“Apple is the world’s definitive 21st-century company, harnessing like no other the possibilities that exist in the digital age. Earlier this month the firm produced truly startling results. Sales leapt by 48 per cent as consumers the world over bought music from the iTunes virtual music store to play on their iPod media players,” John Naughton and Nick Mathiason write for The Observer.
Naughton and Mathiason ask, “But what will become of Apple when its all-powerful chairman, Steve Jobs, eventually decides to spend more time with his billions? Can it withstand growing competition and are we witnessing the end of the Californian dream?”
Naughton and Mathiason write, “Microsoft without Bill Gates seemed unthinkable until last month when he announced he was stepping down. In retrospect, we can see that a good deal of planning went into it. There’s no equivalent to Ballmer or Ozzie at Apple.”
MacDailyNews Take: That’s a Good Thing™. Ballmer is a buffoon and Ozzie’s main claim to fame in the much-despised-by-users Lotus Notes.
Naughton and Mathiason continue, “Or, if there is, the public has never seen them. Whenever there is a spotlight on Apple, Jobs is in the centre of the beam. His regular keynote speeches at Mac Expos are more like rock concerts than corporate events. If there are cool new products to be unveiled, the chairman is the one who does the demos. ‘He’s absolutely integral to the success of company,’ said Conrad Roeber, partner at media consultancy Mediatique.”
MacDailyNews Take: Surely, of all people, Steve Jobs understands planning for the future. Just because a successor hasn’t been named publicly, doesn’t mean there is no successor.
Naughton and Mathiason write, “In the last 10 years, he has transformed Apple from a failing computer manufacturer into the most innovative company in the industry. Just as, decades earlier, he spotted the possibilities of desktop publishing, in 1996 he recognised the importance of computers as devices for creating and handling multimedia content. The result is that Apple now has an apparently unassailable lead in these areas, and its computers come with excellent onboard tools for storing, editing and manipulating images, audio, movies and music. And last quarter’s results, the second best in its history, underscore the extent of the transformation: 45 per cent of Apple’s revenues now come from music-related products.”
“All of this is very largely Jobs’s doing. But it raises the awkward question: What happens if he falls under the metaphorical bus? Not so long ago, we thought he had – he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August 2004. Fortunately, it turned out to be a rare non-fatal variety,” Naughton and Mathiason write, “…In grown-up companies, one of the responsibilities of the CEO is to find and groom his successor. Jobs tried to do that once and got Sculley. He has given no sign of wanting to repeat the experience. In the end, the Apple board may have to do it for him. Let’s hope they get it right second time around.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Jonathan Ive? More on that idea here.
Related articles:
What happens to Apple when Steve Jobs quits or dies? – March 24, 2006
What happens when Steve Jobs dies? – August 20, 2003