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I've already started praying.

"They will allow OS X to run on non-Apple hardware and put Microsoft out of business."

No. They won't. Let it go.

And Woz is not a business guy. Charming and weird? O.K., sure. But no way, no how is he Apple CEO material. His "Wheels of Zeus" is stunning the tech world and making billions? Woz is more successful playing Segway polo with penguins these days.

Apple will never open OS X on general hardware. they day they do, they lost my respect.

@ Zune Tang

Hails of derisive laughter!

"a remarkable, talented, out-of-the-box thinker and true original: Steve Ballmer."

Please PLEASE let Steve Ballmer remain at Microsoft for the foreseeable future, or at least long enough for him to auger the company in so deep that no one could retrieve it.

Hano

@Steves Job
You're right that ZT is a worry.


@Abdullah
you illiterate nitwit-
Learn to read and perhaps you'll understand. Apple's is seen as a result of Jobs rule, no Jobs at the helm no Apple. That's a main point in investment: trust that the company is well managed - as in how your mother mismanaged your education.

Roz Ho. Hot.

News from the street:

========================

Hackers Crack Microsoft's Video, Music Copy-Protection Again

Jul 16, 2007 22:06:15 (ET)

SEATTLE (AP)--Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is once again on the defensive against hackers after the launch of a new program that gives average PC users tools to unlock copy-protected digital music and movies.

The latest version of the FairUse4M program, which can crack Microsoft's digital rights management system for Windows Media audio and video files, was published online late Friday. In the past year, Microsoft plugged holes exploited by two earlier versions of the program and filed a federal lawsuit against its anonymous authors. Microsoft dropped the lawsuit after failing to identify them.

The third version of FairUse4M has a simple drag-and-drop interface. PC users can turn the protected music files they bought online - either a la carte or as part of a subscription service like Napster - and turn them into DRM-free tunes that can be copied and shared at will, or turned into MP3 files that can play on any type of digital music player.

"We knew at the start that no digital rights management technology is going to be impervious to circumvention," said Jonathan Usher, a director in Microsoft's consumer media technology group, in a phone interview.

Usher said Microsoft employs a full-time team to combat such breaches, and that the Windows Media DRM system was designed to be quickly modified to shut down this type of attack.

He did not say how many songs have been stripped of copy protection, or how long it will take for Microsoft to combat the hack again. But the music industry is aware of the nature of Microsoft's technology, he said, and added that he does not expect record labels to lose patience with the process.

The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group, declined to comment.

While Usher said Microsoft will remain committed to copy protection, attitudes around the industry are starting to shift.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) has modified its own online store, iTunes, to block similar efforts to break its FairPlay copy protection scheme. But Apple's chief, Steve Jobs, started calling for an end to digital music-locking earlier this year.

"There are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music," Jobs wrote in an online essay in February. "They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. It is a cat-and-mouse game."

Apple's iTunes store started selling DRM-free music from EMI Group PLC's catalog in May. The same month, Web retailer Amazon.com Inc. said its much-anticipated digital music store will sell tracks in the unprotected MP3 format.

Josh Bernoff, an industry analyst at research group Gartner Inc., said he expects music DRM to fade out in the next couple of years as record companies begin to realize selling unprotected tracks online won't hurt sales. After all, Bernoff said, the same tracks are already circulating unprotected, copied from CDs and on file-sharing networks.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 16, 2007 22:06 ET (02:06 GMT)

Although Steve Jobs may one day hand over the day-to-day reigns of Apple to someone else, you can bet he'll be kept informed of up-coming developments and products, and any comments he makes on new products will be seriously listened to and acted upon.
Apple made the mistake of abandoning him once – as one of the few company's that actually learns from their mistakes, they won't do that again.

Jonathan Ive, fo' shizzle!

It will simply be a one-two punch.

Somebody with the business expertise as CEO and Jony Ive in a position (perhaps his current one?) that allows him to be the face of the company. Like if Steve Jobs wasn't really in control and had a puppetmaster.

The void of Jobs cannot be filled by one man.

Steve Jobs is not an inventor. His genius is being able to spot good ideas others create and nurture them into great ideas. Although he has been wrong, he has a knack for knowing what consumers will embrace. Apple has had a lot of smart "inventors" on its payroll, starting with Woz. They currently have a huge group of smart inventors. So Apple without Jobs will continue to do cool things. It just won't be quite as focused or single-minded, but hopefully that won't be a fatal flaw. And it is very possible that someone like Jonathan Ive could step up to provide that focus, even in a more limited way.

Oh my, not that talk again...

Jobs is the CEO, he's a lead designer, and he's the company spokesman. Few people have that combination of skills.

Apple has to have a succession plan for Steve Jobs, and Steve Jobs needs to lead it the effort to write it. What if his plane crashes? What if his yacht sinks? What if his cancer comes back?

They probably need to find three successors, not one, but it is too early for that. What they need now is for Jobs to articulate his methods, strategies, and priorities, and transform them into written plans and policies for his successors to follow. They also need to examine their corporate culture and write policies to make sure it survives, because if the employees become less creative, less productive, or just go away, it won't matter who is at the helm.

They have to figure out why they are successful and put it in a plan so they can continue to be successful, even if key people are missing.

It's still too early to retire him to studding. They should start freezing some of SJ's sperm for a CEO breeding programme. Who's going to donate the eggs, though? Any suggestions?

It will have to be some sort of gestalt Schiller/Ive/Joswiak entity to adequately fill Steve's shoes. We'll have to better support stem-cell research to make it happen.

I vote for Daniel Eran.

No, seriously. How many times has he called (at least partially) Apple's announcements at WWDC or Macworld? Not only that, he's outlined the company's agenda with each new product, and debunked practically every piece of FUD thrown his way.

Jonathan Ive is a great guy, yes, but he should stay as head of design - let the artists be artistic, no?

FSJ is the most qualified.

"The question the Columbus Dispatch should be asking is: What will maker of Windows, Office and Zunes do if and when Steve Ballmer leaves Microsoft?"

Well we know the donut shops in the area will probably go under.

"Who's going to donate the eggs, though?"


Um, Laurene Powell Jobs?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurene_Powell)

Then all the Apple fanboys on this site will have to find someone else to masturbate to! How's the Kool-Aid folks!

Mr Jobs is not the creative genius behind Apple. He is simply very good at making his business serve creativity and not the other way around. As other companies (and Apple in the past) have shown, this is a virtue that few have the confidence to follow. Great leadership of this type is near impossible to find and Apple's success can all too easily be thwarted by a CEO of lesser vision. SJ's eventual departure from Apple will be a hard pill to swallow. All you need do is look at all the great car designs (concepts) that are ruined in the time before they come to market. Apple's fortunes are most definitely tied to SJ and there will a massive investor pullout the moment he resigns.

Did someone say koolaid?

My vote goes to either Fake Steve Jobs or a Steve Jobs robot.

Nobody ever asks what would happen to Apple if Mr Ives left tomorrow.

MW: actually, (actually an interesting question)

Yeah well hindsight is 20/20. When Steve took over as Apple (interim) CEO in 1997, all the pundits were saying that it was the worst possible business move, founders never fix struggling companies, Steve was too narrow-visioned and not diplomatic enough to save Apple, blah blah blah.

Indeed, Steve Jobs is counter to a lot of what the traditional "Harvard business school" of management says you need. He's more dictator than consensus-builder. He often blatantly ignores "established market wisdom" and leads with the gut instead.

It's rare, in my experience, to find someone in business leadership with the intelligence to understand what is needed for excellence, the guts and authority to push people to achieve it (or summarily execute those who won't - unfortunately), and the charisma to get away with doing so consistently.

It's amazing most companies can get anything out the door at all, given how full of divided priorities and political nonsense and mediocrity they are, and so "good enough" is often pretty darn great for them.

The whole concept borders on, no is, blasphemy!

Too bad everyone stopped using a lightbulb and a phone when Edison kicked the bucket. I use fire and a tin can with string.
How about you, Crum?

yeah, good point brau, Jobs repeadetly says that Apple is bassically a team of great people, Steve just represents the company, introduces the products they all make and want to use, and at the same time creates the hype. still though, without jobs, apple would be lost like it was back in the day.....

if you look at pixar, and the way it was run, the key is not the mighty things Jobs did, but the fact that he filled the company with creative intelligent people and then gave them a lead.

while it is true that the Second Coming of Jobs is a great eadline story, if you look at the people in the company like Ives, Forstall, and others, i don't think Apple is that different. Steve has been a public figure more at Apple than Pixar, but the teams are similar.

people will worry, but i bet that things are well in hand. much like the "greener Apple" crap, it will turn out that things were always progressing nicely behind the scenes, the public just didn't know it....

Sticks fingers in ears sings "lalalalalalalal."

DON'T make me think about this subject, OK? It's too painful.


...wow...MDN mw: "leaders" (*sigh*)

Clearly, Stan Sigman has the charisma and dynamism to take Apple even further than any of us can imagine.

Obviously, Steve Ballmer won't take over the company, but it's interesting to think what would happen if he did. Would the only major difference be that it was now a screaming lunatic that introduced people like Jonathan Ive's great products, or would the company actually start being like Microsoft?