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Case Study 4 157

As you can see at the PixelSense Web site, this product can has interest? Describe one potential application for
be used for many different purposes in many different places, PixelSense for five different disciplines.
such as restaurants, retail kiosks, and eventually at home. 4-8. List specific features and benefits for each of the five
Probably most of the eventual applications for PixelSense have applications you selected in question 4-7.
not yet been envisioned. One clear application, however, is
in the gambling and gaming industry. Imagine placing your 4-9. Describe, in general terms, the work that needs to be
credit card on a PixelSense gambling device and playing the accomplished to create the applications you identi-
night away. Every time you lose, a charge is made against your fied in question 4-7.
credit card. Soon, before you know it, you’ve run up $15,000 4-10. Until June 2012, PixelSense was called Surface. At
in debt, which you learn when PixelSense tells you you’ve that time, Microsoft repurposed the name to use on
reached the maximum credit limit on your card. its tablet devices. Surface was changed to PixelSense.
Recall the RAND study cited in Chapter 1 that stated there What conclusions do you draw from these naming
will be increased worldwide demand for workers who can ap- decisions?
ply new technology and products to solve business problems
in innovative ways. PixelSense is an excellent example of a new 4-11. You will sometimes hear the expression “Emerging
technology that will be applied innovatively. technology is constantly leveling the playing field,”
meaning that technology eliminates competitive ad-
4-7. Consider uses for PixelSense at your university. How vantages of existing companies and enables oppor-
might PixelSense be used in architecture, chemistry, tunities for new companies. How does this statement
law, medicine, business, geography, political science, pertain to PixelSense, Surface, Windows 8, Apple, and
art, music, or any other discipline in which your team Google?

CaSe Study 4

The Apple of Your i

A quick glance at Apple’s stock history in Figure 4-27 will market, competing against many other PC vendors, most of
tell you that Apple is an incredibly successful and dramatic which are no longer relevant (or in business).
company, having peaks around the turn of the century, in However, Apple lost its way. In 1985, Steve Jobs, Apple’s
2007–2008, and again in 2012. At its high, it had the highest chief innovator, lost a fight with the Apple board and was
market value of any public company worldwide. Apple has forced out. He founded another PC company, NeXT, which
been so successful that the NASDAQ stock exchange con- developed and sold a groundbreaking PC product that was too
cluded Apple’s price was skewing the price of the NASDAQ innovative to sell well in that era. Meanwhile, Apple employed
100 Index and reduced Apple’s weight in that index from 20 a succession of CEOs, starting with John Sculley, who was hired
percent to 12 percent. But today? As of this writing, Apple stock away from Pepsi-Cola where he’d enjoyed considerable suc-
is trading at $600 after hitting a low of $390 in 2013 and peaking cess. Sculley’s knowledge and experience did not transfer well
at a high of more than $700 in 2012. Since Steve Jobs’s death, to the PC business, however, and the company went downhill
there haven’t been any groundbreaking products like the iPod, so fast that CNBC named him the 14th worst American CEO of
43
iPhone, and iPad. What does the future look like for Apple and all time. Two other CEOs followed in Sculley’s footsteps.
its shareholders? Bleak, especially if you consider its past his- During this period, Apple made numerous mistakes, among
tory without Jobs. them not rewarding innovative engineering, creating too many
products for too many market segments, and losing the respect of
Early Success and Downfall the retail computer stores. Apple’s PC market share plummeted.
At the dawn of the personal computer age, in the early 1980s,
Apple pioneered well-engineered home computers and in- Steve Jobs, Second Verse
novative interfaces with its Apple II PC for the home and its In 1996, Apple bought Jobs’s NeXT computing and gained
Macintosh computer for students and knowledge workers. technology that became the foundation of Mac OS X, to-
At one point, Apple owned more than 20 percent of the PC day’s Macintosh operating system. The true asset it acquired,

43 “Portfolio’s Worst American CEOs of All Time,” CNBC.com, accessed July 15, 2013, www.cnbc.com/id/30502091?slide=8.