22-year Apple vet: ‘I am 99% confident we will see an Apple phone next week’

“Next week, Steve Jobs will stand on stage in San Francisco to make his keynote speech at the Macworld show, to unveil new – much-rumoured – products. Here’s something I discovered in my 22 years at Apple: some of the toughest competition for the best seats, or the first of those new products, comes from former Windows-centric executives who Steve has personally sucked into his ‘reality distortion zone’ in face-to-face executive briefings,” David Sobotta (formerly Apple’s federal sales manager) writes for The Guardian.

“You want to go to one? You want to meet Steve Jobs to persuade him that Apple should build a tablet computer, or an iPhone? Then besides having a big purchasing budget and persuasive reasons, you’d better bring a big ego,” Sobotta explains.

“It’s an amazing experience to take part in a briefing with Steve. Stories about him reprimanding customers are true. Once, when renegotiating a Pixar distribution deal with Disney, he humiliated Disney’s chief information officer in front of his staff. Steve pointed to a couple of recent Disney flops, and told the attendees that they could expect more of the same as long as the CIO was stupid enough to keep Macs out of the creative process,” Sobotta explains.

MacDailyNews Take: You want the truth? You can’t handle… Who wants to bet that Macs are in Disney’s creative process now?

Sobotta continues, “An executive briefing always looks, on paper, like a clash of titanic egos. From what I saw, most wilt quickly in Steve’s presence. And customers’ reverence for him usually overwhelms any hostility. In fact, it doesn’t really matter who is presenting or what is being discussed. When Steve enters a room, everything stops and attention turns to him. When he walks in you get the feeling that he has sucked all the other thoughts out of the room. As for quoting him precisely – you don’t take notes if you want to live.”

MacDailyNews Take: This is a fun read!

Sobotta continues, “So next week… I am 99% confident we will see an Apple phone, with enhanced music capabilities and maybe a few computing features such as email and contacts synchronisation with Macs or through .Mac. Steve’s ability to know where consumers and technology will intersect often creates a road paved in gold. That’s why he’ll focus his energy on mobiles. The potential there that only Steve can see could well turn into another must-have product for the legions who don’t even know they are part of Steve’s army.”

Full article – very highly recommended – with much more, including Jobs on Mac Tablets, here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Marine Blue” and “typhoon john” for the heads up.]

29 Comments

ByeTakeCare

Thursday, January 4, 2007 at 2:49 pm

Another note. When this guy Sobotta came on the scene as a blogger he initially had comments enabled on his site. Guess what? He turned commenting off and then later setup some other requirements to post to his blog. In the early days of his blog, his arguments were shot down gloriuously with the simplest of logic. Also, he doesn’t write too well. I can see why he got canned. Dead weight, and if you saw a pic of him, you can see why. Biggest claim to fame? “I was the Federal sales guy, and sat in on meetings.” Ooooooh, wow. Really?

YankInOz

Thursday, January 4, 2007 at 4:55 pm

After reading the article and also Sobotta’s latest blog (yawned profusely during both), my frist conclusion is that this guy can’t keep a job or decide what he really wants to do in life. I see no technical or marketing reason to even consider his prognostications are valid except in his own mind and only then when he is grunting and straining to make a big push in the loo. (as in what a load of crap is this).

My bit of a bob.

What will we see in 4 days 20 hours 10 minutes?

What ever his Steveness wants us to see – no more; no less.

What do I hope for?

Apple phone – whatever you want to call it, just make it work with a Mac and NOT primarily with dot mac.
Bluetooth compatible headphones for my iPod that also works with the Apple phone.
Hell, even headphones from Apple that really work – that would be a switch!
Some way to actually stream Video from my confuser to my home entertainment systems around the house – iTV ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Safari actually working.
A Spreadsheet kind of inclusion in iWork ’07 – and Pages actually graduating into a real WP programme.
Leopard released in 1st Quarter – BIG dream.
His Royal Steveness bithch slapping Ballmer on stage for the entertainment value rather than having some lameass singing – again…

My $2 worth…

Beeblebrox

Thursday, January 4, 2007 at 10:46 pm

I generally agree with Tergenev’s post but then then he states this bit of ironic conventional wisdom:

“I’d love it if somebody in the American auto industry had shown this kind of honesty and brass to the heads of General Motors in the past decade. Maybe they would have started building something other than behemoth gas-guzzlers”

The conventional wisdom is that there is something wrong with SUVs. A belief that is based on one’s personal morals rather than evidence. What makes Tergenev’s statement even more ridiculous is the one bright spot at GM over the last decade IS THE SUV! This line of vehicles has essentially kept their ship afloat. They meet a need the public demands, they are well designed and built, and they are sold at a high profit margin. Someone telling a GM exec to discontinue such a product would be pure idiocy.

SunSeeker

Friday, January 5, 2007 at 10:18 pm

Whatever is announced it will initially exist only within the US.

The complete absence of teasers on other sites worlwide is evidence of this.
Local sites usually change within 24 hours of the main site if that market will be involved.
It is therefore likely that a Telecom or TV service is a major part of this and it is likely that everything will be turned on it’s head, Again.