In January 2008, my good friend Albert Eckel and I launched this company. We filed the necessary paperwork and made a trip to the Apple Store. In one simple retail transaction, we opened our firm’s IT department. Two beautiful, black MacBooks were bought, loaded with a whole lot of software and a whole world of potential. Thus began our relationship with Apple.
A lot has changed for us since then. We’ve grown considerably, and with that growth our relationship with Apple has continued. Looking back more than three years later, I can’t imagine starting our firm without those two MacBooks. Not only did we equip ourselves with all the functions we needed from an IT department, we had an editing suite, a Web publishing platform and of course all the forms of entertainment we needed while burning the entrepreneurs’ dose of midnight oil.
Through Steve Jobs’ vision, Apple empowered young entrepreneurs like us, gave us the tools we needed to be successful and most important, broke down the barriers to entry that so many young firms face. Those two MacBooks were our engines. We fueled them with creativity and perspiration.
But perhaps Steve’s greatest contribution to young dreamers like us was attitude. When we walked out of that Apple store with our brand new Macs, we took on the attitude of Apple. We were confident. We knew we had everything we needed to be successful: the tools and the grit to see our plan through.
I believe that years down the road we’ll look back at the 2010 introduction of the iPad as one of the most important product releases in the history of the Mac operating system. When that product rolled out, I noticed that for the first time, the Mac OS was put into the hands of corporate executives — the very people who sign the checks that pay for the equipment ordered by huge IT departments. Like us, once they experienced the Mac OS, they fell in love. Over time, we’ll see more corporations willing to make the move to Apple.
Until that time, all we can simply say is “Thank you, Steve.” Thank you for your brilliance, your dedication to form, your relentless pursuit of simplicity and your tireless support of the creative mind. And of course, thank you for those two MacBooks, one of which I am writing this blog post on right now.
Harris, Nice read! I do remember some of your first presentations to the NCDS on the black MacBook. It was Thanksgiving 2008 when I bought my non unibody Mac Book Pro 15 and I have not looked back. In fact I just had it upgraded to a much larger and faster hard drive. I am not getting rid of this one, it now has its 3rd battery replacement too. I just wish dental office software could be run by it. Eventually this might happen.
I wish you much success in the future and thanks for working with our NCDS and our Mission of Mercy Dental Program. Jobs life will forever influence and continue to touch the world.
Thanks, Bob. I suspect the dental office world will take a bite out of the old Apple at some point soon.
I have had the pleasure to work in an office next to these two guys, and these two Macs, since they started their business and I can tell you Steve Jobs would have been proud of them and the role his fabulous machines have played in their early success. Back somewhere in the late 1980′s, I gave my mother, who also was in her 80′s, a used Mac and it changed her life throughout her remaining years. She introduced computing to others in the retirement village where she was living, began teaching classes on using the MacIntosh, and became a minor celebrity in the process. So, I also have Steve Job’s vision and commitment to user-friendliness for helping make my mom’s later years something very special indeed.