Biography of Steve Jobs | Computer scientist and American businessman.

(Los Altos, California, 1955 - Los Angeles, 2011) Computer scientist and American businessman. Father of the first personal computer (the Apple I) and founder of Apple Computer, probably the most innovative sector, this magician of the computer company was one of the most influential of the dizzying technological escalation still live today, contributing decisively to the popularization of information technology. Their visionary ideas in the field of personal computers, digital music and mobile revolutionized the markets and the habits of millions of people for more than four decades.

Steve Jobs

At the end of the Bachelor at the Homestead Mountain View Institute, Steve Jobs entered at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but he left College one semester later. At that time he flirted with drugs and was interested in philosophy and the counterculture, to travel to the India in search of spiritual enlightenment.

After an internship in the company Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, in 1974, Jobs was hired by Atari Inc. as a designer of video games. Then he joined what would be its first partner, the engineer Stephen Wozniak, in whose garage created the Apple I, considered the first personal computer in history. In 1976, with the money obtained from the sale of his Volkswagen van, they founded the Apple Computer company, headquartered in the Jobs family's garage. Steve Jobs chose the name Apple as a reminder of the times in that worked in your favorite fruit, the Apple collection.

The Apple II, an improvement of the previous model, was introduced in 1977, becoming the first consumer computer. Orders rained and Apple became the company's fastest-growing in the United States. Three years later, Apple went to the bag with a price of $22 per share, that Jobs and Wozniak become millionaires. By then, Jobs acquired the fame of brilliant, man equipped with a creativity that allowed him to build a computer and at the same time to market it.

Steve Jobs and Wozniak to 1977

After the Apple II, Jobs and Wozniak engaged in the creation of the Macintosh, the first computer affordable and easy to manage without knowing computer science, so jobs is considered to be the true creator of the concept of PC (Personal Computer, personal computer). The launch of the Macintosh in 1984 marked a shift in the computer industry. His great innovation was the introduction of the mouse to develop functions by clicking on the windows that open on the screen, which facilitates the interaction between the user and the computer. In this sense, Jobs made a great contribution to the introduction of personal computers in teaching.

In 1981, the strongest competitor of Apple, IBM, had released its first personal computer. With the aim of maintaining the competitiveness of your company, Jobs decided to recruit for the Presidency of Apple to the then President of PepsiCo., John Sculley, unaware that this you end up throwing your own company. Sculley, an Executive of the old guard, clashed with the rebellion and the unorthodox ways of Jobs. At the same time began the problems between Jobs and Wozniak, relegated to second place after an accident, but that, according to other versions, due to the difficult nature of Jobs, branded in electronic means of "charismatic tyrant". Both personal conflicts resulted in Wozniak left Apple in 1985, year in which 1,200 employees as a result of a broad restructuring at the company, were dismissed and Jobs resigned to found the NextStep Inc. company

Jobs before their computers Macintosh (1984)

Then Jobs Lucas Film bought from George Lucas by $ 50 million the division of his empire animation. Thus was born in 1986 Pixar Animation Studios, who received a prize of the Academy of cinema by the animated film Tin Toy computer in 1989.

The same year NextStep launched its first computer, full of extraordinary functions but which was not profitable by its high price and its incompatibility with most of the systems on the market. Finally, the visionary Jobs closed the computer division in 1993, with the merit of having created the apparatus with which the British programmer Tim Berners-Lee devised the World Wibe Web, which would be the basis for the development and popularization of Internet.

In 1995 Pixar launched Toy Story, a joint production with Disney that is already part of the history of the cinema for being the first feature film made entirely by computer. The film was a box office hit and won an Oscar from the Academy of Hollywood. Vermin was the next great success of Pixar. Meanwhile, Apple declined after the release of the IBM compatible computers with the Windows operating system, from Microsoft, which, according to several experts, was inspired by the Apple Macintosh. The feud between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, two opposing personalities, was the subject of a TV movie titled Pirates of the Silicon Valley, produced in 1998 by the TNT network.

In December 1996, submerged in a crisis, Apple decided to buy Next, which meant the return of Jobs to the company with a charge of advisory interim, whereby Jobs, voluntarily, was not receiving any salary. The resignation of the President of Apple again exalted to Jobs at the head of the company. In August 1997, a month before his appointment as interim President of Apple, Jobs announced an agreement with its hitherto rival Microsoft, which decided to invest 150 million dollars in Apple. The two companies ended up understanding that they needed and complemented, as Microsoft is the leading manufacturer of programs for Macintosh, and Apple one major witness of judgment antitrust against the company of Bill Gates in the United States.

During this second stage at Apple, which stay as CEO until 2009, Steve Jobs continued his groundbreaking online, pushing decidedly innovative products. In 1998 he returned to turn the computer market with the launch of the iMac, a compact PC integrated into the monitor, which in addition to its avant-garde design was prepared to surf the Internet. Of bestselling placed Apple again among the five largest manufacturers of personal computers of USA, with an appreciation of their actions by 50%. New versions of the iMac, with greater power and increasingly sophisticated performance and design, would be appearing in the years following, with great acceptance among his legion of hardcore users.

In 2001 he landed in the music market with a Pocket, iPod, audio player and two years later created the music store iTunes, who immediately led the sale of music online and continues to maintain its dominant position. Health problems, however, forced him to temporarily depart from its work in 2004, that was treated a pancreatic cancer. In 2007 he presented the iPhone, first family of smart phones of high range produced by Apple, with touch screen and Internet access. In 2009, year in which had to undergo a liver transplant, delegated most of its functions to Timothy Cook. With their creativity untouched, still in 2010 Steve Jobs surprised the world with an innovative product, the iPad, a hybrid of tablet PC and mobile phone whose second version, iPad 2, would be presented in March 2011, in one of his last appearances in public.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas