“At Apple Inc.’s May 10 annual shareholder meeting, a series of proposals were presented for voting after which CEO Steve Jobs answered a series of questions from the audience,” Daniel Eran reports for RoughlyDrafted.
“As has been the case over the last three years, a large portion of the questions and comments from the audience were presented by environmental groups who attended to present issues related to green conscious, non-toxic manufacturing goals along with e-waste takeback and recycling programs,” Eran reports.
“Many of the other questions presented related to Apple’s stock options backdating issues,” Eran reports.
“A member of the audience questioned Jobs on Apple’s relatively low figure of reinvestment in R&D, saying that he felt the company was missing low handing fruit with new product opportunities, particularly with the delay of Leopard. Jobs responded, ‘I wish it was just a matter of writing checks. If it was just a matter of spending money, Microsoft would deliver good products,'” Eran reports.
“Another commenter asked about Apple’s plans for the iPhone going forward, prompting Jobs to pull an iPhone out of his front pocket and describe the vast potential market for mobile phones. Jobs said that compared to the music player and PC markets, the much larger mobile phone market presented a critical opportunity for the company, despite it being an entirely new venture for Apple,” Eran reports.
“Frequently making humorous asides during the question and answer session, Jobs’ made light of the the dollar salary he is assigned, quipping ‘I get 50 cents just for showing up. And 50 cents for my performance,'” Eran reports.
Full article with much more, including Eran’s questions to Jobs (One of which was: How about selling an inexpensive Tiger for developing countries and regular-priced Leopard for the rest of us?), here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Twilightmoon” and “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Eran got in 3 questions. Someone knows an Apple Fanboy when he sees one.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Much of the article echoes what has already been posted on MDN, but the 3 questions Eran asked Jobs were pretty good and the answers that Jobs gave were insightful.
I think it was Cringely who thought over a year ago that Apple should give Tiger away to Windows users, after making it PC-bootable, when Leopard became available. That would make the eventual “switch” an easier sell.
I like it that Steve paused when he answered Eran’s question. Who knows, Dan may have just put a seed in Steve’s mind. World domination here we come.
I don’t understand. I thought the best tech stuff come from Redmond.
There’s an interesting set of posts over on ZDNET where they basically claim Apple never did anything that they didn’t steal from Micro$oft. Gates = all good, Jobs = all evil. They also claim the “Get a Mac” commercials are all lies.
Perhaps we should bombard them with the truth, or are they too stupid to tolerate?
Great crack from El Jobso about Microsoft, but not a great way to treat what is arguably your most important developer. Keep it up and that latest 5-year deal will not be renewed.
CNET is an MS whore, everyone knows that or should. MS is a big sponsor of CNET.
Bloody good article by Roughly Drafted.
Thank god for an unbiased viewpoint from someone who was there.
@ Perspective:
The five-year deal passed about 3-4 years ago. Maybe 5. Not for sure. However, Apple passed on the renewal–and I could not agree more.
You can’t argue with trolls, Hard Nard.
Pespectective…
So your theory is that we should all only treat Microsoft in a deferential manner because it might get pissed and withdraw Office.
Well, let’s look at that…
1) Why would Microsoft turn down the chance to make maybe 12 million+ instances of $250+ every couple of years? Is MSFT so proud that it can afford to reject around a billion dollars of annual income, most of which is profit? And all because Steve Jobs doesn’t think much of Microsoft’s products and has the temerity to say as much.
2) Speaking as a bit of a chubby lad, I would have thought that Ballmer’s skin was more than thick enough to withstand a relatively modest bit of criticism. Maybe SPJ should have said If it was just a matter of spending money, Microsoft would deliver products on time! There you go, no qualitative assessment, merely a crack about being several years late with a (stripped-down) operating system – happy now?
3) Personally, if MSFT withdraw Office from the Mac, the only thing I’d miss at the moment would be Excel. I haven’t fired up Word in the best part of a year as I’ve become reliant on iWork.
Hard Nard is just trolling for hits on his ZDNET piece.
After having been present at the meeting, Eran is shocked by the SF Chronicle’s coverage. He writes:
The SF Chronicle Goes Bananas.
Anyone actually at the meeting will find it hard to read the Ellen Lee’s report in the SF Chron, which described the laidback Jobs as “feisty,” and characterized his joking comments as “fired back” into a purportedly embittered and hostile crowd. Lee actually managed to use “fired” twice in her article as a stand in for “said.”
It’s too bad Lee didn’t seek to capture the truth in her article, rather than invent a scandalous performance of arrogant tyranny out of Jobs.
Unfortunately, anyone who has seen the media in action up close will find the Chron’s coverage disappointingly typical, rather than shocking. Often, the reader/viewer is left with a completely distorted impression by the media of how something occurred. And it just so happens that the distortion either: a) fits the reporters’ prejudices, or b) adds conflict/negativity to encourage readership (much like high school kids gather to watch a fight).
AFAIK, Jobs offered the $100 computer people ( http://laptop.org/laptop/software/index.shtml ) a version of OSX for their developing world system, still in prototyping, but they turned it down, instead going for open source materials.
Me and Steve Jobs make the same $1 annual salary…amazing. I wonder how he lives on such a small amount…
Wade: This might help explain why OLPC chose what they chose.
From the OLPC wiki:
• Must include source code and allow modification so that our developers, the governments that are our customers and the children who use the laptop can look under the hood to change the software to fit an inconceivable and inconceivably diverse set of needs. Our software must also provide a self-hosting development platform.
• Must allow distribution of modified copies of software under the same license so that the freedoms that our developers depend upon for success remain available to the users and developers who define the next generation of the software. Our users and customers must be able to localize software into their language, fix the software to remove bugs, and repurpose the software to fit their needs.
• Must allow redistribution without permission — either alone or as part of an aggregate distribution — because we can not know and should not control how the tools we create will be re-purposed in the future. Our children outgrow our platform, our software should be able to grow with them.
• Must not require royalty payments or any other fee for redistribution or modification for obvious reasons of economy and pragmatism in the context of our project.
• Must not discriminate against persons, groups or against fields of endeavor. Our software’s power will come through its ability to grow and change with the children and in a variety of contexts.
• Must not place restrictions on other software that may be distributed along side it. Software licenses must not bar either proprietary, or “copyleft” software from being distributed on the platform. A world of great software will be used to make this project succeed – both open and closed. We need to be able to choose from all of it.
• Must allow these rights to be passed on along with the software. This means that we must not provide a license specific to the $100 Laptop project or organization or its customers. While we are the developers of this platform today, the users of this platform are the developers of tomorrow and it is through them that the platform will succeed, be transformed, and be passed on. They need the same rights as we do.
• Must not be otherwise encumbered by software patents which restrict modification or use in the ways described above. All patents practiced by software should be sublicenseable and allow our users to make use or sell derivative versions that practice the patent in question.
• Must support and promote open and patent unencumbered data interchange and file formats.
• Must be able to be built using unencumbered tools (e.g., compilers).
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_on_open_source_software
Wasn’t Huh? at the shareholder meeting too?
MW = probably
I doubt.
“Steve Jobs on R&D: If it was just a matter of spending money, Microsoft would deliver good products.”
So, Steve, what’s Apple’s excuse for screwing the pooch? Poor management? Laziness? Incompetence? Confusion? Poor morale? All of the above?
Keep it up and that latest 5-year deal will not be renewed.
Boy, how I wish that to come true. Let’s just cross our fingers!
@ Really?
Man, are you on crack . . . or are you just pissed that you didn’t buy AAPL last summer (@$50) when all you VistalVirgins were predicting the Mac’s doom?
If Apple’s success since Steve’s return is your definition of “screwing the pooch,” I’D REALLY HATE TO BE YOUR DOG!
Re: OLPC OS rules & guidlines
Doesn’t Darwin fit all of those requirements?
Come here, bitch. Lie down. Roll over. Good dog, Randian.
Maybe you missed that part of the share holders meeting where people ACTUALLY had complaints about Apple’s performance, direction, and ethical lapses.
Some folks have delusions of grandeur, others have delusions of adequacy. If you’re happy with “tolerable”, “acceptable”, and “passable” you live in a pathetic world of stultifying mediocrity.
Microsoft, SanDisk to develop advanced memory cards:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/070511/microsoft_sandisk.html?.v=3
Microsoft will develop the software for the product.
Well they can’t develop an advanced OS so maybe they can manage this task.
Microsoft’s R&D spend is very fungible with Legal spending and advertising spending. Most of their R&D spending is researching new ways to sell the same junk to as many people as possible, multiple times if possible, and developing new ways to argue their way through the deliberately vague and loophole ridden contracts that they have with their <strike>partners</strike> victims.
In those terms Microsoft’s R&D spend is very successful.
Microsoft and Apple created another 5-year deal to develop and maintain Office in Jan 2006.
The Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) at Microsoft is the largest, 100 percent, Mac-focused developer of Mac software outside of Apple itself.
And the reason millions have switched.
“Microsoft’s R&D spend is very fungible . . .”
Nice word, Gandalf! So, MS R & D is kept in the dark and fed truckloads of B.S. in order to grow?