Who Can Lead Apple?
After some office debate over the value of tradeshows and the reasons behind Apple’s sudden decision to drop out of MacWorld (Read More); it appears that Steve Jobs’ declining health was at least a partial factor in his keynote cop out.
Apple’s CEO finally came forward and disclosed a hormonal imbalance that is responsible for his recent weight loss, as well his disappearing act for the highly anticipated convention. As a result, Jobs will be undergoing treatment in an attempt to restore his health until the Spring. During this time, he will still maintain control of the company (Full Article).
Now, despite my absolute and unwavering hatred for Apple and it’s products - I do wish Steve Jobs the best on his road to recovery. Nobody can deny that he is an amazing leader who knows how to run a company (apart from the egotistical and pretentious fan boys that flock like moths to the flame when a smaller iPod is released). But personal beef aside, I just wonder if anybody out there is capable of succeeding Jobs as the CEO of Apple?
Obviously anybody could take his place, however what ramifications would befall the company in regard to it’s value and fan base if Jobs were out of the picture? Their smaller market share does contain a very close-knit group of users, however Jobs is more than just a CEO to these people, he is an icon. If something ever happened to him, Apple would be like Christmas without Santa, Mortal Kombat without blood, or Die Hard 4 without an R-rating (I still get chills).
My point is this, Apple needs to seriously start coming to terms with the fact that one day they will need to fill the void left by Steve Jobs so they can continue pushing their latest recycled “Thinnovations.” In order to keep customers buying and shareholders happy, I think Apple should start training for the race to find their next leader…
Hmmm, I wonder what Justin Long is up to these days?
aaron.hagenbuch
“These people”
I love post like this… please keep them coming. It’s like my grandfather talking about nationalities and foreign cars…
Ignorance is bliss and everything I don’t know sucks.
I hardly see how the statement, “these people” would be construed as ignorance? After all, wasn’t it Apple that started the whole “I am a Mac” campaign in order to help distinguish their users as self-proclaimed tech connoisseurs? I just didn’t want to offend the community by putting them on the same level as an undeserving PC user - like myself.
After all, I have used Macs all throughout high school and college, so I know firsthand that they are overpriced toys.
The biggest thing that scares me about Apple right now (as a branding-machine) is if they can keep momentum going - both on the consumer side and the investor side.
At least Gates named a successor, and he has been visible. It\’s time for Mr. Jobs to get his planning place so Apple can have a wonderful pearly-white-touch-screen-future!
The branding at Apple is a philosophy. Every product from the OS, the hardware, the software, ..etc. follow a common idea.
They are not:
http://www.microsoft.com/products/info/default.aspx?View=22
and then
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/tce/default.aspx
and then
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/default.aspx
They are:
http://www.apple.com/
and
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/
and
http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/
They know as a company who they are, what they offer, and where they are going. Apple is NOT Steve Jobs. Fanboys and ironically Apple haters think so but in reality they are an extremely well branded machine. Without a doubt there is plans for life after Steve. Since the branding is so strong they can and will survive without him.
For the record, URL structure has nothing to do with branding. Microsoft markets to many different locales, industries, and levels of consumers. If Apple organized their URLs in this way, they would have:
http://hardware.apple.com/en/enterprise/virtualization/xserve.jsp
Keep in mind that Microsoft doesn’t only cater to the personal-computing consumers like Apple does (I say that in a general sense: Apple doesn’t market to enterprises or governments). Microsoft makes everything from VoIP solutions to email servers.
Also, following a common idea is NOT something that Apple products share. Go ahead and tell me that Garage Band looks ANYTHING like iMovie. The interface isn’t even remotely similar. Even the controls across programs are different. Up until Leopard, even the shells weren’t cohesive across apps (brushed metal, smooth metal, plastic…). At least Microsoft apps have a set of common styling guidelines that lay out how things should look. As a user, I know what I can and cannot click on, what’s a button, what’s a slider, what will drag and what will not. On OS X, there is no common custom control library (as with Windows Form Controls) and consequently, developers end up writing their own bits and pieces, leading to a mish-mash of inconsistent interfaces.
“As a user, I know what I can and cannot click on, what’s a button, what’s a slider, what will drag and what will not.”
Haha… okay man. I am done here.
Another great Microsoft branding effort…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGFogwcx-E
…exactly.