By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington: Apple’s visionary co-founder Steve Jobs, who died after a long battle with cancer Wednesday, is credited with turning the once loss making company into one of the world’s largest tech giants. Here are the milestones:
1955: Stephen Paul Jobs born Feb 24.
1972: Jobs enrols in Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but drops out after a semester.
1974: Works for video game maker Atari and attends meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak, a high school friend.
1976: Apple Computer is formed on April Fools’ Day, shortly after Wozniak and Jobs create a new computer circuit board in a Silicon Valley garage. The Apple I later goes on sale for $666.66.
1977: Apple is incorporated by its founders and a group of venture capitalists. It unveils Apple II, the first PC to generate colour graphics.
1980: Apple goes public, raising $110 million in one of the biggest IPOs.
1983: Apple starts selling the “Lisa”, a desktop computer for businesses with a graphical user interface.
1984: Apple debuts the Macintosh personal computer.
1985: Jobs and CEO John Sculley clash, leading to Jobs’ resignation. Wozniak also resigns.
1986: Jobs founds Next, a company making high-end machines for universities. He buys Pixar from Star Wars creator George Lucas for $10 million.
1991: Apple and IBM announce an alliance to develop new PC microprocessors and software.
1994: Apple introduces Power Macintosh based on the PowerPC chip it developed with IBM and Motorola. Apple licenses its operating software, allowing others to clone the Mac.
1995: The first Mac clones go on sale. Microsoft releases Windows 95. Pixar’s Toy Story, the first commercial computer-animated feature, hits theatres.
1996: Apple buys Next for $430 million.
1997: Jobs returns to Apple after the company records losses of more than $1.8 billion. CEO Gil Amelio is pushed out. Jobs ends Mac clones.
1998: Apple returns to profitability and unveils the iMac desktop computer.
2000: Jobs is named CEO of Apple.
2001: The first iPod goes on sale, as do computers with OS X, the modern Mac operating system based on Next software.
2003: Apple launches the iTunes music store with 200,000 songs at 99c each. Users can also buy and download music, audiobooks, movies and TV shows online.
2004: Jobs undergoes surgery for a rare but curable form of pancreatic cancer.
2006: Disney buys Pixar for $7.4 billion. Jobs becomes Disney’s largest sole shareholder and much of his wealth is derived from this sale.
2007: Apple releases the iPhone.
2008: Apple opens its App Store as an update to iTunes amid mounting speculation that Jobs is ill.
2009: Jobs returns from medical leave in June after undergoing a liver transplant.
2010: Apple sells 15 million iPads in nine months and has an 84 percent share of the tablet market by year’s end.
2011: Apple launches the iPad 2 on March 2.
2011: Jobs’ resignation as CEO announced Aug 24. He is replaced by Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer.
2011: Jobs dies Oct 5 at age of 56 after battle with pancreatic cancer.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])