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Forrester CEO: Apple won’t be a ‘great company’ in five years, Tim Cook a ‘mismatch’

Friday, May 4, 2012 · 1:31 pm · 50 Comments

Teresa Rivas reports for Barron’s, “Forrester Research CEO George Colony elaborated his caution about Apple (AAPL) to the Wall Street Journal, in response to his recent blog post warning that the company will decline in a post-Steve Jobs era.”

Rivas reports, “In defending his position, Colony said ‘Tim Cook is a competent and proven leader, but he’s just a mismatch with a charismatically-driven organization like Apple. Apple will be a very good company five years from now but it won’t be this great company that we’ve come to know.’”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Keep on digging, Georgie!

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Fred Mertz" for the heads up.]

Categories: News

Tags: aapl, Apple Inc., Forrester Research, George Colony, steve jobs, Tim Cook

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Comment Feed

50 Comments

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Undertrader

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:37 pm · Reply

He’s right, it is a charisma driven company. Cook doesn’t have much, but he does have that calm, cool, everything is fine charisma, which is what Apple needs during this huge shakeup with Steve gone.

What this douchebag doesn’t see that I think all of us see is that Scott Forstall has huge charisma and unbounding joy for all things Apple and will probably become the ‘new Steve.’, but you can’t make a new Steve right after he died. You need to calm the waters a bit.

Apple is fine. Apple will be fine and as you see with the new Galaxy phone, all of the competitors wait and see what Apple does and then copy it an iteration too late. iPhone 5 and iOS 6 are coming and Google, Samsung and all the others have no idea what to do to combat it. They still can’t compete with the iPad 2 for heavens sake and Windows Metro is a joke and going to push people towards Apple even more…

Lots of FUD going on. Good opportunity to buy the pullback on ridiculous made up junk news.
- Zeke
  
  Friday, May 4, 2012 - 3:54 pm · Reply
  
  What everyone is missing is that Apple is no longer the underdog, startup, 2% market share rebel. When it was, a Steve Jobs was necessary for its survival and prosperity. Things have changed. Apple is now a well oiled machine crushing its competition (copiers) with slick, well engineered, superbly designed products that the average person can just pick up and use without a phone book sized manual or training. The need for a Steve Jobs is greatly diminished and the roll such a person should play is very different. Forestall may be in exactly the right position for someone of his talents and thinking right now. And Tim Cook may be exactly the right person to be the CEO. Apple has grown up in the last 10 years. It takes different talents to run it. Steve’s resistance to things Apple has needed to do was counterproductive in many cases. Steve was a genius and I loved him, but he may not have been the right person to lead Apple in its present incarnation.
TimD

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:40 pm · Reply

I look forward to him being proved wrong.
Michael

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:41 pm · Reply

Apple is the largest company in the world (market cap). Bold prediction there, guy. We all know “what goes up, must come down”.
IMJeffrey

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:41 pm · Reply

In think Tim Cook is quite charismatic. He will lead his “charismatically-driven organization” just fine. Mr. Cook seems like a very nice guy and a competent leader to me.
dslarsen

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:45 pm · Reply

Eventually the Sun will expand to engulf the Earth. What will happen to Apple’s stock then?
- botvinnik
  
  Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:02 pm · Reply
  
  The Street will try to short it.
- Jubei
  
  Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:04 pm · Reply
  
  Yeah. Forester blew that Armageddon scenario. lol
Aldo

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:47 pm · Reply

In other words “I have been shorting the stock and I need to drive it down a little farther or I don’t get my bonus”.
chrish1961

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:48 pm · Reply

Cook may have the charisma of Gil Amelio, but he has Steve’s passion. Apple will be fine.
- breeze
  
  Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:59 pm · Reply
  
  Emilio bout NeXT and bright Jobs back.
- breeze
  
  Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:02 pm · Reply
  
  bought and brought…
  - forrestforrestgump
    
    Friday, May 4, 2012 - 6:51 pm · Reply
    
    Amelio, bougth and brought …
    
    Shit happens, man® sometimes…
montex

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:52 pm · Reply

Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs. Those are impossible shoes to fill and there just isn’t anyone who will be a comparable replacement. However, Cook is competent and reliable. We’re not talking Gil Amelio here. Apple will be fine for years to come (even if Cook’s keynotes are a bit dull).
Todd

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:52 pm · Reply

iCal’d
wjw1

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 1:52 pm · Reply

how is Forrester Research is still in business? It’s never been a dynamic company and gets enough things wrong that I’d rather buy stock in a local weatherman.
pvmd

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:01 pm · Reply

I wanna short Forrester Research’s stock.
johnny iBorg

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:05 pm · Reply

Tim is no Steve, but frankly, only Steve could be Steve. The greatest asset in Apple’s arsenal is the underestimating of Tim Cook. BOOM!
johnny iBorg

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:08 pm · Reply

Tim is no Steve, but frankly, only Steve could be Steve. Right now, the greatest asset in Apple’s arsenal is the underestimating of Tim Cook. BOOM!
Tflint

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:11 pm · Reply

Steve Jobs was no Tim Cook!
- Nailed it
  
  Friday, May 4, 2012 - 3:02 pm · Reply
  
  Exactly! Steve was the product visionary when Apple had none but he couldn’t bring those products to market. Tim is a supply chain genius which is what Apple and many other companies need. Apple, I believe, has the product visionaries in place to pick where Steve left off. Even if they run out of vision they have enough cashto buy it to keep them going for many years in the future.
Bizlaw

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:12 pm · Reply

Tim Cook is the perfect guy to lead Apple. All these analysts forget that Tim basically led Apple over the last 2+ years of Steve Jobs’ life due to Steve’s health problems. All Apple needs to do is find a charismatic exec who can communicate its vision to the masses (Jony Ivy, maybe?)

The biggest problem Apple faces is continued innovation of its landmark products — iPhone, iPad and OS X.

The other big question is whether Apple can crack the media hub/TV equation and get content providers on board with something that is truly a leap ahead in usage. i think everyone is looking for the next large leap in TV, but no one has a true vision beyond adding Siri or a touchscreen to current TVs. Hopefully Apple’s TV vision is a quantum leap forward just like the iPod, iPhone and iPad were.
Not Bill

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:12 pm · Reply

Who knows. Five year is a long way out. Mr. Cook, it is safe to say, would be considered a fine CEO at any tech company. He will lead Apple along the path it is already on with great skill. Will he come up with the shocking, revolutionary successed that Steve Jobes did? Would anybody?

If we get to a situation where Apple is still a great company making the very best products, but, there are others who can at least compete, that will be fine.
Now, Now...

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:21 pm · Reply

Gergee is just upset the letters of his last name spell Colony instead of Clooney
Radtech50001

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:29 pm · Reply

Apple is lucky to have Tim Cook and they know it. I’d suggest that everyone pay no attention to this sooth sayer.
Gee Deezy

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:38 pm · Reply

As a former Apple employee under both Jobs and Cook, I would add this from an insider’s point of view:

There was only one Steve Jobs in the Universe; No point in trying to replace him with a duplicate. That being said, Tim Cook is a brilliant, analytical, beloved, likable, and pragmatic leader that currently knows how the company works better than anyone else on the planet. Who else better to lead the company? I challenge the article’s author to give me one name worth considering over Tim Cook.
billyjackblack

Friday, May 4, 2012 - 2:43 pm · Reply

I wish I could get paid to spew sh$t like this. Here’s some other gems from these Consumer Reports – loving, no condom wearing takers of trips to Bangkok:

Sarah Rotman Epps estimates that U.S. sales for tablet computers from all manufacturers will total 3.5 million in 2010. In other words, in Forrester’s opinion, the 2 million iPads Apple sold in April and May were a fluke. It will be lucky sell 1.5 million in the U.S. between June and December — or fewer than 215,000 per month. “Consumers didn’t ask for tablets,” she points out in her summary. “In fact, Forrester’s data shows that the top features consumers say they want in a PC are a complete mismatch with the features of the iPad.”

Sarah Rotman Epps – “Enter Amazon.com whose tablet can compete on price, content, and commerce. If it’s launched at the right price with enough supply, we see Amazon’s tablet easily selling 3 million to 5 million units in Q4 alone, disrupting not only Apple’s product strategy but other tablet manufacturers’ as well.”

Forrester’s James McQuivey Announces the Death of iTunes, Again