5. The resounding return of Apple
The era of Steve Jobs' marketing genius had been inscribed in the annals of history as the 1980s, when Apple recovered from the fiasco called "Lisa" with a follow-up system called Macintosh. But when the world had been anticipating a video iPod announcement last September, and speculating about the combination of an iPod and a cell phone, then Jobs responded by boldly replacing the iPod Mini at the peak of its popularity with the full-color iPod nano, the resulting retail frenzy left analysts spellbound once again. If it is not remembered as Steve Jobs' masterstroke, it will at least fall in the top three. Now, exactly how the success of a portable music player device translated into the success of a full-fledged computer isn't exactly clear. Nevertheless, it's happening in a very big way. The new iMacs are starting to reclaim some of Macintosh's lost market share, as consumer confidence in the Apple brand name is starting to return. Despair among enthusiasts about Apple's impending switch to Intel CPUs has been overwhelmed by acclaim for the emergence of affordability in new models. Meanwhile, as the Apple logo becomes the greatest common denominator among commuters, competitors are not only crying foul, but "unfair" and "monopoly," as Apple finds itself once again holding the trump cards that, just a few years earlier, were thought to have been ceded forever to Microsoft and Sony.
