Some insights from Steve Jobs from this week’s All Things Digital.
On the shrinking relevance of PCs:
“When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that’s what you needed on the farms. PCs are going to be like trucks. They are still going to be around…but [only] one out of x people will need them….We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it’s uncomfortable.”
On selling to consumers (excerpted from the CNet story):
“(In the consumer market) every person votes for themselves,” Jobs said. “If enough of them say yes, we get to come to work in the morning.” In the enterprise, he said, not so much. The people that use the products aren’t the ones that choose which products are used, and the people that make those decisions, Jobs said, “are sometimes confused.”
So help consumers vote for your product, help enough of them to “say yes” through excellent marketing, communication and education.