Would Apple continue its growth without Steve Jobs?

Recently, Steve Jobs has been away from Apple recovering from a serious illness, I think we can all agree that having a liver transplant is a serious illness.

I know I speak for everyone when I say that it is good that Steve has made a full recovery and it is good to see the old turtle neck sweater back in the news for the right reasons!! But just how much did Apple miss Steve Jobs? and if Steve were to step down from Apple, what sort of impact would that have on the company?

We all know that Steve is responsible for what Apple is today, a slick, profit making organisation that produces some amazing products that are no longer considered to be a just for designers, indeed everyone I know has an Apple product of some kind. You know that your brand has made it big when a generation of people are known by one of its products, I too consider myself to be part of the iPod generation and probably the play station generation aswell.

So are the foundations in place for the good work to continue if Steve were to step down and retire? You would hope that the company would continue to go from strength to strength with everything in place for them to do so. If you take a look across the street then you will seems the Microsoft seem to be doing quite well without Uncle Bill (although what you and I class as “well” could be 2 different things, mentioning no names, Vista).

Apple as we see it today is an iconic organisation. Owning an Apple product is classed as “cool” but why is that?

Well for starters, everything they produce looks amazing, everything they touch turns to gold and most importantly but often forgotten, their products are reliable. When you walk past an Apple store the feeling of quality simply ozzzes out the door and you have to go in to take a look, even if you don’t really want anything.

Could Microsoft have the same impact on the high street? probably not, for starters they have much more of a business acumen then Apple, and a far more corporate approach. IN short, the brand just isn’t as friendly or “cool” as the Big Apple, but they do have the upper hand in the business stakes, but for how long?

The IT Support London company I work for has seen a big increase of interest in Apple products over the last 12 months, and not just for personal use, people are now interested in getting the medium in the office, including OSX servers and workstations.

I can only dream of every one of our clients switching to a mac