thing he did it all is because his was the only face they saw for ages. Which led to the rock god mentality that screwed with the stocks when he first got sick. A drop down to like $50 a share woke Steve up to the fact that the public needed to see the other faces. And he started putting them on stage also.
Tim has the same talent surrounding him. And it will result in the same great products etc.
No need to change anything.
Not to mention that looking at what happened 10 years ago is hardly a cake walk for predicting what will happen now
It depends on what you look up to. If it’s success in business and technological innovation, yes. If it’s attractive and sleak design for the consumer market, no. Both Apple and IBM are very much exemplary, in their own fields. Their field are totally orthogonal, of course.
I still remember a few years ago when they petitioned the government for 10,000 more foreign visas stating they just couldn’t find any engineers to hire in the US. (In a bad economy, really?) Then, after getting them all up to speed, sent them back to India. (Strange, I thought you really, really, really, needed them in the US?) Then, next year, laid off 10,000 Americans. (Ah, it all makes sense now!)
So I don’t have very positive thoughts about IBM, but yes, I suppose they are good at business. Ruthlessly good, you could say. I still don’t think Apple should look up to them.