“When Apple PR announced on Dec. 16 that senior vice president Phil Schiller — not Apple CEO Steve Jobs — would be delivering the keynote next Tuesday, the news set off an orgy of speculative thumb-sucking,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes for Fortune.
Elmer-DeWitt writes, “Hundreds of TV spots, newspaper articles, wire stories and blog posts chewed over the possibilities. Was Apple feuding with IDG World Expo — the company that has been putting on the exposition since 1985? Was it simply pulling the plug on a show whose time had passed? Were there no new showcase Apple products worthy of a Steve Jobs keynote? Was there a last-minute glitch in a new piece of hardware? Could it be that Jobs had lost more weight or was too sick to appear? Had his pancreatic cancer returned?”
“Apple’s December surprise may have lowered expectations for Macworld 2009 in terms of product introductions, but it only raised expectations in terms of Apple’s CEO — because it didn’t rule out the possibility that the rabbit in Schiller’s sleeve next week is… Steve Jobs himself, making a cameo appearance just before the curtain falls,” Elmer-DeWitt writes. “If he does, and looks no worse than he did at the Spotlight on Notebooks special event in October, the audience will erupt with applause, investors will be reassured, and Apple’s share price will soar.”
Elmer-DeWitt writes, “One thing is certain: If he doesn’t show up next week, or at the World Wide Developer’s Conference in June, or at whatever special events Apple schedules in 2009, then it will be clear that the transition to the new management team is already underway, and the era of Apple’s Steve Jobs is nearly over.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "JES42" for the heads up.]
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