Macworld —

When Steve Jobs officially returned to Apple 15 years ago, it marked a moment of rebirth for the ailing company. Within eight months (September 17, 1997, to be exact), he assumed the mantle of Interim CEO (later abbreviated to iCEO for cuteness) and executed a stark and keen strategy to save Apple from oblivion.

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Almost a year after his untimely passing, it's a good time to look back at seven key moves Jobs made to right the Apple ship during his early days as iCEO.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive or complete study: Jobs made dozens of decisions a day. I don't include some of his most important decisionsfor example, the ones to pursue the development of innovative new products such as the iMac, OS X, and the iPod. Instead, I'm thinking about the operational decisions that put his company on the track it still follows to this day.

Taking the reins

The most important decision Steve Jobs made was to take control of Apple. It didnt have to be that way.

After the purchase of NeXT in late 1996, Apples then-CEO Gil Amelio brought Jobs in as a special advisor in January 1997. Jobs could have been content to simply provide advice and stay out of the way. Of course, that wasnt in his nature. Jobs quickly convinced Apples board of directors to oust Amelio. It wasnt long before Jobs nominated himself as a potential replacement. The board agreed, and Jobs was back in control.

Trimming the fat

Before Jobs came back to Apple, the company manufactured dozens of different Macintosh desktops, laptops, and servers in a dizzying array of variations. The firm also produced lines of printers, digital cameras, and other ancillary items, few of which made a profit.

Ultimately, Jobs axed more than 70 percent of Apples hardware and software products. Most famously, he cancelled the Newton PDA, which still rankles some today.

In the Macintosh realm, Jobs wiped the slate clean. He defined a simple four-square grid to represent the future of the Macintosh: two for consumer desktops and portables (which would be occupied by the iMac and the iBook, respectively), and two for pro desktops and portables (filled by the Power Macintosh and the PowerBook, respectively). Anything that didn't fit in that grid got cut.

His product cuts resulted in the layoffs of over 3000 employees during Jobss first year as iCEO. But those cuts, while painful at first, allowed Apple to focus on creating a handful of good products instead of dozens of mediocre ones.

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