Steve Jobs, chief executive officer of Apple Computer Inc., was the first rock star of the technology business. In 1977, with his partner Steve Wozniak, he developed the first successful mass-market personal computer, the Apple II. Then, in 1984, he reinvented the personal computer by leading the development of the Macintosh.
Mr. Jobs left Apple for a while and, among other things, developed Pixar Animation Studios, whose latest film, “Finding Nemo,” topped the box office last year.
Apple's hottest recent product has been the iPod portable music player, which is tightly tied to Apple's pioneering legal music-downloading service, iTunes. Consumers have bought more than three million iPods, and Apple says the device holds a 52% share, measured in units, of the digital music-player market. The iTunes store has sold over 85 million songs.