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Apple's Obsession With Secrecy Grows Stronger
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times has a story on the culture of secrecy at Apple (registration possibly required). Secrecy is not just the prevailing communications strategy; it is baked into the corporate culture that had its origin in the release of the first Macintosh. 'It really started around trying to keep the surprise aspect to product launches, which can have a lot of power,' says marketing veteran Regis McKenna who advised Apple in its early days. Today few companies are more secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those who dare violate the company's rules on keeping tight control over information. Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers and sue bloggers who cover the company. Apple's decision to severely limit communication with the news media, shareholders, and the public is at odds with the approach taken by many other companies, and many experts agree that the secrecy that adds surprise and excitement to Apple product announcements is not serving the company well in corporate governance. Some say that recent reports that Steve Jobs may have had a liver transplant, still not confirmed by the company, now makes one of Apple's assertions from January — that Jobs was suffering only from a hormonal imbalance — seem like a deliberate untruth."
That's a somewhat interesting question. The fact is is that people know new things are coming out from Apple. Yet they buy the "old" stuff and then bitch and moan when the "new" stuff comes out!
There's a serious question if Apple obeyed the laws for not disclosing more about Jobs' health. There are strict rules about publicly traded companies having to disclose materially relevant information to share holders. Having your CEO, who is known for being extremely influential and essentially responsible for most of your major products, having a severe, life threatening illness and not disclosing it, might very well run afoul of those regulations.
By that argument we should probably require all employees of any publicly traded company to make their genetic sequence available publicly, plus briefs about any potentially dangerous hobbies they may have. Better throw in data about their relationships too. Nothing impairs performance like trouble at home.
This "publicly traded company" nonsense is used to justify too much. "Medical problems" is more than enough for the shareholders and the public.
Pro tip: Delete all your cookies that start with nyt. Presto, no registration needed...
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
I think the last five months have demonstrated that apple can operate perfectly well without Steve Jobs anyway. Thats much better than having a single point of failure.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
...Would you buy a "new" iPhone if you were told a better one was 6 months away, and all the cool features it would have eventually?
But there's more to it than the Osborne effect. Apple's innovations are often the sort that can be echoed by competitors, diluting the return on their initiative and investment if disclosed too early. In this respect they're no different from any other toy company. I remember it once being said that it was easier to enter the offices of the Pentagon than to acquire a visitors pass to Mattel, so the secrecy may be simply good business.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
See the difference?
Despite your attempt at sarcasm, I DO see the difference. Generally people not in upper management making decisions that affect the whole company is frowned upon. Do you also get equally upset when upper management decides to develop some new product, and they don't let you make that decision?
AccountKiller
A share holder of a company that uses it's CEO as one of it's primary selling points does have a right to know if that PR asset is about to kack.
Really, a right? How exactly was that right bestowed upon them? What gave them that right? Is there some sort of shareholder's bill of rights that I haven't heard about which says that if a company uses its CEO as a PR asset then shareholders have the right to know if the CEO is having medical problems?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black