Steve Jobs is by far the greatest comeback story in the history of not only corporate America but also corporates worldwide. From being dumped from his own company and being publicly humiliated (in his own words) to taking Apple to the to the heights at which it is now. With Steve’s resignation, a lot of people have been skeptic as to how Apple would possibly handle Steve’s absence. People however forget that Steve owes a lot of his success to his ability to hire the best people and put them at the most important positions in Apple. It is these people (and a lot of other people who work under these people) that make Apple the company that it is. Here is a list of the four most important people at Apple other than Steve Jobs and Tim Cook:
Jonathan Ive: London born designer Jonathan Ive is the senior vice president of Industrial Design at Apple, and reported directly to Steve .
The man behind the design of iMac, iPod, iPhone and the iPad, Jonathan was #1 in the list of most creative people by Fastcompany. With Steve Jobs leaving the scenes, Jonathan is touted to become Apple’s product visionary. Considered the force behind iPhone’s one button interface, Jonathan studied design at Newcastle Polytechnic in his native UK. Few days back, there was a lot of hue and cry in the media about Jony leaving Apple for the education of his children in Britain. Those rumors have stopped now and Jony is all set to take an even bigger role at Apple.
“We feel that we’re just getting going,” I’ve told us a decade ago. He couldn’t have been more right. -- by Chuck Salter
Scott Forstall: Graduating from Stanford University in 1991 with a degree in symbolic systems, he received his Master’s Degree for Computer Science, also from Stanford, the next year. Scott Forstall is senior vice president of iPhone Software at Apple. Reporting directly to the CEO, Forstall leads the team responsible for delivering the software at the heart of Apple’s revolutionary iPhone including the user interface, applications, frameworks and the operating system.
Scott was ranked #2 in the list of most creative people for 2011 by Fastcompany. A lot of the current OSX (Lion) is a re-modelling around Forstall’s baby -- iOS. A regular at iOS’ public events, Forstall will share the load of presenting Apple products to the technology community.
Eddy Cue: The go-to guy at Apple, Eddy Cue is VP of Internet Service at Apple. Eddy Cue runs what is the most disruptive business of the century so far in iTunes and the app-store, the model which separates Apple from the rest.
Other than running the app-store and iTunes, Eddy is also leading Apple’s charge into the Cloud computing business.
Update: Apple’s Eddy Cue Promoted to Senior Vice President for Internet Software and Services.
Phil Schiller: The man who revealed the iPhone 3Gs in the absence of Steve, Philip Schiller is Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing and reports to Apple’s CEO.
A total of 24 years of experience, 17 of them in Apple, Phil is credited with delivering breakthrough products such as the iMac, MacBook, Airport, Xserve, Mac OS X, Safari, AppleTV, iPod and iPhone.
There are a lot of important people in Apple, including the current CEO, Tim Cook, but the four people featured above will be seen a lot at the Apple keynotes in the times to come.
Get in contact with the writer at mitra[dot]arkid[at]gmail[dot]com
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