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Apple After Jobs
recoiledsnake writes "The connection between Apple and Steve Jobs is unlike any other brand and CEO relationship in corporate America, maybe the world. While Bill Gates has successfully transitioned himself away from his day job at Microsoft, can Apple do without Jobs at all? Once word started circulating that Jobs may be ill, Apple stock took a considerable hit, dropping more than $10 a share. And when Mr. Jobs was absent from last week's quarterly earnings conference call, the questions started again — and the stock fell again. What does this mean for corporate users of Apple for whom switching costs are high? Can Apple continue innovating in Job's absence?"
Get this through your heads already: Apple is not Steve Jobs. He does not personally do all of the stuff Apple does. Assuming Apple's engineers (the people who actually matter) don't quit when Jobs leaves, Apple will do just fine after Jobs.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Can the press, or maybe slashdot, stop speculating??
Maybe today is Apple trifecta day, you never know...
how long until
Apple After Jobs
I don't know what will happen to Apple after they abolish all their jobs. I gotta imagine it'd be something like pure socialism with people just doing whatever they feel like at the company and getting just enough to get by. No jobs at Apple would probably be a pretty bad move ... how would I start working there?
Don't you think we should wait more than a month or so before it's declared a success?
Perception is everything. I think most people remember how Jobs came back and restored Apple to what they once were and how without him Apple seemed to fade a bit. So naturally, it *superficially* appears that Apple needs him more than he needs Apple and if he leaves, becomes terminally ill or dies so does the innovation at Apple. That may or may not be the case but it seems so on the surface.
My humor is probably your flamebait
Surely there must be an unemployed cult leader out there capable of taking over. Maybe Warren Jeffs could do some kind of work release program.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Don't put much stock (hah!) in how people are betting APPL. The shorts got a hold of it early to try and shake out (successfully I might add) anyone with a tenuous grasp (those that bought recently, those that had unrealized gains). Look what happened after that 15 point down spike. It bounced back 10, and the following day totally filled the remaining gap.
Using 2 days of trading to predict the future of a company is less likely to work out for you than say... flipping a coin
Before the iPod, there has been no distinct road map for Apple, at least no easily identifiable one. Now they have iPod/iPhone/Macbook/iTunes tied together in a very unique way. I'm sure with or without Jobs, they'll continue to build on the success of these platforms, though I expect more evolution than revolution... maybe come up with an iLCD TV, which would be derived from the iMac + iTV.
I would contend that Jobs isn't the source of innovation at Apple (yes, he is _a_ source, but not _the_ source, imho) so, yes, Apple can still be innovative without him. Jobs is, however, the source of confidence. He ensures that investors are confident in the choices Apple makes which allows them to proceed the way an innovative company needs to - the engineers are given the room to innovate the way they need and want to. The company is allowed to develop products at the right pace and in the right way and investors remain confident that they are doing "the right thing." Would that same confidence exist in his absence? Would investors be as willing to allow Apple to proceed the way it currently does? That's a more accurate question. In my opinion, at least.
I don't see how this is an important at this stage, with the amount of solid information available. However surely the answer is either pay the money to switch (why are they doing this again?) or don't pay and stay.
For a moment there, I thought Apple was hiring. Damn. Back to the grind.
Now is a good time to buy Apple stock. ;)
All jobs needs to do is sneeze and then buy stock.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
he has already transitioned the day-to-day operation to his younger brother, Raúl.
Oh, wait a minute, that's Cuba...
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
I'm not trying to bash Apple here, but I'm not sure innovate is necessarily the right word to use. Product design seems more appropriate. So much of Apple's product line seems to be UI and attractive exterior, as opposed to Really New Ideas (tm).
Don't get me wrong. That's two things more than anyone else seems to be doing these days.
If there's no jobs at Apple, then who will build the computers?
The stock tanking may correlate with rumors of Steve's impending death, but really, any company whose products depend solely on the phenomena of social trends is more or less doomed. There's nothing really innovative about Apple's products. For the three top products from apple that pop into my mind (The iPod, the iPhone, and the iMac), I can immediately think of three far superior products that cost less (the View, the Blackberry, and my PC).
I would think he is grooming someone that has a similar vision. That's what Steve brings. It's a unique view on the way the product should be. That's what was missing when he left.
Jonathan Ive
Responsible for look and feel of virtually all Apple products for the last ten years, is as much responsible for Apple's resurgence as the man Jobs himself.
Old news though is that he himself is already positioned as a possible successor to the big man.
Jonathan Ive groomed to take over from Jobs
If that happens, I'd feel pretty confident about Apple and their continued ability to innovate in create great products.
G4 Hackintosh
It means it might be a good time to buy Apple stock, since it will bounce back up after Jobs turns out to be as healthy as any other software titan.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Personally, I think it is somewhat silly to say that Apple cannot survive without Mr. Jobs. That being said, I couldn't think of a better time for Microsoft to start buying up Apple stocks.
For those who think Steve is Apple, that is a pretty insulting thing to think about the dozens of other good people in the company.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Apple's successful products, that not only turned around the company from the brink, but have put it in the spotlight today, have not been entirely orchestrated by Jobs as the media would have you believe. The iMac, the iPod, and so on, were all dreamt and refined up by talented engineers, and these engineers will still exist at Apple long after Jobs leaves.
Yes, Job's drive and vision have helped push the products above and beyond what someone might expect. But Jobs isn't the only person in the world with drive and vision. You can be sure that Apple will select someone when the time comes who has similar drive and vision, while those same engineers keep innovating the products that make Apple Apple.
Can Apple continue innovating in Job's absence?
Wow! I knew Apple were early starters, but I had no idea they were operating in Biblical times!
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
This is the second high-profile article online that has mentioned Steve Jobs' absence from last week's quarterly earnings call. I have listened to Apple's quarterly earnings calls pretty regularly for over five years, and it is rare for Steve Jobs to be present at that event. It's usually Tim Cook (COO) and Peter Oppenheimer (CFO). And holy jeebus...the linked article cites Rob Enderle as its chief Apple 'expert'. Enderle is a joke among the Apple community, as his track record is abysmal.
I did a research project on Polaroid and came to the conclusion that, like Jobs and Apple, Polaroid was essentially Land's company and after he died, it spiraled rapidly downhill. They had some amazing stuff and once their "vision" had been lost, they were caught short by all the tech that came after.
With Jobs and Apple, I think the situation is the same only insofar as, pointed out in the article and elsewhere, Jobs and Apple are synonymous. The difference, I see, is that Land was the chief guy people expected all tech advances to come; once Land left there wasn't any one person to keep their eye on the industry. Jobs, however, is not the tech guy; he has a *lot* of good people who are clearly making great stuff, only to be held in check by Jobs until he's satisfied they "have a product".
Apple without Jobs would probably put out more products quicker, and that is the problem; Jobs is the "great floodgate" for a company that probably is literally bursting with cool, but unpolished, stuff that, if put out in the marketplace, would get a lot of buzz, but then probably sink under the weight of bugs.
Obviously Jobs can't be there forever, but unlike Microsoft that has been happy to throw everything and anything at the wall to see what sticks (and promise it'll stick better in the next version), Apple needs that special someone who can tell when a they "have a product", as well as be the human face to the company.
So yes, Apple can continue and prosper without Steve Jobs, so long as they find someone who is just like Steve Jobs.
Any takers?
I guess submitter doesn't listen to many quarterly calls, because Steve is literally never on them, and certainly hasn't been in the last year. Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO, runs those calls. His not being on the Q3 call is simply business as usual, not something special.
Apple Stock drops huh?
Might be a good time to buy Apple stock. Let's be realistic, they will be sucessful with or without Jobs. In fact, there is the possibility of them being even MORE successful without him.
iPhone, iPod, etc... these items, love them or hate them, are devices that sell. I guarantee Rachel, the Alpha Beta Delta serority girl will have both and not even know who Steve Jobs is.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
You can look at any large company that carries a namesake, and most of them aren't exactly bankrupt (i.e. JDPowers isn't defunct without J. D. Powers at the helm).
stuff |
"What does this mean for corporate users of Apple for whom switching costs are high? Can Apple continue innovating in Job's absence?"
Is this what it looks like when Linux fanboys start using FUD?
(Before you start CAPS-LOCKING at me: I use Linux as well, but I just think it's unfair.)
Hard to continue doing something you never really did to begin with.
Seriously, has Apple done anything seriously new since their original PCs? There were music players before the iPod, there were smartphones (with touchscreens!) before the iPhone, the Macbook Air should never have been made... Jobs basically takes great ideas that have already been done and stylizes them to death.
There are many cases of companies thriving after the CEO left, ex: Ford, Disney, etc.
Apple Inc will insert 5 Golden Tickets randomly in iPhone boxes around the world. The lucky winners who drew the tickets will be treated to a Special Tour of Infinite Loop, Cupertino. At end of the tour a special prize awaits...
There was a story a while back in Wired about the iPhone development. A key part of the story was when the iPhone team approached Jobs with a buggy, barely-functioning prototype. Jobs coldly told them, "We don't have a product yet". This motivated them to get the phone up to par in the mere three months before its debut.
Sadly, I don't think a run-of-the-mill CEO would have had this reaction, and the employees wouldn't have had the motivation to fix things. Without jobs, the iPhone might have been the Vista of the cell phone world.
It's not ALL about Jobs. Vista is managing to push even more users towards Apple. Gotta give credit where credit is due, no matter how Balmer may take it (ducks for cover)
The stock went down twice huh? Maybe it's a good time to buy Apple stock then huh? Especially for Mr. Jobs ;)
Jobs is 53 and has no life threatening illness. The cancer he had in 2004 was of a type that usually doesn't recur, and both Apple and Jobs have said that it hasn't recurred. Thus the odds are that Jobs will be in charge for at least the next decade. There's no point in speculating on how Apple would do without him that far in the future. TFA is just "analyst talk" directed at manipulating the stock price.
While Bill Gates has successfully transitioned himself away from his day job at Microsoft, can Apple do without Jobs at all?
That's a poor comparison. Bill Gates left Microsoft. Microsoft, if nothing else, is substantially diminished. That may be "successful" from the Bill Gates point of view, but not from the shareholder's point of view.
Jobs can leave Apple at any time. He can leave on his own will; the board can ask him to step down; or he can leave due to reasons outside of either of their controls. Undoubtably the board has a strong succession plan in place, which I am confident they are keeping close to their chest.
After all, if Apple has a great successor in mind, that person either has to wait for Jobs to leave (unlikely any time soon), or he/she may be recruited by another firm to step into a CEO spotlight tomorrow. You can't hand the reigns over to a replacement if the existing person is both doing a great job and isn't going to be leaving any time soon.
This is just standard stuff - that's why wall street doesn't really mind Job's appearing to be the leader of Apple... because he IS the leader of Apple.
"And when Mr. Jobs was absent from last week's quarterly earnings conference call"
I do believe that I read somewhere that saying that Steve was "absent" is incorrect.
They said that Mr. Jobs has never been present during the quarterly earnings conference calls.
So how could he be absent? Someone is just BSing people.
Maybe if Jobs had included a removable battery cover on himself it would be easier for him to keep going.
Get yer facts straight.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
The majority of this article is based on opinion from Rob Enderle. Enough said. The man is an absolute pin-head. This is the man, who stated that SCO had a case against IBM.
Nothing to see here but the ravings of a lunatic.
I am Steve Jobs, you insensitive clod!
Get it right: we don't like blowjobs...we like stevejobs
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Steve founded Apple with a vision. His passion (I believe what i've heard and read about this is true) for technology has enabled him to continue this vision till now. Throughout his career he has represented Apple like no one else has done...ok...Bill did that too, but Bill, I would rather think him as a business tycoon than a technocrat. Steve represented technically advanced and artistically attractive products which the engineers at Apple invented....maybe copied but definitely made it more innovative. Apple without Steve may start a new era for Apple, but I am sure someone like Steve who has been a perfectionist in choosing the right technology to bring to market would be able to handover the reign to the right person.
Hi:
Years ago, car (and camera) makers were personified by their owners. Now they've matured into brand types. Many computers and technology firms will want to be 'Ford' or 'GM'. Some will want to be Dunhill or Mercedes.
No one says that Nikon or Leica lost the plot because of one person.
Maybe they could do like in Starship Troopers after the loss of Lieutenant Rasczak - carry on as if Jobs is still around, but just not physically present.
"The Lieutenant wouldn't like that..."
Personally I think this speculation is probably very premature, and Jobs it going to be at the helm for quite a while yet. In any case, his health is a private matter, as it should be for anyone.
Apple will do without Steve Jobs like NASA has done since Wernher von Braun died.
The point is, the Wall Street idiot Sculley ditched Jobs because of a power play, and imposed a corporate vision that was a terrible fit for Apple. He went off in all directions. Meanwhile, Steve built distinctive, advanced and innovative boxes, aided in the development of NextStep, and all the familiar things. The little, short-term guys didn't understand what Jobs had started. Now that Jobs is back, and has shown how well the business works when you stick to the original vision, I hope that it's something that will continue after Jobs. Maybe not, but as long as the bean counters don't take over again, Apple will do just fine.
"The graveyards are full of indispensable men".
C. de Gaulle
They're hard acts to follow.
And the description that Gates successfully has transitioned away from Microsoft is specious-- it remains to be seen if Ballmer and Ozzie can ride that horse. Eric Schmidt had great difficulty taking the end of Ray Noorda's reign, and so it remains a dangerous call. Jobs has teamworkers, but there's a cult that relies too much on his personality, just like that of Gates.
If Apple were more open about their infrastructure and process, they'd be more resilient to CEO soap operas.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
We need to start tagging stories like this with "paul is dead"
--
BMO
There are other creative brains in the world.
If apple does not survive the loss of Jobs, it will be because Jobs has failed to take appropriate (and, to a large extent, obvious) preparatory measures.
Companies that survive in the long term are those that make their core competencies redundant. They hire and train duplicates of everyone that is important, so they can survive unexpected losses. If jobs has not been doing this, then the death of apple after his departure will have been his own personal failure.
NeXT went belly-up because it was too innovative at the time. It was workstation-level hardware with high-capacity R/W optical drives, the stability and flexibility of Unix, and the ease-of-use of the Macintosh. They were excellent machines.
But, they were too expensive, so they didn't sell many units. The lack of hardware sales resulted in very few software products. The only great software for it was Lotus Improv (an extremely innovative spreadsheet program), Mathematica, FrameMaker, and Word Perfect. There was some other stuff, too, but those are the big ones I remember. (Other things, like WebObjects, never really took off, as they were also too expensive.)
But, NeXT still had a huge effect on the computer industry. The current Mac OS X is based largely on NeXTStep. Many of the concepts of the Windows 95/2000 interface came from the NeXT design. So, though NeXT the company wasn't very successful, NeXT the technology was a huge source of innovation that is still used today.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
For as long as I have been following them (several years), he has never been on one earnings conference call, ever. Whoever pushed that as a cause for concern had other motives than health concerns.
Bring back Steve Wozniak!
... and today's pet project has
Bring in another dude with a massive Reality Distortion Field...
I am Steve Jobs, you insensitive clod! Get it right: we don't like blowjobs...we like stevejobs
It was a joke. I suppose I can blame the missing humor on our wonderfully inadequate public school system, and lack of Engrish skills refined enuf 2 understand teh joke.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
They only need to install some iMmortality...
And when Mr. Jobs was absent from last week's quarterly earnings conference call
Rubbish. Jobs is never on the call. He's only used on the quarterly calls when the Reality Distortion Field needs to be deployed to cover some sort of bad news.
Oh, the the difference between the Apple of the late 80's that ousted Jobs and the Apple of today is the senior leadership around Steve who actually understand him and his methods for running the company.
I would suggest looking back at Apple in the late 80's and early 90's when they were Jobs-less before. Then fast forward to when Jobs returned in the late 90's. It's quite obvious that when Jobs was gone, Apple sucked and when Jobs was there, the company was doing better.
The whole argument "that the employees make the company" only goes so far until the employees have a crappy idea with a crappy leader to promote the crappy idea. I personally don't like apple but I think they are better off WITH Jobs in charge.
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
Apple without Steve Jobs is like the Korean War without General Douglas MacArthur. You DO NOT leave the business of war in the hands of dumbass politicians. That bozo from Pepsi was a dumbass politician.
The stock drop is from stuff like the lack of mid-tower the mini has still not been updated and is very over priced for it's hardware, the lack of a $1200 to $1800 laptop with a 15" or bigger screen and / or a laptop with a real video card, the lack of newer video cards in the mac pro, The lack of imac screen choice where is the Glossy / non Glossy choice and the ATT iphone lock in that costs more over the 2 years then old one did while you have to pay even more to get texts that came with the old one.
...it's only a matter of time:
Apple went downhill after Jobs was given the boot the first time. (And some would argue that without the Woz it still is a shadow of its' former self)
DEC's death certificate was signed when Ken Olsen left.
Commodore's end was nigh when Jack Tramiel defected and bought Atari.
HP went from being one of the best employers in the industry to being just about the worst when Bill and Dave both kicked the bucket.
As sad as it may be, people are inspired to work for, and purchase products made by companies with charismatic leaders who have a parental-like emotional investment in the company.
The only good that can possibly come from this is that Bill Gates has left the building, hopefully the Borg can't survive without their Queen.
All in all, the best we can hope for is that he trains some young, incredulous punk to take over, and doesn't even start doing that until he's almost out. It should be obvious to jobs that no ordinary corporate suit could successfully run apple
Apple Inc is not Apple Computer... only a mere shadow of it's former self. The days of making the lives of average consumers better through creativity and innovation for the sake of progress has long passed in favor of controlling information and worshiping the almighty dollar above all else.
Jobs is basically the P.T. Barnum of the computer industry. As long as Apple spits out a new iPod every six months, anyone with enough charisma to make you think you need one would be sufficient.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Then you can kiss your capital gains goodbye. This is an unwelcome change that the drive-by media never elaborates on. He plans to destroy a vital incentive to invest in the U.S. economy at a time when the economy is already weakened, and the media just keeps on fellating him. This guy is a train wreck waiting to happen, but as long as he keeps delivering vague class-warfare-based arguments he'll keep on appealing to the mouth-breathers who don't pay attention to politics during any other elections, and as long as he keeps dithering and apologizing for the United States he'll keep his appeal with the academic left who worship those qualities as signs of "intelligence."
... i `ll have to say that that guy would probably not have read enough of jack welsh`s management books and should be fired immediately.
you always play to win.
there is a different motivation in the hare and the fox during the chase: the fox will always run for his meal - the hare for his life.
motivation will win the day.
There is no comparison at all with Gates leaving Microsoft since he has never provided anything to the company which resulted in profits from new products. Microsoft still makes all their profits from the Windows OS and MS Office and MS Office didn't get where it is without having been tied to the OS and having leveraged OEMs to preload it over the others.
So Microsoft only exists because the Windows monopoly is viciously protected and keeps going and going. Apple, they've created market changing products over and over again. Microsoft follows what others do and move it to a Windows-only technology and more often than not, they have to purchase the marketshare to get critical mass with the product. While Apple creates new products people are drawn to because of the quality, design, and use even though it is an Apple-only technology.
People inside Apple know how much Jobs has to do with new product directions at Apple. But even if Jobs just picks the colors of the buttons, he does more to make Apple successful than Bill Gates has ever done for Microsoft once he got them the deal with IBM. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
According to the studies reported within the book, "Good to Great", Steve Jobs is a level below the optimum manager. A perfect representation, actually, since everything seems to be dependent on him.
DISCLAIMER: sorry for the kill(1) thing, but I really mean only the Unix command. Blame Thompson and Ritchie for not inventing euphemism for Unix commands.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
I don't think Gates has successfully transitioned out of his job. Ballmer has all the likability of a rabid boar, and Gates is being seen as just wanting to get the hell out of a sinking ship before it really goes down. Or is it successful as in everyone actually thinks this is a better alternative than Gates going down with it?
King dead? Source? Nothing on King's site, Google News, CNN, etc. I call bullshit. I hate weak chain pulls like this...of course maybe you could get a job writing spam subject lines.
Apple is growing, Microsoft is stagnating.
http://quote.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AAPL#chart2:symbol=aapl;range=my;compare=msft;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
Some investors do care about 'cool' and about producing good products, even if most are all about the money.
That being said, MS has the momentum, the marketing capital and sales skill to keep earning very nice profits. It big enough that it resists real innovation, but its stable enough that it will take worse than Ballmer to wreck itself. Even if it were to start to fail, it would be this huge beached whale that will feed scavengers for decades.
Apple has been how long out? 20, 30 yrs or more? Including the time jobs was part of apple, and the time he came back, can we think that the company has gotten or learned how to be successful? The company, engineers, shareholders should know by now what makes Apple great and in the abscence of Steve Jobs and in the control of his successor Apple should continue having the vision Steve Jobs and his crew have had on it. The same way this works for Apple, it should work for Microsoft, except I hope they influx a new vision so that their business model in the desktop environment trully evolves. Its an interesting question to wonder if Apple will be able to evolve after Steve Jobs steps down the same way Microsoft will evolve positively after Bill Gates has stepped down. Personally I think Steve Jobs is going to die working in Apple, they day he steps down will be when his body is found dead. Not meaning I want him to die... but that is what I think where the end of Jobs will be.
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Talk to an apple employee about what they think of Steve. Everyone I have ever talked to thinks he is a nut job. Everyone I have talked to is dearly afraid of him. No one wants to be near him for fear of losing their job. I think Apple needs to be rid of him.
OK everybody, listen very carefully:
I've been listening to every Apple Quarterly Conference Call since 1st quarter 2003 and Jobs has never, NEVER been on the call. Not once.
That makes his lack of participation on the most recent call completely unrelated to anything. Including his health.
whj
I heard that while playing my OS X install disk backwards
The average consumer has no frickin' idea they are running/using UNIX when parked in front of OSX.
Exactly - THAT is the innovation. UNIX has traditionally not been so easy to overlay that a user does not realize at some point that is what they are working with, by necessity...
There can be innovation in UI, and that is where Apple has innovated most heavily. That is why Darwin is open source and Aqua is not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Unfortunately the general public doesn't know the name so it won't matter.
Are you kidding? There has been so much press on Ives and Apple in so many consumer oriented magazines, that at the very least most of the investment community would understand who he is.
That said, would he really be the best choice? I'm not sure if he's as good a business man as a designer. But the fact they he would work with whatever successor Jobs had would say much as to continued design successes in products.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Or it just plain wasn't funny...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Speaking of ignorance, why post only revenue and not profit?
Apple reported in April 2008 a quarterly profit of $1.05 billion.
HP reported $2.1 billion of profit in May 2008.
Apple obviously has larger margins, and from your own post appears to have employees with an order of magnitude more productivity!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
reins: a strap fastened to a bit by which a rider or driver controls an animal - usually used in plural
-- merriam-webster
One thing we in IT are typically very bad at is transition planning. I was discussing this with friends over the weekend - what Microsoft had going for it was a good transition plan after Bill Gates. While Ballmer isn't the best CEO for the company, at least the transition was long enough with Steve at the helm that Bill's departure this summer became a non-event for the company. Lots of interviews and "remember when" videos to be sure, but no one on Wall Street or in the press was left wondering who would lead Microsoft in a post-Gates world.
On the other hand, Apple has worked themselves into a corner. Effectively, Steve Jobs is Apple. Take away Jobs, and Apple suffers. I wasn't aware of Steve's health problems this week, but when I was discussing Apple this weekend I postulated that if Jobs were suddenly to become sick, or for some other reason suddenly be absent from the company for an extended time, Apple's stock price would drop dramatically. And now, catching up on the news I see that's exactly what happened.
Apple needs to create a transition plan, and make it clear to the community - investors and users alike. It doesn't matter if Steve plans to remove himself from Apple in a year or 10 years, there needs to be a clear #2 with the chops to effectively manage Apple in Steve's absence. Steve needs to project that person into the public consciousness by having the person back him up in presentations and public appearances, even to the point of introducing new products at MacWorld and CES, etc instead of Steve.
Apple is an innovative company, and Jobs is seen to lead that innovation, so this #2 person needs to be "leaderful" and innovative as well. That's a tough pair of requirements to meet, but if Apple is to survive Steve's eventual departure, he/she must be seen as Steve's spiritual equal among Mac geeks.
It's an ancient Slashdot troll pasta. Nothing to see here, move along.
Apple did well, then Jobs left and Apple almost went out of business. Then... Jobs comes back, and Apple thrives again.
Apple is nothing without Jobs. I predict after Jobs leaves Apple, they just become another PC maker. The edges are already starting to crack- Apple's disasterous Leoptard OS very effectively killed both their "Switch" and "It Just Works" ad campaigns (because, of course, Leoptard didn't "just work"). Then there's the epic "Mobile Me" failure (riding on the back of their .mac failures), the botch of the $200 iPhone "early adopter" Apple Tax, the no-3G debacle, exploding batteries (granted, that was because of Sony, but it's still a quality control issue), defective iPod batteries (requiring expensive replacements), etc.
And, all that says nothing about Apple's brutally monopolistic policies under SteveJob. In advance of their Apple Store openings, they sued any PC shops in the area which supported Macs. They violated contracts with retailers selling Apple products. They violated contracts with manufacturers making Apple compatible machines. And for a long time, their computers were designed to be as proprietary as possible, requiring you to purchase all your parts from Apple. Amazingly enough, people have the audacity to claim Microsoft was a monopoly! At least MS wasn't forcing you to use their hardware as well, unlike the Apple monopoly.
The Apple monopoly also lives on with the iTunes/iPod-iPhone link. They will never, ever, ever allow iTunes to work with a non-Apple product. Oh, but they aren't leveraging their monopoly power... cuz it's only wrong when Microsoft does it (just like bundling a media player, or a browser, etc etc etc: it's ok when Apple or Linux bundles apps).
The Zune is the Windows Vista of music players. Or is Vista the Zune of operating systems?
Consider this...
Part of the success of any leader (president, CEO or what ever) is in the condition the organization will be in long after you leave. If the organization does good while you are at the helm and chaos ensues after you leave, it means that that in least one area, you are deficient. The whole story has to be considered not just when you are in charge but also what happens after you leave.
Jobs is 53 and has no life threatening illness.
Unless you are his doctor you cannot possibly know that. You might be right but you certainly don't know. Neither does anyone else except Jobs and probably, though not certainly, those with whom he is close.
The cancer he had in 2004 was of a type that usually doesn't recur, and both Apple and Jobs have said that it hasn't recurred.
Words are cheap. Probably true but that doesn't constitute evidence.
Thus the odds are that Jobs will be in charge for at least the next decade.
Apparently the odds tell us he has about 5-6 years. Apparently the type of tumor does have a better prognosis than other types of pancreatic tumors. The median survival if the disease was local and completely resected is apparently around 10 years or 6 years if confined to the region around the pancreas. It's been four since he underwent surgery. He has already outlived the life expectancy for someone with metastatic cells. Thus without additional information we should expect Steve to remain at the helm for no more than about 6 more years. Could it be more? Sure. But just going by the numbers that is what we know.
There's no point in speculating on how Apple would do without him that far in the future.
There is a point but without more data you can only draw certain conclusions. It's nice to know as accurately as possible the risks that one might face. However there is some information that you just don't have a right to know and you have to do the best you can with what you have.
I firmly believe his health is no ones else's business except Steve Jobs. He has every right to share or not share as he sees fit. Any investor who thinks they have a "right" to know is unbelievably self centered and delusional. Yes, Steve Jobs might get seriously ill - take that risk into consideration before buying the stock. I fully support Steve Jobs telling us whatever he wishes regarding his health, including no information at all if that is his choice.
"led" not "lead"
"Led" is the past-tense of lead (pronounced "leed"), whereas you are using the word "lead" (pronounced "led") which refers to a dense, poisonous metal.
If you see others making this error, please tell them to study up.
This is absurd. He rarely joins the conference calls. Get your facts straight! And Apple is very secretive, so it's hard to read into it.
Apple's stock price cannot be attributed primarily or solely to Steve Jobs' health. While it may have been on factor, the stock price was already declining due to several factors:
Apple's stock performance is one of the most speculatively-influenced. Rumors of a new product send the stock skyward and, consequently, the release of said product tends to signal that the opportunity has been capitalized by speculators and a sell-off tends to follow. This happens also in the lead-up and aftermath of each WWDC and MacWorld, as well as earnings statements.
Both an earnings statement and iPhone 3G release preceded the current sell-off.
Additionally, current market conditions are sending most common stock issues downward on bad earnings news and renewed fears of the credit crisis.
While I am suggesting that Steve Jobs' health is not the driving factor, especially since these other news items have been far more exposed than concerns over his health, I am not suggesting that Apple's stock has "nowhere to go but up". I want to lay that out there to avoid exclamations of "fanboy"... in the days prior to the iPhone 3G release, I sold half my shares and advised other investors to do the same.
Apple's common stock is currently priced at ten times its book value per share... that is, total assets minus liabilities and intangibles. From a Graham-centric point of view, Apple is considerably overvalued and has a great deal of downside risk.
The question of Apple's future performance as a corporation is not reinforced by how good or bad its heavily speculated (read: overpriced) stock does... as the company does not generate new equity for operations by the trading of already issued shares on the secondary markets (e.g. NASDAQ).
But, I suspect, that since most with an interest in Apple's pipeline and financial success invariably seems to ask how the stock is doing, and so few people follow Graham's value investing philosophy, it goes to reason that what people who post such articles are really saying is "How will Apple's stock do when Steve Jobs is gone?"
These sort of diatribes offer no detailed insight into the actual corporate pipeline, management succession plans, corporate balance sheets (the financial strength upon which a company's future rests), cash flows, etc. and are therefore of little more value than what the gossip column has to say about Miley Cyrus.
you must be new here...
I take it 4chan is still down. To the hackers that is DDoSing 4chan. Yes you,in the basement eating cheetos. Please stop with the DDoS so the channers can go back to lurking under the bridge at 4chan. They are quite irritating and they smell funny. Thank you for your cooperation. And if you want to DDoS somebody,please go hit Microsoft. We haven't had a good video of Ballmer doing his insane monkey ranting in a while and it would be very funny to watch him asplode. Thank you and have a nice day.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Apple obviously has larger margins, and from your own post appears to have employees with an order of magnitude more productivity!
Well, why do you think Apple needs only 1/15 the number of employees to have about the same market share as HP?
Simple: Apple outsources more and has almost no research lab to speak of. That's the magic behind Apple's "productivity".
What about netcraft?
P.S. ROFL@U, n00b! YHBT. HTH. HAND.
Apple is built on "fanbois" - Slashdot residing or not. Hell the Apple "cult" is probably the ORIGIN of the whole concept of a "fanboy" as is has come to be known on the Internet.
I'm not convinced. Apple's fanboys may be some of the most obsessive and cultish out there, but although their vocalism makes them disproportionately prominent, we shouldn't automatically assume that their loudness implies size (in terms of numbers) or even influence. I'm willing to bet that as a proportion of the total number of people who own Apple products, they're not *that* big.
Fanboys and similar types often make the mistake of overestimating their own importance. Apple could probably do some respectable turnover selling to this obsessive core market, but in general- and particularly with the iPod and iPhone- Apple's success has been in the mass market. While the fanboys may have helped fan a few rumours and get some attention, I very much doubt that they are anything like the main reason for Apple's present success.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I am Steve Jobs, you insensitive clod! Get it right: we don't like blowjobs...we like stevejobs
It was a joke. I suppose I can blame the missing humor on our wonderfully inadequate public school system, and lack of Engrish skills refined enuf 2 understand teh joke.
Yeah, right, you egotistical tosser. Says a lot that you assume the problem lay with us being stupid, ignoring the most obvious possibility- that while it's obvious to anyone that you were desperately *trying* to make a joke, it wasn't remotely funny or witty. Matter of fact, the original troll was funnier.
Apple better start investing heavy in Clone technology or Robotics..... Here is a couple links to get you started Apple! http://robots.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning/ http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/5/9/ This may be an exercise in ethics and law, but at least the company will still be around!
The only evidence we have of what Apple is like without Jobs is the ouster in '85. I think everyone learned valuable lessons from that screw-up. AAPL's stakeholders learned that Apple is not microsoft, or compaq, etc ,etc. Jobs learned how to deal (successfully) with people like those stakeholders that ousted him. All of that shows in the business and its products today. Not to say Jobs (or anyone, really) can put off dealing with "eventualities" like this....I just have confidence in all parties at this point. It's not 1985 anymore.
On a side, but semi-related, note:
It's sad to see VMware (and that industry, by extension) getting its air supply choked off in the old MSFT two-step. We should all hope that MSFT's virtual machine implementation is crap and get's a solid reputation as such....otherwise... IANAL so could be off base, but in principle at least I'd like the Justice Department to prevent MSFT from extending their Monopoly again and killing yet another branch of the computer industry. As well, it's sad to see their management having a mid-80's Apple reaction to their old CEO. Didn't help Apple then, I doubt it'll help VMware now. :( Sadly, I'm not sure VM's in as good a position to survive today as Apple was in the 90's. Different market, different time....neither as strong now IME.
Advice to commercial software developers: (caveat, IA-also-NAD) Unless your plan is to stay small, or be a me-too developer, or peddle crapware and/or stay well off the radar (and even that mightn't help) don't bother making your software run on Windows. This piece of MSFT history has been repeated so many times it's hard to believe it's still happening. One may as well set up your business next to a Black Hole. OTOH, there's always the Open Source model. As a developer you can cut your costs (tho not guaranteed) and you can be 90% sure that MSFT isn't going to come along one day and make all your hard-earned customers disappear. Same can generally be said of the market of Mac users, at least in terms of being healthier. While it's true that Apple has transgressed a few times as well, it's never been in the scope or scale of a full application suite like Wordperfect or Netscape (etc, etc, etc) though. (BTW, was Borland/developers tools possibly the first major company/industry that MSFT "did a MSFT on"?)
YMMV, yada yada..
-Matt
Duh.
steve jobs pushing his utopian visions
for the way machines should work drives
the abilities and tempers of its engineers.
jobs pushing his personal excellence and expectations
on his employees, and his demands of service beyond mediocrity
may cause some to hate him -- but they respect his accomplishments.
bottom line -- 'real artists ship'. high level decisions to have
real designers drive engineering, rather than be involved
as a cosmetic 'after-touch'.
as a founder, jobs' spirit informs the company's DNA.
it is the personal force of his character that allows in
only those he deems worthy. his reality distortion field
is his ability and drive to see the way things 'should' be,
with a level of personal finesse and devotion to idealistic qualities.
lose that uniting band -- you'll still have the pieces of apple,
but will it be only parts? you can be sure he's training a seed
(could it be jonathan ive?) as a successor in 'the apple way'.
Who'll know aught living and describe it well,
seeks first the spirit to expell.
He then has the component parts in hand --
but lacks, alas! the spirit's uniting band.
(Goethe, Faust)
Jobs was absent from the quarterly earnings conference call?
Historically, he's rarely there anyways. That's Oppenheimer's show.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
...headlines read "No more head Jobs at Apple".
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
You're not supposed to speculate about who the next pope will be while the current one is still alive. And you're not supposed to be seen as running for the job once the time comes. I can only conclude that with typical transparency, Apple will adopt the same practices, right down to the closed meeting and the black smoke / white smoke as they try to come to a decision. Waiting three days to see of Jobs comes back seems only fitting, as well.
Well, why do you think Apple needs only 1/15 the number of employees to have about the same market share as HP?
Which "market" are you referring to? Apple's market share for electronic music delivery (iTunes) is very high. Its market for desktop computing is small. HP's market for corporate servers has to be at least an order of magnitude greater than Apple's, if not more. Ditto for the laptop market. Perhaps you didn't mean market share.
Advice: on VPS providers
man that is an OLD chain pull there.
Chuck
Globbing happens before the tarfile is created.
You can leave your card at the desk when you leave.
i would mod this post but there is no "lame" option...
Steve Jobs is so monumentally important to Apple not because of his business acumen, but simply because of his cult of personality upon which Apple has based its business. Jeff Immelt was able to successfully transition GE's management from the extremely competent Jack Welsh because customers don't buy GE products based upon hype, image, and a desire to be 'cool'. Without Jobs' impressive ability to whip fanboys [who seem to think he came up with the ideas for the iProducts by himself???] and digiterati into a fever pitch, Apple would have to compete on features and value, which would be catastrophic to their business. Hence the very understandable concern about his health.
What Apple needs is someone with charisma. The problem with Gil Amelio, Robert Sculley, et al. was that they had the personality of damp toast. In order to remain quirky and anti-establishment, Apple needs a likewise CEO.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Simple: Apple outsources more and has almost no research lab to speak of. That's the magic behind Apple's "productivity".
The idea that Apple outsources R&D at all is utterly laughable. If they really outsourced R&D how come the products they produce are so different than anyone elses, and they are able to maintain such a high market share? Clones would actually be able to take Apple out if they were not the ones doing the R&D and design.
Of course Apple outsources production. Just like HP was forced to do, long ago.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
HP's server sales might be far higher, but HP's laptop sales are only 3x those of Apple
Remember those are worldwide numbers, Apple fares much better if you consider only the U.S.
And Apple's sales are accelerating across the board.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I need someone to explain Apple to me. A long time ago, when I was in high school and Apple was about as good a choice for personal computing as anything else, Apple was recognized as force of great potential. Now, Apple hardware is Intel based and seems to be a PC in Apple's clothing. As a business, Apple diversified into relevant electronics, but all along, Apple has tried to be the individualist company like the original Apple computers that just didn't want to or even have to work along with anybody else's stuff.
Perhaps, that makes people fear staying with Apple products. They make some people happy for a short time, and the products make a statement about having a bit of class, but alternatives soon appear to make Apple a hard sell. Particularly, these days when prices are high and the economy is shaky, people are not so willing to risk their hard-earned wages on technology that will soon be overshadowed, Apple is relegated to toy status.
What Steve Jobs did was really good for the short term, and his success was unprecedented by his predecessors, a fact that bodes ill for his successors. One supposes that his strategies are surely revealed and copyable, but can Steve Jobs even persist in his current line of attack? Apple is a peculiarity in a world that can accommodate a bit of eccentricity. There are many different things that Apple can do even without Steve Jobs. The name Apple is itself very suggestive, especially now, though it suggests more about cuteness than about widespread utility, and that's a weakness.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I've always wondered about Steve and his piece of fruit. He's done well and while he was away, the fruit started to spoil. He came back and it ripened right up again. But, it is really all attributed to him? Really?
When I see Steve Jobs on the front of magazine like Time or whatever standing there with a big smile on his face holding onto an IGadget of some kind with a big shred of text that says something to the tone of 'Look What Steve Made For Us!'. Seeing shit like that just angers me because it's not him creating it; it's the engineers! They (the media) seem to show him just pulling these things right out of his head and, poof, there it is for all to buy and enjoy, all thanks to Steve and, apparently, no one else. How much does Steve, more a business expert AFAIK, really have in the success of a cool new gadget other than marketing his face along side of it? In the end, the cool things that these devices do are the brilliant thinking of all the very hard, over worked technical experts behind the scenes that are Never mentioned or cited in any of the major magazines or news stories. It would seem that Steve sits in his office all day with a hammer, thumbtacks and a small razer blade and makes IGadget after IGadget, all the while smiling and possibly eating apples.
So, if Steve left, what would really change? As long as the same brilliant engineers remain, it's really a question of "hey boss (the current Steve or some new boss taking his place someday), does this look better in white or tan and should this corner of the new IGadget be more rounded or more of some kind of octagon shape?". I'm sure someone else other than Steve can figure out answers to questions such as those.
Now, I know it takes a lot more to do what Steve has done. He is a genius in his own right, evident by Apples success under his emperor-ship. But I really don't think there's no one else out there that can be as good as he is at business tactics, marketing decisions, and 'design for the sake of appearances' ideas.
I guess I just wish they'd give more credit where it's more due; the engineers and designers who really build these cool new toys we all love instead of the media just referring to Steve doing it all.
I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone here when I say, who gives a crap about the "casual investor". The "casual investor" is a sick spawn of the unholy marriage between the internet and the stock exchange during this decade, who exists for the purposes of being fleeced by the companies that carry their transactions. To them, investing is synonymous with touring Las Vegas, except the motto is not "What happens here stays here", it's "Every day is IPO day!", and the guy in the trenchcoat selling cheat-sheets outside the casino bears a suspicious resemblance to the dealer at the blackjack table inside.
Yea, this is Slashdot! We don't do your kind of random "humor" where you associate tech-celebrities with sex acts.
This is Slashdot! Here we repeat overtired memes over and over! Now repeat after me: "But, does it run Linux?", "Soviet Russia wonders what will happen to Jobs after Apple", "Imagine a beowulf cluster of Apples"
AHAHAH that was so funny it brought a tear to my eye. I just wish my fat arms could bend enough to wipe it off...