Several MacDailyNews readers have sent us the complete text of the memo that Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent to the MobileMe team on Monday. Here is the memo verbatim:
Team,
The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour. There are several things we could have done better:
– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple’s standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.
– Rather than launch MobileMe as a monolithic service, we could have launched over-the-air syncing with iPhone to begin with, followed by the web applications one by one – Mail first, followed 30 days later (if things went well with Mail) by Calendar, then 30 days later by Contacts.
– It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store. We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.
We are taking many steps to learn from this experience so that we can grow MobileMe into a service that our customers will love. One step that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue, who will lead all of our internet services – iTunes, the App Store and, starting today, MobileMe. Eddy’s new title will be Vice President, Internet Services and he will now report directly to me.
The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services. And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.
Steve
“While you might think its cute to use the phrase “drink the Kool-Aid”, I remind you that the mass suicide of the Jim Jones cult, where the phrase originated, is no laughing matter.”
And it was cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid, making Uh Oh even more of a misinformed and desperate for attention loser.
Who knew that was even possible?
You people are stupid. If a CEO fired everyone who fucked up there would be nobody left in the company. Steve is doing the right thing: admit your mistakes, learn from them, and move on.
“I think Steve should be applauded for remaining so calm and polite”
My friend, rest assured that Steve Jobs has tons of advisors and communication expert around him.
Whatever any leader says is extremely thought over, rethought, polished, so people don’t freak out.
I wonder if this was a coordinated “leak” by Apple?
It may be just me, but I think that Steve Jobs is the one that pushed MobileMe out the door early.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> That would sound about right.
And this new guy may have been one of the few that stood up and indicated that it may not be totally ready to ship MobileMe.
You never know.
Just a thought.
en
and in other news, Blackberry servers remain unaffected. lol.
@coolfactor
You can say that again.
@coolfactor
I agree there’s a certain arrogance in Apple’s deciding to not fully suppport MS IE that is attractive to my inner-Mac child, but as an employee w/ a work laptop that only runs IE and whose IT Dept doesn’t allow installation of any other apps, browsers included, it’s kind of annoying.
MDN magoc word = work (as in, ugh -or argh- …work!)
Rolling out MobileMe and the 3G iPhone simultaneously was probably intended to dismay the likes of Microsoft, Dell, RIM and other huge dinosaurs with a perfect multiple technology launch on a worldwide scale.
Nice if it had worked even nearly flawlessly but it did not for just too many unlucky users. Remember the Heathrow Terminal 5 fiasco? That demonstrated that systems that are not fully tested and sorted at near overload conditions will almost certainly fail well before that level is attained when used for real.
The writing was on the wall and Apple missed a whole galaxy of positive free advertising as a result.
“and in other news, Blackberry servers remain unaffected”
Because everyone is using the iPhone!
I couldn’t resist.
“The writing was on the wall and Apple missed a whole galaxy of positive free advertising as a result.”
A whole galaxy? Don’t you mean solar system?
I hate it when people exaggerate.
Floris: “Regardless of the services not being up to par yet, for a first run and from comparing it to some other services they have done an amazing job nevertheless.”
They have done an amazing job despite the job not being done on time or satisfactorily? My sources say no.
It’s also not a first run. MobileMe didn’t really add anything except iPhone synchronization, and in fact REMOVED some services that dotMac offered.
I can picture Jobs right after this email ripping open the chest of the (former) mobileme team leader and feasting on his heart and lungs while the rest of the team looked on in horror.
Jobs has to set an example somehow.
Good for Apple for trying to push the envelope! They have learned a lot from this experience which will benefit Apple and its customers.
I liked dot mac and love mobile Me. Apple would not be Apple without it trying to deliver everything on the same day. That there were a few glitches – at least Apple admits it and fixes them. Plus Apple gets a new VP for all internet services (sure to benefit us all) and I got an additional month of services. People should take a deep breath – things do go wrong. You measure service by how well organizations recover and set things right. Name another company that is as good at recovery as Apple.
Thank you Apple!
So what about the people who paid $99 for crap. All we got was a one month extension
If you visit Ars Technica, there was a similar article to this one published earlier this week. Among the postings beneath the article was one from someone who had worked with the MobileMe and .Mac teams in the past. He explained that there were problems lurking in the organization. The network architecture of .Mac was frankly behind the curve. Making things worse was that some of the managers running .Mac and more recently, MobileMe operations had apparently created a fiefdom, and a top manager did not want to hear any criticism from either inside or outside of the company. Even worse, the manager apparently thought a flat-file database to control things was just fine.
We will never know what caused the train wreck. That is something that will remain inside the walls in Cupertino. But if Steve Jobs and Apple was undermined by an egotistical middle manager, or a group within, I have a strong belief that their career options have changed. Suddenly.
I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before at other companies, including a software company at which I worked. One project I was involved with was terminally flawed from day one, and the team developed a software architecture that would blow up as more transactions were thrown at it. The sick part was, they knew it. And they spent over a million dollars covering the mess up and hoping for the best. The top managers threatened the jobs of anyone who dared blow the whistle. But eventually, it crashed and burned. The company’s reputation, which took years of effort, was badly damaged. A lot of people lost their jobs.
The point here is that Apple is no different than any other company, in that it can be undermined by frigtard middle managers and teams that blow up projects. As Warren Buffet said famously, “if you make a mistake, I can forgive that. But if you lie about a mistake that you made, I can be be ruthless.”
May God have mercy on anyone who messed up Apple’s reputation – and lied about it. A certain CEO will not suffer fools. And that is why Apple is Apple. The email was a very polite summary of what I am sure was a scalding reaction by Steve. My hope is that the company and its employees does learn from this, and from lemons will come lemonade. Otherwise, two black eyes will hurt years of hard work and good will.
Translation: We [ well, you mostly] f*cked up! I’ve assigned Cue to make sure we have it up to our usual standards by the end of the year. I fired the guy who suggested we do a Mojave type of study.
The friggin’ calendars still don’t sync right.
Try making a calendar group on one computer, then sync it to MobileMe. Then go to another computer and sync the calendar to the same MobileMe account.
Voilá! It sucks.
Oh yea, just try changing the color for a calendar. Boy, then things really get discombobulated.
Another voice,
Nice comment.
I sure agree with Buffet. I don’t understand people who try to lie their way out of a problem. It usually never works and just makes things worse. I always just ‘fess up and take my medicine. I’ve never been canned yet.
Steve Jobs is a prick.
Wow,
“Steve Jobs is a prick.”
Give it up Mrs. Jobs. You aren’t fooling anyone.
@hairy buyer
“My e-mail is working fine and I have more storage than before, plus an extra month so as a dot Mac customer I am not unhappy.”
Right. Same here mail/storage-wise, but I am not happy that I’ll be getting 30 days more to miss the services that Apple nixed, especially Apple iCards.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/macsmiley/2652541101/
iCards were simple, they were elegant, and they didn’t plaster recipients with advertisements, HTML, and flashing GIFS.
I got responses from sending iCards I never got from sending emails… not even emails with pictures. The combination of whimsical images and text in one small, savable JPEG in the iCard message was hard to resist.
Despite some less handsome alternatives, iWant Apple iCards Back!!
There are two petitions clamoring for Apple to bring back iCards. Feel free to join the chorus!
http://www.petitiononline.com/ic110608/petition.html
and
http://www.petitiononline.com/06291970/petition.html
Imagine how cool it would be to send that last minute, oops-I-forgot iCard for that special occasion to that special person right on the spot from your iPhone!!
I have for the most part, been among the unaffected majority of users. I don’t sync everything at this point only because I did not sync everything on .mac. Once things are closer to where they should be, I’ll most likely start to sync everything that I can. To the guy above who said something about calendars still not working, that may only be for a few people or it may only be for your particular setup. Hopefully, it will work soon.
I’m not complaining.
Just because several MacDailyNews readers sent MDN the text of the memo that Mr Jobs sent to the MobileMe team…, does it mean MDN can make it public?
I guess the memo is obviously intended for internal use only.
Tough, but classy.
Apple made some mistakes, and are taking smart steps to fix it. Better to move forward than waste time “blamestorming”.
This certainly beats flying chairs and profanity-laden rants….