DRAW A ROAD MAP 57
”We’re on track to deliver the best version of Windows ever.
We’re putting in all the right ingredients—simplicity, reliability,
and speed.”^7Ballmer used groups of three no fewer than five times in one
presentation, making his speech much easier to follow than any
of Gates’s keynotes. Although there’s no love lost between Apple
and Microsoft, both Ballmer and Jobs understand that explain-
ing complex technology in language that’s easy to follow is the
first step to creating excitement among their existing and future
customers.
The Road Map as an Agenda
Jobs kicked off Macworld 2008 with the verbal equivalent of an
agenda (there are no agenda slides in a Steve Jobs presentation,
just verbal road maps). “I’ve got four things I’d like to talk to you
about today, so let’s get started,” he said.
The first one is Leopard. I’m thrilled to report that we have
delivered over five million copies of Leopard in the first
ninety days. Unbelievable. It’s the most successful release of
Mac OS X ever... Number two is about the iPhone. Today
happens to be the two hundreth day that the iPhone went
on sale. I’m extraordinarily pleased that we have sold four
million iPhones to date... OK, number three. This is a good
one, too. Number three is about iTunes. I’m really pleased
to report that last week we sold our four billionth song. Isn’t
that great? On Christmas Day we set a new record, twenty
million songs in one day. Isn’t that amazing? That’s our new
one-day record... So, that brings us to number four. There
is something in the air. What is it? Well, as you know, Apple
makes the best notebooks in the business: the MacBook and
the MacBook Pro. Well, today we’re introducing a third
kind of notebook. It’s called the MacBook Air.. .”^8