3 Years In, a "B" For Tim Cook's Performance at Apple

Cult of Mac has taken a look at the three years since Tim Cook began his job as Apple's CEO, and rates him a "solid B." Cook might be neither as charismatic or volatile as Steve Jobs was, but he's made some interesting moves and statements. One factor (an area in which Cult of Mac gives Cook an A) is employee happiness, something for which Jobs was not always known: Cook’s highest “grade” on this hypothetical report card may come from Apple employees. Though the lanky 53-year-old is reportedly short on small talk, his people skills have earned him a 93 percent approval rating from a sampling of almost 2,000 people who work at Apple on website Glass Door, where anonymous employees can rate their satisfaction with the overall work environment as well as give thumbs up or down for the CEO.

Comments

Stock is at a record high

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple Stock is at a record high. He did what he was hired to do.

Re:Stock is at a record high

[lucm]

The stock has been a roller-coaster ride over the last 3 years. The real good thing that he did was the deal with IBM to at last set foot in the enterprise. For a very long time a lot of people have been using iPhones at the office but most of the time it was in BYOD organizations. If the Apple-IBM thing can move forward (and if Apple can get a grip on reality, price-wise) it could be a new era for Apple.

Enterprise customers can't be dazzled by marketing or fashion trends like the typical Apple crowd. And while people keep talking about the wonderful app store and its billions of apps, the truth is that a business won't run on angry birds and yos. Hopefully Apple will get a clue and start using its factories to deliver cost-effective devices on which enterprise apps can run. Take things where Blackberry left them and move forward.

Apple is not a front-runner anymore in design. Samsung, Microsoft, Dell - everyone has good designers nowadays and lawsuits aside, all smartphones are user-friendly enough. Apple should really use its position and deep pockets to set foot in the enterprise before they fade away.

Re:Stock is at a record high

[Jeremy Erwin]

I'm not sure why Apple needs to enhance shareholder value. Apple hasn't raised capital on the markets for years. Apple needs to be profitable, Apple needs to be an attractive platform for developers. Apple needs to be perceived, by its customers, as qualitatively superior to Android and Windows. But enhancing shareholder value should be a side effect of those more important goals, not a goal in itself.

Re:Stock is at a record high

[Noah Haders]

-1 disagree. SJ was the heart of apple, or the core if you will. He was charasmtatic and a great salesman. At the beginning of apple part 1 and part 2 he had to carry the burden because the company was either small or not functioning well. But cook's apple is a juggernaut with thousands of brilliant and dedicated employees. His strategy is to inspire his people to be great and get out of their way so thereby can do awesome things.

the proof is in there pudding, so to speak. Depending on how you define the market they may or may not be losing a lot of ground to android. The Mac Pro is awesome design but currently a niche product. I like where they're going on software and services, and how their jettisoning old mac apps like iPhoto for lightweight apps like photos originally from iOS. Stock prices are a poor indicator of long term positive decisions, but a good indicator of bad times when the stock is in the he crapper, which it's not.

let's check in again in a couple years. Two long-term dangers: first, he's been getting by on a "great products in the pipeline" story for a bit, and it's time to put up or shut up. A lot of people will be really disappointed if there's not iwatch this year. Second, so much of their revenue is based on just a handful of products, and if the market suddenly shifts against their favor or if they release a dud, then there will be heck to pay.

Re:Stock is at a record high

[Jeremy Erwin]

Tim Cook once said: “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."

Besides, your faith in boards is disturbing.

Re:Stock is at a record high

[rolfwind]

I agree. Apple still is coasting on Steve Job's risks. Coasting is fine in a stactic market, not in one full with change.

What happened to AppleTV? Oh, netflix and amazon and rokubox all claimed that pie because Apple was too stodgy to move on it.

Steve Jobs took chances. Where does Tim Cooke take chances? All I see is him betting on sure things and doing things for good PR.

Apple is the new Sony of the 90s. What happens when the tablet market is saturated and declines? What happens if major phone networks start allowing people to bring their existing phones and getting a discount, breaking the 2 year upgrade cycle?

Re:Stock is at a record high

[guruevi]

AppleTV is alive and well. It's a piece of hardware like the Roku. As far as digital receivers go, AppleTV is the largest segment in the market and at 56% market share it's eclipsing all of it's competitors (Roku, Boxee, ChromeCast). The reason is simple, it offers everything I need and more and is truly plug and play (unlike either Boxee or Chrome) and doesn't nickel-and-dime the customer for channels like Roku does.

Apple never got into streaming movies/TV shows due to licensing costs. Netflix came way before Apple started doing movies on iTunes and Apple is happy to provide the device Netflix runs on.

Re:Stock is at a record high

[spire3661]

Apple themselves are all but ignoring it, and have for its entire life. It could be so much more, but they let it rot. They dont even expose the bluetooth module so you can get headset audio from it......

As a non-fanboy I like the Cook Apple better.

[pecosdave]

I use Apple products, but I'm by no means a fanboy, as my signature suggest (fanboys should NEVER have mod-points). I support Apple products at work, use a 27" iMac at work (which I rather like, and I've put TotalTerminal and other utils on to make it more Linux-like and comfortable for me), and I've got a work iPad 2, all of which I like.

I'm actually a Linux/Android guy.

Why I like Apple better under cook:

Less lawsuits. They're slowly settling/arbitrating old ones and filing less new ones. I developed a deep hatred of Apple under Jobs due to his temper-tantrums and deep ingrained need to shit in everyone else's punch bowls.

I'm seeing less new intenentional handicaps of their own products, and some of the old ones are getting less rigid (iOS is becoming slightly less user-hostile).

They've finally declared hardware the source of their profits and allowed free upgrades to the OS. (I refuse to use the nomenclature of "Free Operating System" that's been used here on Slashdot too damned many time to describe Mavericks since it's still tied to a mandatory purchase to run it)

What Apple still needs to work on:

Drop all user hostility - make so people can release source code for iOS apps they write. Stop attempting to strong-arm exclusivity out of the iOS platform.

ADOPT FRIGGIN NORMAL CABLES FOR YOUR IOS DEVICES
USB-C connectors are on their way, go with those. All the advantages of your Lightning cables but not "just ours".

Give me an editable path bar I can enable (it can be off by default) like every other OS. As a tech moving around yoru file system is more of a pain than it's worth. Don't spout anything at me about using muCommander or something, I'm a tech, I support other peoples stuff and I don't want to install crap or run utilities that have to be imported somehow every time I sit at a different system.

Drop the artificial restrictions on OS updates "when it was manufactured" isn't a good yard-stick for install eligibility and everyone knows it. Those Mac Pros that are six months too old to run Mavericks are more than capable of doing so and everyone knows it, it just makes you look like a bunch of pricks by barring install.

Re:As a non-fanboy I like the Cook Apple better.

[DigiShaman]

ADOPT FRIGGIN NORMAL CABLES FOR YOUR IOS DEVICES
USB-C connectors are on their way, go with those. All the advantages of your Lightning cables but not "just ours".

A multi-billion dollar company. You know, Apple could chuck the community a bone here and open up their lightning cable specs free from royalties. I prefer that design over USB-C.

Re:As a non-fanboy I like the Cook Apple better.

[Noah Haders]

ADOPT FRIGGIN NORMAL CABLES FOR YOUR IOS DEVICES USB-C connectors are on their way, go with those. All the advantages of your Lightning cables but not "just ours".

The industry wouldn't bother with USB-c if apple hadn't made lightning. Otherwise regular USB would be "good enough" like it has been for the past decade. Aside from apple the entire electronics industry is about commodity components and a "good enough" attitude about everything.

Re:As a non-fanboy I like the Cook Apple better.

[LordLucless]

Yeah, because USB hadn't already gone through three generations of improvements and refinements before Apple's messianic connector forced the industry to start improving again.

Re:Cook's Long Term View/Actions

[DanielOom]

I guess he'll just continue Apple on its present course, just like Steve Ballmer did at Microsoft.

Innovation

[Citizen of Earth]

How many years in until Cook finally produces an innovative product? For the past three years, it's been all about belatedly adopting Android features. This fall, it will be the bigger screens Android phones have already had for years.

Re:Innovation

[viperidaenz]

He's about to release the iPhone Galaxy next month.

An F for not buying Waze

[heteromonomer]

Seriously, that single purchase would have made Apple maps superior to everything Google Maps offered till then, and way better than any GPS even today. Couldn't spare some change eh apple? As an iPhone user I constantly find myself using Google Maps. Apple maps on its best day can't hold a candle to where Google Maps was three years ago. And now after buying Waze and integrating it only half-way, Google Maps is already miles ahead. Buying Beats instead of something everybody would use every day. Yeah, smart move, Apple.