“I’m no longer on the Fire Tim Cook bandwagon,” Rocco Pendola writes for TheStreet. “I hopped off many months ago. What we’re seeing now is reactionary and misguided. It illustrates the folly of a financial media that doesn’t know its rear end from a hole in the ground. It beats the hell out of Tim Cook when it’s safe to do so, rather than staking unpopular ground at a time when the notion of ousting Steve Jobs’s replacement might have actually made sense.”
“Apple never should have hired Tim Cook in the first place,” Pendola writes. “While not quite as brash or delusional as Ron Johnson, Cook suffers from some form of Ron Johnson syndrome, in that it’s easy to look good riding shotgun with Steve Jobs. It’s a different ballgame when you roll into the nightclub without Jobs at your side.”
” look at it this way … Cook wasn’t the guy, but he grew into being the guy. Apple’s bigger than Cook (or any one man, except maybe Jobs), therefore it overcame/can continue to overcome his shortcomings (relative to Jobs and similar leaders),” Pendola writes. “Cook weathered the storm of the first year in the impossible job of replacing Steve Jobs as Apple CEO. Behind the scenes he undoubtedly set up corporate structures that would help him — and Apple — succeed.”
Read more in the full article here.
Ummm. So maybe this means he was the right guy all along…
I start reading, but I reach the phrase “..except maybe Jobs” I had to stop…Apple would never be bigger than Jobs…even with hundred of billions of Dollars, Jobs would not hesitate to gamble everything if it was the right thing to do…
What a tosser this guy is, he is parroting what I have said all along (and I’m no analyst) and now he thinks he is some genius for stating this bloody obvious fact as if it is some amazing insight. Total, total Tosser.
The couple years post SJ was always going to be about reassuring all and sundry that the company would not self destruct or more likely be perceived as doing so. Cook is no exciting transformational figure, that is the last thing that was needed at the moment and he was going to always take stick, but that was always his job (SJ saw the need), draw the fire and show coolness under pressure and keep clam. It may not be exciting but its what was needed with the vultures just waiting to pounce. Yes I have criticisms of him in not making the most of present products but the strategy is spot on. However the next couple years will be equally important in breaking free from that safe state.
What has Tim done that a so bad? They didn’t like Steve now Tim. No one will be Steve jobs end of story.
Every year Apple still rakes in the cash and leaves the customers satisfied with their purchases. The only people who would benefit from the ousting of Tim Cook from Apple, would be Apple’s competitors and paid shills that manipulate stocks (and perhaps the feelings of Scott Forstall).
Tim Cooks really bad move is to talk about any future product. Just a no comment with “Apple is always working on developing and improving their products and services.” PERIOD!
It worked for Steve Jobs and it should have become a company policy started by the founder and respected to this day!
In his book, Isaacson quotes Jobs: “‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.'”
Yeah. Steve Jobs was SO tight lipped on future products! C’mon Tim!
/s
“‘I’d like to” is the operative. It was a musing, not an official statement from Apple regarding upcoming products.
oh, there’s an /s
missed it
Yep the world is all out of Steve Jobses. 1/2 out of Beatles too.
Being in that wagon was stupid from very beginning. There is no one of whom we know who could be better.
But according to a number of MDN frequent fliers, ANYBODY would be better than Tim Cook…
Nobody at Apple or anywhere else gives a toss about what Rocco Pendola thinks, or who he imagines might do a better job of leading Apple.
Tim Cook has got the job, he’s steering a very careful course over some tricky terrain and it’s obvious to most people that he’s doing a great job.
Wasn’t it Pendola who always used to trot out the story about Apple reducing orders in January due to poor iPhone demand ? Smarter people understood that peak production cannot be maintained indefinitely and that Foxconn geared down for the Chinese New Year so that workers could have some time off. When Apple announced sales for that quarter, demand had in fact been excellent.
Yet another steve jobs worshiper babbling garbage!
Give me a break.
Tim is as good as they come and has been.
Fire Rocco Pendola?
not just yes…
How do you live with so much hate an intolerance?
Continued support for Tim Cook is a fool’s errand. Want proof: (1) 30 percent decline in AAPL, (2) iOS 7, (3) dumbing down of iOS X, (4) lies about “great new products” in the pipeline, and the big one: (5) conversion of a one-of-a-kind extraordinary tech company into an ordinary company often too late and too little delivering products to the shelf and thus allowing competitors – especially Samsung – to look like they are as good as Apple, sometimes superior even if it’s not.
That is STUPID thinking. TC is not the cause of AAPL, that is 1. MISGUIDED ANAL YSTs. 2 I Love iOS 7, so who should people believe, you or me? 3. iOS X was not dumbed down, some things changed but not dumbed down. CHANGE is here to stay or get stale/stagnant/comatose like MS Windows. 4. Not lies, products are being introduced at the SAME rate as when SJ was here. 5. IF Ordinary, Why does Apple make shambles of other companies profits? The last two years, Apple has posted 5 of the TOP 10 profits of any company ever!
Dang, Your idea of a good company is pathetic. IF you like Samsung, Google, MS, Cisco, or any other company so well, go join their minions.
Personally, I think the calls for Cook’s ouster are less tiring than the projection of blame for Apple’s mis-steps on analysts. Analysts may stink, but they are not the sole cause of AAPL malaise. It’s Apple’s own fault for not competing better in emerging markets.
The malaise of Apple is NOT Apple’s or TC’s fault when it/he continually leads ALL companies in profits. Analysts and news hit-whoring media want a divided Apple from the inside with infighting among fans and stockholders. Sure, he isn’t perfect and neither was SJ. SJ was close! TC is still head and shoulders above ANYONE else.
There are very very few companies out there that would not love to have TC as their CEO simply for the money that he and Apple ARE bringing in!
Bought AAPL at $700 did you? When you are late to the ball game, don’t expect that the owners will pay you to play. Take your loss and go home now.
It would be foolish to flippantly dismiss the contrarian in the room. Everyone here thinks that Apple’s cash position means that company valuation should continue to rocket ever upwards. That’s not how it works, especially when most of Apple’s cash is hoarded unused overseas, minus $5 billion for an aerobie office, of course. Analysts are looking at future earnings potential, and Cook has only given them vague promises about some pipeline. Nothing solid on which to predict future growth.
If not for the affinity for the brand that Jobs build, nobody here would recommend to a friend to invest in a company that refuses to announce where it is going from here. When you strip away the emotion, it’s plain to see that Apple is now being managed by a corporate committee, not by scrappy innovators.
I am not aware of any company that announces their future products ahead of release. Don’t you think that that would lead the competition to be fast fast fast followers? How does a company make profit and innovate in a climate like you espouse?
Come on. Public companies regularly announce strategy and goals, often releasing teaser information years in advance of public release. Startups lay out entire detailed business plans to prospective investors in order to secure funding. Apple, though it could be entirely self-financed now, is being driven by Cook to be linked to Wall Street, attempting to keep investors interested by offering dividends instead of strong plans for growth. If Cook had announced ANY new product or service category in the last year, investors would still be bidding up AAPL to new heights. But since Cook is NOT providing any meaningful guidance, investors are shying away. Cook doesn’t have to spill the beans, but if he wants to retain investor interest, he’s going to have to offer them a reason to believe that Apple really does have the next great thing in work. Derivative incremental updates will not cut it.
Jay, give it up dude.
Translation, my street cohorts and I are now long AAPL so toning down the Apple bashing.
JM
1. AAPL price is clearly manipulated. Management should not make their business decision based on placating the market.
2. iOS7 is generally not worse than its predecessors. In many ways it has greater utility. Whilst the interface is a bit too gaudy it made a refreshing change to the older version. A facelift was needed and the next version will address issues on the look and feel.
3. OSX Mavericks breathed new life in an older MBP that I had abandoned. That machine is significantly faster than with the previous OS. So much so that my wife has adopted it to replace her aging MB instead of buying a new machine.
4. Apple have released new products (iP5S, Mac Pro). It’s just that you seem to expect a new earth shattering product line to be released every year. You seem to forget that the iPhone took 5 years to develop and the iPad just as long.
5. The reason Apple makes more money than any other company in the world is that they don’t launch any crap they can cobble together. Copy-cat companies like Samsung will always grab the low end market and come out with multiple versions because that’s all they are capable of doing. They will make some money but it will be short lived because someone else will come in and take their business.
That was the worst flip-flop in the history of journalism. Just when I thought Rocco Pendola couldn’t make a bigger ass out of himself, he serves this up.
Tim cook was hired by Steve Jobs. So this story is misguided if they think Cook should not have been hired. If Jobs hired him and appointed him CEO then Tim Cook deserves to be where he is today. He is doing a great job considering what is going on. Only the Anal-ists are stupid and unfair towards Apple in general. Record profits that only a few oil companies can attain must mean he’s doing something right. Google misses it’s bottom line completely and there stock soars and they don’t even give future guidance as well where Apple does. This anti Cook crap is just that. No he is not Steve Jobs, and that won’t change so get over it. Jobs told Tim not to try and be like Jobs.
There needs to be a woodshed for analysts. Until we have one, rampant tomfoolery will continue to define what was once an honourable race, as Mark Twain put it.
More bollocks from the peanut gallery. Hello! .. last quarter was an all-time Apple record, and the fourth highest quartery profit by any company, EVER. And Apple has had 5 of the 10 biggest corporate quarters ever recorded.
Just let Tim, Jony and co get on with it. They’re clearly the best in the business and know a hell of a lot more than the nobody know-nothing tech journos spewing unwanted advice from the sidelines.