Thursday, 13 October 2011
Steve Jobs and Pixar
While pretty much anyone you ask identifies Steve Jobs with his amazing work at Apple, that's not the only company he's responsible for turning into a major success.
Copy from: www.businessinsider.com
After Jobs was ousted from Apple in 1985, he went on to buy Pixar from LucasFilm.
About a decade later, Pixar produced the first feature-length computer animated film, Toy Story, in a distribution deal with Disney.
From there, Pixar exploded and made Steve Jobs a very wealthy man. But it wasn't as easy as it sounds.
Here's how Jobs brought Pixar from a niche spinoff company to one of the most valuable movie studios on the planet.
1985: Steve Jobs ousted from Apple
Image: Bloomberg TV
Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple following poor Mac sales after an internal battle with John Sculley. Jobs went on to found NeXT Computer, but he also had his eye on another company..
1986: Steve Jobs buys Pixar
1990: Jobs sells off Pixar's hardware division
Steve Jobs paid LucasFilm $5 million for Pixar, which was called Graphics Group at the time. He invested another $5 million into the company.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
From its earliest days, Pixar was also a hardware company. Its flagship product was the Pixar Image Computer, a $135,000 machine targeted at the medical and graphics industry. Even though Disney bought a bunch of them, the computer didn't sell well.1994: Pixar is bleeding cash and Jobs considers selling to one of his biggest rivals
Finally, Steve Jobs decided to sell off Pixar's hardware division to Viacom systems fo $2 million.
Image: Pop History Dig
It took a long time for technology to catch up and become cheap enough to fulfill Pixar's vision as a graphics production company.
Steve Jobs invested a lot of his own money into Pixar to keep the company afloat. (He would never say how much.)
According to this Fortune article from 1995, Jobs even considered selling Pixar to Microsoft. But then Pixar had its big, lucky break...
1995: Disney agrees to distribute Toy Story and Pixar becomes an instant cash cow
Toy Story, the first feature-length computer animated film, premiered during the 1995 Holiday season. Thanks to a distribution deal with Disney, Toy Story went on to make $360 million worldwide.
1995: Pixar goes public
Shortly after Toy Story's release, Pixar went public. The stock price was $22 per share.
2004: Relations between Pixar and Disney break down
Under the original Pixar-Disney agreement, the two companies split revenues earned from the movies. Pixar handled the production and Disney handled the distribution, marketing, etc.
But the two companies couldn't reach a new agreement by 2004,according to WIRED, and Steve Jobs said Pixar would go on the hunt for a new partner.
Jobs even sent some feelers out to Fox and Warner Bros.
2005: CEO Michael Eisner leaves the Disney and talks resume with Pixar
Image: Jason McELweenie via Flickr
Disney's CEO Michael Eisner had difficulty reaching an agreement with Steve Jobs. By the time Eisner left Disney in 2005, Jobs was ready to resume negotiations.
One of Jobs' demands was to switch Pixar's film release schedule to the summer from the winter. That would allow Pixar movies to make more money in theaters during the summer and on DVDs during the Holidays.
2006: Disney buys Pixar for $7.6 billion, making Steve Jobs very, very rich
Image: AP
After years of making successful movies for Disney, Pixar was finally acquired by the media giant for a whopping $7.4 billion.
Steve Jobs became the largest Disney shareholder, holding 50.1% of the company's shares.
Copy from: www.businessinsider.com
Friday, 7 October 2011
Alibaba's Jack Ma Speech on China 2.0 Forum in Stanford University
Found some interesting video from youtube about Alibaba's founder Jack Ma, he talked about his Alibaba and China Market. He did mention how he start his coy and tried to raise fund from Silicon Valley and blar blar blar...
He mentioned on how the coy strategy could help the SME competitors to survive in the difficult market by splitting his business section to smaller size to enable ppl to compete and survive in the huge internet market.
What he feel proud is not the money he has in the bank, but is about what he has done to help the SME in China market and how he built up a more proper e-commerce structure.....
Entrepreneurs should learn from how people failed but not on how people succeed, so we can avoid ourself from failed ----> you are rite..
Click here for his video Jack Ma's Speech on Stanford University on China 2.0 Forum, I have some problem to attach the video here from Youtube.
Some facts about Apple
Many investors are experiencing hindsight regret by not taking firm action with Apple long ago. In December 12, 1980, one share of Apple stock (APPL) was worth $2.75, which has grown to $396.75 in August 2011.
Since 2005, Apple stock prices have experienced an upward climb with the acclaim of the iPod and release of the first generation iPhone in 2007. Apple Inc. stock is among the leading competitors in the tech field, just behind Google and easily surpassing Microsoft.
Since 2005, Apple stock prices have experienced an upward climb with the acclaim of the iPod and release of the first generation iPhone in 2007. Apple Inc. stock is among the leading competitors in the tech field, just behind Google and easily surpassing Microsoft.
Q1 2011 was booming with the iPhone being Apple’s highest revenue-generating product at $10.47 billion. The iPad takes the second seat at $4.6 billion in revenue, not to mention other revenue outlets such as portables ($3.7 billion), iPods ($3.43 billion), desktops ($1.73 billion), music ($1.43 billion), software ($786 million) and peripherals ($593 million).
Additionally, Apple Inc. has sold approximately 100 million iPhones, 275 million iPods and 25 million iPads to-date, making them the highest contender within portable technology.
Downloads are also another area which Apple dominates as 11.7 billion songs, 450 million TV episodes, 100 million movies and 35 million books have been downloaded via Apple Inc.’s iTunes store.
Apps are also breaking through to the top of the list with Apple Inc.’s extensive 425,000 apps, 90,000 of which are for the iPad alone. Currently, 6.5 billion apps have been downloaded by end-users at a rate of 200 apps per second.
Further emphasizing Apple Inc.’s supremacy, two-thirds of all mobile web browsing is through their Safari web browser. Mac fans are climbing the ranks of computer users with the existing 54 million active Mac users, 73 percent of whom use notebooks alone.
Downloads are also another area which Apple dominates as 11.7 billion songs, 450 million TV episodes, 100 million movies and 35 million books have been downloaded via Apple Inc.’s iTunes store.
Apps are also breaking through to the top of the list with Apple Inc.’s extensive 425,000 apps, 90,000 of which are for the iPad alone. Currently, 6.5 billion apps have been downloaded by end-users at a rate of 200 apps per second.
Further emphasizing Apple Inc.’s supremacy, two-thirds of all mobile web browsing is through their Safari web browser. Mac fans are climbing the ranks of computer users with the existing 54 million active Mac users, 73 percent of whom use notebooks alone.
Copied from Business Insider
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
一只苏门答腊虎的人为死亡过程
近日,一只苏门答腊虎不幸落入金光集团APP人工林林场内的动物陷阱,在被困的第7天,当地森林管理员组成救援小组终于到达现场,试图将老虎救出,但这只年轻的老虎在援救行动进行到一半时便溘然而逝。图为印尼当地一名森林管理员展示常用的一种用来捕获野生动物的简易钢丝圈套。落入圈套的动物通常情况下很难逃脱,并在漫长的痛苦中等待死亡。老虎就是不幸地被这样的圈套困住,受伤的老虎只能缓慢地、在巨大的痛苦中等待死亡。
这只才一岁多大的苏门答腊虎受困达一周之久,?尖锐的钢丝刺破老虎的一只前爪让他无法动弹。由于伤势严重,加上未能及时获救,这只年轻的雄性老虎最终在所有在场目击者面前痛苦地死去。全世界仅存不到400只野生苏门答腊虎,工业化采伐以及大面积人工林种植正在快速的侵食老虎自然的栖息地,迫使这濒临灭绝的物种到人类活动区域觅食,加剧了人虎冲突。这只老虎悲惨的命运正见证了濒危物种赖以生存的森林家园被破坏的结果。
一只苏门答腊虎的人为死亡过程
当地援救小组未能及时释放老虎并给予治疗,在接收麻醉不久后,老虎永远地闭上了眼睛。途中为森林管理员们测量老虎的牙齿以获取信息。工业化采伐以及大面积人工林种植正在快速的侵食老虎自然的栖息地,迫使这濒临灭绝的物种到人类活动区域觅食,加剧了人虎冲突。
图为金光集团APP在印尼苏门答腊岛上近期进行的的天然林采伐。每年,印尼就估计有将近一百万公顷天然林被清除。天然林的清除等于老虎栖息地的消失,迫使老虎们不得不往人类活动密集的区域去觅食。某些情况下,老虎会不幸落入人文设下的动物圈套。
“一 只老虎的死”只是我们知道并亲眼见到的一个案例罢了。不可持续的毁林行为得不到制止的话,“一只老虎的死”在不久的将来将很有可能演变成“所有老虎的 死”。图为金光集团APP在印尼的 Arara Abadi 林场面积地图。上方显示老虎被困地点,右下方显示的是目前正在进行的天然林砍伐作业。
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