“Back when I was a formal competitive analyst, I worked with one of the most advanced teams in the technology market. While we paled when compared to the vastly better funded and staffed teams in the pharmaceuticals industry, in our own industry, we were market leading. Part of what we did was profile CEOs to forecast future moves based on personality, age, health and past behavior,” Rob Enderle writes for TechNewsWorld.
Enderle writes, “For Apple, profiling Steve Jobs would probably give a more accurate measure of where that company is going than anything else, much like profiling Larry Ellison would do in Oracle’s case. As I, and others, have commented lately, however, Jobs isn’t looking healthy of late and his age does appear to be catching up with him. This suggests retirement or another path may be looking more and more attractive to him.”
“Jobs isn’t much of a technology buyer, but he did sell Next to Apple and, more recently, Pixar to Disney. Recall that he had been planning to completely separate from Disney before this move. This suggests that, perhaps now that his health isn’t what it once was, we may see a trend toward selling properties to other entities. This trend may be likely to accelerate as time goes on,” Enderle writes.
Enderle writes, “In addition to this, Jobs in the past was serving in a senior government position and rumor has it he only lost that when some of his questionable past practices came to light — which made the then-Clinton administration nervous. He is in a much better position now, in terms of popularity, and could likely play a big role in the next cycle of national elections but would need the freedom from Apple to do it properly.”
“He can’t sell to Microsoft. The antitrust issues alone would be near impossible to overcome. He can’t sell to Dell or HP because they simply wouldn’t buy. He can’t sell to Sony because culturally, it would be a train wreck, and Sony doesn’t have the resources. Of the new age companies (Google, Yahoo, etc.) that might be able to afford Apple, only Google is rumored to be looking at making a hardware play, and that firm really wants to take Microsoft on head to head. Google is certainly building that massive backbone of a network for something,” Enderle writes.
“Culturally and physically, Apple and Google are relatively close, though, to make this work, both firms would need to continue to have diverse management teams. Too much integration would be a problem given Google’s lack of hardware knowledge. Still, the end result could be a platform play that eventually grows to rival .NET, and overnight, you have to admit, the result would change the landscape to an incredible degree. With Google’s CEO on the board, the transition could go amazingly easily,” Enderle writes. “I know, I know, merging with Google is probably as likely as Apple switching to Intel. Oh, wait …”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “HOG” for the heads up.]
On Monday, August 14, Katie Cotton, Apple’s VP of worldwide corporate communications, stated that Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ “health is robust.” We don’t see an Apple-Google merger in the cards, but stranger things have happened. We think (hope?) Enderle’s reading more into an Apple board addition than is really there.
Related articles:
Google CEO declines Apple automatic stock option grant; plans to buy 10,000 AAPL shares instead – September 01, 2006
Is Steve Jobs heading for the exit door at Apple? – September 01, 2006
Google + Apple + Al Gore’s Current TV = ? – August 31, 2006
Google CEO on Apple’s board opens up many possibilities, including outdueling Microsoft – August 31, 2006
Re: Google CEO elected to Apple Computer’s Board of Directors – August 30, 2006
Dvorak: Does Apple’s board addtion of Google’s Schmidt portend Apple-Sun merger? – August 30, 2006
Apple and Google cozy up to make Microsoft jealous – August 30, 2006
Google CEO to help shape Apple’s future – August 30, 2006
Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt joins Apple’s Board of Directors – August 29, 2006
Apple: ‘Steve Jobs’ health is robust’ – August 14, 2006
Is Steve Jobs sick? – August 08, 2006
“Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “HOG” for the heads up”
No, thanks to Enderle for the ‘head’s up your ass’ moment. I was wondering where I was going to get today’s daily dose of disdain.
Hey, what’s better than first place at the Special Olympics? Not being Enderle.
Instead of asking the butcher about the quality of his meat, Enderle would rather stick his head up a bull’s ass and decide that it may, possibly, at some point in the future, emit a moo.
Seriously, the Mac rumor mill is reading way, way, WAY too much into Steve’s appearance at WWDC. It’s absurd to think that you could tell the future based on a single person’s overall appearance on a single hour of a single day. May as well stare at tea leaves. It’s just as likely that Steve had just bought a Nintendo DS and stayed up late at night playing Kirby’s Canvas Curse.
Even if his appearance WAS related to health problems, it doesn’t follow that his condition will become progressively worse. Anyone who has ever had health problems will know that you have a bad day from time to time, and it doesn’t mean that you are about to die or something.
I love the idea, but geez, talk about nothing but pure speculation.
and I anticipate a Rob Enderle and Paris Hilton merger, NOT !!!
I know I don’t care much what a financial analyst thinks, but what about an ex-analyst? I like to know how come Rob is an ex-analyst. Then again who cares…
If there was a Nobel Prize for contributions to “Idiocy” in the world..Enderle would have it, though it would be close tie with Thurrott, then Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Though the latter would of course win in the section “Evil”.
Enderle = (G)enderle(ss)
The only merge Enderle should contemplate is the one of his head with his butt hole.
G4Dualie:
Pixar is in good hands with Disney.
Actually, the folks from Pixar (Lasseter in particular) are now in control of Disney’s animation efforts, which IMO is way better for everyone. So it would be more accurate to say that Disney is in good hands with Pixar.
Let me get this right. Steve is in ill health and getting old, so he will want to get out of Apple where he enjoys what he does. In his “retirement”, he will then go on to a “senior government position”, where he can be overworked and make $200,000 per year for the privilege.
I guess he needs to move up from his $1 per year gig to pay the bills.
“Back when I was a formal competitive analyst”
As opposed to now, when you’re an “informal, noncompetitive analist”, Rob?
Geez, the guy’s ego knows no bounds. What a suck job.
Earndale isn’t telling the full story – reading between the lines, what his opening should say is:
“Back when I was a guineapig for the pharmaceuticals industry, in our own industry, we took lots of mind-bending drugs based on personality, age, health and past behavior,” Rob Enderle writes for TechNewsWorld.’
The man is still obviously still mental, and needs a full check-up from the neck-up…
MDN word: being; as in “Being Rob Earndale” (with appologies to John Malkovich)
Why doesn’t Apple buy Google?
Well for starters it would be impossible that’s why. Apple’s market cap is a big zero compared to Google’s, and Googles cash horde.
In short, it isn’t financially possible unless various banks are willing to loan Apple a massive amount of cash for this – which isn’t going to happen.
So there you go. Speculation aside, it isn’t financially possible. Check into this stuff before posting – it helps.
I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords
Apple will survive, and perhaps even grow based upon all that online ad revenue.
Steve Jobs was in a “senior government position”??? What the hell kind of crack is Enderle smoking these days or does he know something that we/I don’t.
Also, Steve-O is going nowhere until AT LEAST OS 11 is released. Just so he can turn to Steve Ballmer and say, “Look, ours goes to 11.”
“Jobs isn’t much of a technology buyer, but he did sell Next to Apple and, more recently, Pixar to Disney. This suggests that, perhaps now that his health isn’t what it once was, we may see a trend toward selling properties to other entities. This trend may be likely to accelerate as time goes on,” Enderle writes.”
Comical Rob E. has a reality distortion field far more powerful that Steve. Let’s take a look at his argument piece by piece:
“…he did sell Next to Apple…”
He sold his brilliant-but-about-to-go-bankrupt-because-they-were-hemorrhaging-money-and-Jobs-was-forced-to-pay-employees-out-of-his-own-pocket company to the company that he started, was driven out of, but had always been his baby, only to take over and save it from extinction. Not hard to see the reasons behind this sale.
“…and, more recently, Pixar to Disney…”
Come on Rob. Pixar was always a hobby company. He bought it for a song, and essentially let Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith run it. Truth be told, had Steve been more hands on with Pixar, they probably would have been out of business before they ever had the chance to make their first movie. They succeeded in spite of Steve, not because of him. That’s not to take anything away from him, but he didn’t buy the company to make movies. To him, it was a computer company. Selling it was not as big a deal because, despite his title, he only spent one day a week there. Besides, since it made him the largest single shareholder of Disney, he automatically became more powerful. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out, but that explains why it went over Enderle’s head.
“Recall that he had been planning to completely separate from Disney before this move.”
It’s called business Rob. No, he probably wasn’t bluffing, but he forced Disney’s hand, and in the end he and Pixar got the better end of the stick. He remains a very powerful person in Hollywood, even more so than he was. He also now has influence over things that effect where Apple is headed, but from outside Apple, and Pixar essentially took over Disney’s animation division. It was a win-win situation. Like Obi-Wan, Steve is now about to become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
“This suggests that, perhaps now that his health isn’t what it once was, we may see a trend toward selling properties to other entities. This trend may be likely to accelerate as time goes on.”
What proof do you have that Steve’s health isn’t what it once was? This is a famous Comical Rob E. strategy: state a rumor as if it were fact, back it up with nothing, and hope people believe you. This is the basis for pretty much every comment I’ve ever read from him.
At least we have the comfort of knowing that his track record is so bad that, it he writes it, it’s almost guaranteed not to actually happen.
Apparently it’s legal to smoke crack where Rob lives.
Read between the lines of Rob article …
Back when I actually had a jobs and before the mental breakdown I use to make rational decisions and was coherent. I since lost it all and I blame Steve Jobs for it.
Also I blame the flying monkeys and elephants as well. Also that guy who laughs at me .. my computer smells funny and is sticky.
Rob is a genus that had a mental short circuit. (at least I hope that is what happened)
No need to say Enderle is a fool as he proves it with his writing — but then again, he gets paid despite his views, so maybe he’s smarter than we think.
Anyway, as a tech analyst myself, my first response is that these two companies are completely different and would not mesh.
Google is all about creating lots of cool, semi-finished products and seeing if the market cares — and polishing them over time if it does care. It’s always beta time at Google.
Apple is about making the unseen screw better than you need it and better than everybody else’s screw. It is about insane attention to detail (though not always executed).
Google owning/influencing Apple would wreck the Apple brand and kill off the premium that it now attracts. Apple owning Google would take the Google out of Google. Compare the ITMS with Google Video. Interchangeable? Nope.
Let’s keep them friends that can leverage each-other.
Enderle, like Dvorak, has never actually kissed a girl.
“He did, after all, pester Spielberg to sell him Pixar back in 1985 which, at the time, wasn’t doing much financially.”
Actually, it was George Lucas who owned Pixar back then.
Fun trivia: A week or so ago, one of the cable movie channels was showing Young Sherlock Holmes. I watched the movie years ago when it was in theatres and it was fun to see it again. Since I’d already seen it, I knew to sit through the credits.
Sure enough, in the credits, it is mentioned that one special effects scene was done by Pixar Animation, a division of LucasFilm.
Just made me chuckle…
Just so we all know that Enderle is on record as saying he is anal.
Fanatic Realist • Sep 05, 06 – 03:35 pm
G4Dualie…
Actually, it was George Lucas not Steven Spielberg.
=============================================
That’s right. I stand corrected. I was thinking Lucas but typed Speilberg, getting those two mixed up at times.
While I agree with TenaciousDNA that Disney [animation] is in good hands with Lasseter and Pixar, the same cannot be said about Disney as a whole simply because Disney is so much more than the animation studio.
Even if Steve Jobs’ health wasn’t “robust” we certainly wouldn’t hear it from Apple. The announcement will come within a week or two of his death. Likely, the announcement will be that he’s been hospitalized and within 24-48 hours of that, we will be notified of his untimely death.
The sale of Pixar to Disney, the tag team keynote address, the Google announcement…
It’s unfortunate, but my gut feeling is that Steve Jobs won’t be around for next years Macworld keynote.
Conspiracy: you are sick in the head. If we were all to vote between him or you, I doubt you’d last out the hour…