“Chirp me all you want, but soon — mark my words — the financial, tech and mass media will turn the heat up on Tim Cook and, subsequently, ask when will Apple fire him and who will be his replacement,” Rocco “One Trick Pony” Pendola writes for The Street.
“Apple’s Board of Directors went all-in Tim Cook,” Pendola writes. “That was a mistake. However, entrepreneur Nathan Hangen said it best in response to me on Twitter: ‘they’ll never do it. Too much pride.'”
Pendola writes, “But, soon, as Cook’s impotent leadership increasingly shows itself for what it is — a roadblock to Apple’s quest to maintain its dominance — the company will have no choice. Operating on empty rhetoric and turning 2013 into The Year of the Copycats with Apple playing the opposite role Steve Jobs had it playing in 2011 simply will not fly for much longer.”
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah – Think Before You Click™ – here.
at apple’s size, being able to produce tens of millions of products is a lot more important than designing them
you can wow the bloggers every day, but you still have to make the products and that’s where tim cook comes in
That’s an awesome argument for him being COO.
I have told this to Rocco on twitter without trying to offend all bloggers , but I told him “theres a reason why you are a blogger and not working at Apple”. I still believe this is the case.
There’s a reason he is a blogger and not doing ANYTHING important, productive or meaningful! He’s a buffoon.
I respect the man, but not his personal campaign to socially re-engineer the country to suit his radical views! His days r numbered! Don’t hire a liberal to do a capitalist’s job! Liberal = Weakness! Steve, with much fewer liberal tendencies, was the exception! As I have said, lobbying the Supreme Court to legalize and fund homosexual marriage was his fatal mistake! You and I both know why he did it too! Sad!
From the far right, anything reasonable appears radical…
Apple has actively supported same sex couples since the 1970s. It has actively supported the full spectrum of couples almost as long. This has absolutely nothing to do with Cook. Take your personal biases elsewhere.
Funny, it doesn’t sound like you “respect the man.”
Yes, you are a sad little bigot aren’t you?
Strange then that some of the most successful capitalist in Victorian times when few exited were rather liberal for their time. Not to mention that he biggest example of all in SJ can hardly be written off as just an exemption. Business men come from all parts of the spectrum and narrow minded one dimensional ones usually aren’t the best long term.
Once again, who do these dumb asses propose to replace Cook with? The only person I would remotely support stepping into Tim’s shoes is Marissa Mayer, but that’s not an endorsement based on qualification but on the fact that Marissa looks better than Tim sitting on a red ball.
No. The tech world abounds with fabulous CEO’s the pundit idiots could point to, like uhhhh —-. Well, at least there’s, uhhhhh ——. OK, never mind.
HBR named Bezos the best performing living CEO this year.
Here’s a list of candidates, why don’t you tell us why any of these candidates wouldn’t be just as effective as Cook, for a fraction of the cost?
Alan Mulally
Stephen Wolfram
Bill McDermott
Jim Whitehurst
John P. Kelly
John t. Chambers
Jeff P. Bezos
John C. Martin
John W. Thomson
Paul Chisholm
Paul E. Jacobs
Paul Maritz
Joe Tucci
Randall Stephenson
Robert Pera
Peter Flint
….
We’ll wait for your thorough assessment.
Remind me, how much profit did Bezos manage to turn in this year for Amazon .
plenty, if you invested in AMZN. See a trend here?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AAPL&t=1y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=AMZN%2C%5EIXIC
I have to say despite my criticisms of Apple lately that they have been very good to me so far.
I had a malfunctioning iPhone 4 replaced without question, and an iPad 3 similarly replaced when it began to malfunction. They also replaced my MacBook Pro’s battery free of charge outside the warranty period when I showed them that the remaining amount of charge that could be held by the battery under full charge was ridiculously out of bounds small despite it being less than 2 years old.
I have no complaints about their dedication to the customer. I will put this on record – that their customer service is second to none. If I had similar problems with any other manufacturer, say HP or Samsung, I would have been given short shrift and told to bugger myself.
As for Tim Cook’s leadership, I find the lack of product launches puzzling and in particular the refusal to acknowledge the need for a larger iPhone and a cheaper iPhone to extend Apple’s dominance in the smartphone arena. I thought the iPad mini launch was handled well. The iPad mini has become a welcome addition to the Apple iOS family.
However, a few quibbles remain. These relate in the main to how awful iOS 7 looks to me. We live in a three dimensional world and are more at home with three dimensional representation of objects. Squashed 2-D icons do not appeal to me in the slightest.
The Mac Pro, I think, is going to be a disaster sales wise – sales which are declining will decline further because they have pigeonholed an already niche product into an even smaller niche.
Did you completely miss Parallax, as it seems people did? The icons may look “flatter,” but with parallax, iOS 7 will be the most three-dimensional OS on the planet.
As for the Mac Pro, I think you’re mistaken. It might get off to a slow start because techies are ironically stubborn and slow to adapt to change but modular is the way of the future. I will be happy to not be tied down to this back-breaking beast of a Mac Pro, beautiful and functional as it has been for all these years. Problem is, I have it to shut down, disconnect everything, and open it up to check a drive or a card. Get a NAS and whatever kind of expansion cage needed for cards, and the new Mac Pro will be awesome.
The challenge for Tim Cook, and I think it’s a challenge even Steve Jobs never had to confront, is to be able to roll out new products and be able to keep manufacturing up with demand. It’s a tricky balancing act. Roll out a product before manufacturing is up to speed (a la last year’s iMac rollout) and with limited demand you incur the wrath of everyone and their dog. When you’re talking about 100m+ iPhones and 60m+ iPads a year (not to mention its Mac lines), it’s a monumental task to have manufacturing geared up for a new launch, especially with the precision and quality with which Apple demands of its products. I don’t think Apple wants to repeat the iMac fiasco and would rather launch products when they are certain they can meet demand.
I think you just like to complain. Didn’t Apple recently release the iPad mini and the new iMac? Aren’t they releasing the Mac Pro and iOS7 and very likely the iPhone 5S? New Apple apps? Thunderbolt? Fusion drives? Siri integration in cars?
iOS7 has flat icons but much more 3-D depth and versatility overall. What’s not to like? Change? Progress?
You don’t like TIm Cook for pretty lame reasons. However, you, like the media just seem to focus on the negatives and not the big picture.
I have never had a bad experience when dealing with Apple. Whether in the Apple store or on the phone. And my experience with Apple goes back decades. I have stuck with them because they make the best stuff and have always treated me right. Some companies just get it. Apple is the best but not the only company that tends to treat its customers right. Costco is another great experience. I left an item, about $100, in my cart in the parking lot a year ago. It was small and I didn’t realize I had missed it until I got home. Just for grins I called Costco and asked if anyone had turned it in? No one had. They looked up my purchase while I was on the phone and told me to come by and pick up another one. Costco gets it. Trader Joe’s gets it. There’s a reason these companies succeed. Great customer service.
Steve Jobs gave Tim Cook the job. You know damn well that Steve Jobs knew who he wanted to take over and would not have let Tim Cook do that job while he was absent before he died if he didn’t think Tim Cook could do that job. So far I see him doing a really good job. Amazing new products don’t come from thin air and take time to create and build. Apple did not release these new wowing products every year and so it is still following that trend. Fall is approaching and it looks like Apple is starting to get ready to release a lot of new stuff. Great things take time, something that other Manufacturers seem to always get wrong. Apple is on course from what I can see.
+1
The iPad was in development for 10 years before making it to market. Along the way they changed direction and made the iPhone. I think that was a genius move as almost everyone could now get an Apple device for a much lower price (subsidy). For anyone that doesn’t remember the price of the new iMac in 2007 it was $1,200 for a 20″. Creating new market segments can’t be done every year but if anyone can create the next segment everyone copies it will be Apple.
Tim is doing a good job at balancing Apple’s priorities and focus with that of Wall Steet and every other organization crying Apple is bad.
If these bloggers beleive so much that Tim Cook is horrible why not write about who would be better and why? Oh. They can’t. My personal thought is Apple will NEVER appoint a CEO from outside Apple. I think Steve built a certain culture that no one at Apple wants or believes should change. I know, I know, some of the management team was restructured but that is not the same as the culture of Apple.
On the one hand we have Steve Jobs stating on the record that Tim was his chosen successor and on the other hand we have Rocco saying that Steve didn’t want him.
Steve was never the sort of person who would hold back from saying what he really believed and there is zero chance that Steve would have publicly endorsed Tim if he didn’t believe him to be the right choice. Therefore I have absolutely no doubt that Rocco is wrong and he can only spout that sort of nonsense because Steve is no longer around to call him out on it.
It isn’t about just what Tim does or doesn’t do at this point. It is time. Turn on the power at the new server farms, start shipping the new Mac Pro to stream the 4K HDTV media to the new 4K HDTV sets that people are buying from Sony.
Time to step up and show your cards Tim Cook and the Apple board. We have been “patient” now it is your turn. It is time to show the world what we have been “patient” for!
After that, get the next product and service ready. Not in a year, in a few quarters. Companies as large as Apple can do more than one thing at a time! Take the training wheels of and take Apple for a ride!!! Yes, it is scary. But if you can’t do it, let someone else!
Take another valium.
Um, Apple is doing a TON of things at the same time. Just because you, personally, don’t see everything they do or directly feel the benefits of what they do, doesn’t mean they’re just doing one thing at a time.
Seriously. Where do people like you get this notion that 1) things can be done overnight (or in a matter of months), and 2) if I don’t directly see what Apple’s up to, then they must be doing nothing. It’s absolutely stupid!
Call me next month and let me know how Apple’s doing.
It’s a buyers market for anti Apple meedja slime. And there’s plenty of slimebuckets to meet the demand. Google, Amazon, Microsoft leg bumpers. The pay is good.
Rocco Pendola? The Amazon shill who is long on Pandora?
There are few people with the skills, experience and creativity required to run Apple. Certainly none of the armchair critics could do so. The volume of criticism (this, by the way, is unique to the USA) stems from two factors: the constitutional right to lie, and the predeliction of Americans to hold, and express, opinions on everything – irrespective of their knowledge or expertise. The US is drowning in a sea of nonsense, and its all your own doing…
Thanks, sunbeamraper (aka weenieroast). Expressing an opinion is what established this great nation. You know what gentility will get you? Ask the French. It means the Germans invading your not once, but twice.
This turd face again. Dumbest fuck in the ether.
Of course NOT! SJ wanted to stay alive and run Apple himself!
I wish MDN wouldn’t waste my time with links to any thing by Pundit Pendola.
MDN should go The Macalope route and deny these people the views by withholding the links back to their articles.
You can tell it is a hit piece when everything is worded to be negative about Cook.
This retread goes on about how Cook is actually lying that Jobs wanted him to be CEO. Then he has to refute the press release that says Jobs highly recommended him for the job.
I stopped reading when it suggested Jack Dorsey would have been a good choice. That borders on retarded.
It is amazing to me that people get paid to write about Apple that have no clue about how the company works. Everything I’ve read about the nature of Apple’s executive team supports the idea that “Apple’s DNA” is a critical concept. That is essential to Apple’s success. Because of that, Jobs’ replacement was always going to be someone from within Apple.
The day the board replaces Tim Cook because he’s not releasing new products fast enough, or the stock price isn’t moving up fast enough, or he’s not making the financial pundits happy, is the day Apple begins a long decline. Apple is best when it is willing to take the long view. Constantly switching gears for short-term fixes is very un-Apple and would ruin the company.
——RM
I’m sorry, why did this even make onto MDN?!
So, you made a few bucks off this blog and showed the world what a moron you are. Well played.
Rocco “One Trick Pony” Pendola who writes for The Street
I’m taking bets on when The Street gives this Apple Bear Bullshitter the Boot. I bet 5 months at the outside. Serves him right.
I think anyone stepping in to Steve Job’s position is going to need at least a year to get things organized for himself in order to do a good job. There has to be a period of adjustment and i think that’s what we’re seeing. Jobs kept everyone in line and on target, with him gone the loose cannons start to roll across the deck and it takes a while for them to be secured or fall overboard. I would guess that starting this fall we’ll see things start to come together as the new CEO coalesces his groups. After that though the excuses start to run out.
Man, if they’d rolled out products every quarter and even one of them wasn’t right or quite ready, people would be screaming just as much.
These guys moan that Apple never tells us what they’ve got coming up. They reveal the MacPro coming up, and Cook has said there are many products coming in the Fall and throughout 2014.
Nobody looks past the current couple of quarters anymore, they just gripe that the stock didn’t go up this quarter.
He’s doing fairly well as CEO. Most of any problems seen would likely still exist under SJ (especially stock price)……when you consider analyst complaints and misjudgments on performance (which are the true problems). Lets not forget that there’s been multiple record qtrs under Tim’s watch. He’s no SJ, but then again, neither is anyone else. I doubt anyone is better suited to run Apple. He shouldn’t catch so much flack for not having much swagger.