There is no denying Apple has had an incredible run. Steve Jobs’ return and the Mac’s resurgence
After a number of strategic and execution mistakes, the company almost went bankrupt in 1996. It was greatly helped in 1997 when Steve Jobs returned as CEO and announced that Microsoft invested $150 million and made a five-year commitment to develop Office for the Mac. Steve Jobs slashed Apple’s 15 product lines to just 4 categories: desktop and notebook Macs for consumers and professionals. Jobs halted the Macintosh licensing program. In 1998, he hired Tim Cook as COO. Cook had worked at Compaq and IBM and was tasked to “clean up the atrocious state of Apple’s manufacturing, distribution and supply apparatus”. He hired Taiwanese contract assemblers to manufacture Mac products. He revamped Apple’s distribution system from smaller outlets to national chains and also launched a website to offer direct sales for the first time. Apple’s inventory fell from months to a few days! In 1998, the company posted a $309 million profit, reversing the 1997 $1 billion loss allowing Steve Jobs to increase R&D spending.

The Information age – as much as it may sound like a cliché, if you really think about it- we are already living it. And we don’t need to go large scale to start proving that, but just look at our daily activities. Information is powered by technology and technology is going wild, determining the way we communicate, work, travel, and plan our every activity. One can even say that if sky is the limit, we are reaching out with cloud computing – we’re breaking the limits of today’s work environment to inspire freedom, flexibility, adaptability.   Not surprisingly, Gartner predicts that not long from now, the year 2013 will see as many as 49 million of us working from the cloud. Yes, the cloud – providing us with possibilities as endless as the name suggests.

There has been increased scrutiny in the media of that brand of individual known as ‘entrepreneurs’ since the onset of the credit crunch in 2008 and it seems that the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ has become something which society now increasingly seems to value and it is something often equated with success.

A distinction should be made however between simply having entrepreneurial spirit and being a successful entrepreneur. Sometimes just having the entrepreneurial spirit is not enough. There are plenty of individuals out there who have some or all of the characteristics of an entrepreneur but have not been able to translate these into business success.

On Tuesday, 5th October 2010, three hundred global business leaders, policy makers, entrepreneurs, academics and media will converge on Cambridge for the Future Starts Here: The Cambridge Phenomenon 50th Anniversary Conference.

The day will begin with a rewind of the last 50 years of life in the Cambridge Phenomenon–the companies, people, products, successes, failures and excitement. Then fast forward to explore what the future will bring for the worlds of IT and Biosciences, including the new business opportunities created as these sectors converge.

The day will be structured around four themes: IT; Biosciences; Funding; and the Future. Exhilarating presentations and challenging debates will be punctuated by one-minute pitches by the CEOs of hot young companies competing to be the Cambridge Phenomenon’s most exciting company of the future.

For more information: www.conference.cambridgephenomenon.com