“I started this week thinking about Apple killing off Think Secret and actually threatening the income and family – during the Christmas season, mind you – of the highly visible Forbes reporter who pens the very popular Fake Steve Jobs blog. This changed the whole tone of my piece, which was to focus on products and now will question Steve Jobs’ sanity; I wonder if people on his staff are setting him up for the kind of coup that could get him removed, much like he removed his predecessors,” Rob Enderle blogs for IT Business Edge.
MacDailyNews Take: FSJ’s piece was a joke, admitted two full days before Enderle’s drivel was published. Enderle is just too stupid for words, but we’ll press on. Think Secret was “shut down” by its owner, not by Apple (although, for some reason, it’s still there with info published after they were “shut down”). The fact is, it was a settlement to which both parties agreed. Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret’s publisher, said in his “shut down” statement, “I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement.” Yup, Apple’s “rotting from the inside out,” as Enderle claims, because some guy from Forbes wrote a joke article and another guy is pleased. Enderlean to the max.
Enderle continues, “Journalists are part of the loyal Apple base and have been for some time. In fact, I would argue they may be the most powerful part of this base. Folks like Walt Mossberg have historically followed Apple almost blindly, praising everything the company brings to market.”
MacDailyNews Take: Walt Mossberg has more integrity in a single strand of his magnificent silver Van Dyke than Rob Enderle has in his whole body, including his itty-bitty, capable-only-of-involuntary actions fused ganglia.
Enderle continues, “Shutting down a blog because the site was protecting a source, and trying to pay off, and then blackmail, a highly visible senior journalist likely won’t sit well with this audience. They might start to wonder if they are next.”
MacDailyNews Take: Again, you have a jokester that Apple did not go after and a guy who is pleased.
Enderle continues, “Apple is going to want positive coverage for the news that will likely start coming out about the options scandal, which is likely to come off the back burner as election time starts getting closer.”
MacDailyNews Take: If Enderle’s pinning his hopes on a revived “options scandal,” he’s due to be greatly disappointed and he’s even dopier than we previously imagined (which is actually an impossibility).
Completely out of his mind, yet wholly unperturbed, as are all good idiots, Enderle plods on, “In the fight with every high-tech company on the planet, it’ll need its greatest asset, journalist fans, to step up to its defense. But I’ll bet a lot of folks are now starting to look at Apple like it’s full of rotting zombie worms and that will make the help Apple needs much harder to come by.”
MacDailyNews Take: Rotting zombie worms? This idiot is a piece of work.
Enderle continues, “Rumor is that there are people on the Apple board who have had enough of Steve’s shenanigans and would like to distance the company from him once again.”
MacDailyNews Take: Rumors from whom, Rob? Your wife Mary? The voices in your head? Somebody on Apple’s board who’s strangely allergic to vast success, immense wealth, and the pure joy of being part of a team that creates memorable, market-changing, innovative technology?
Endergizer keeps on going, “However, going after fan sites in this way, coupled with the fallout from threatening a reporter’s family and income, could be enough to tip the balance, particularly if the company missed a quarter or two.”
MacDailyNews Take: Again, it was a joke; admitted two days before you published, you simpleton.
He won’t quit, “You may want to hit the stores and see just how much unsold iPod and iPhone inventory there is this year. From what I can see, there is a lot of stuff sitting on shelves that isn’t moving. Not scientific by a long shot — but it does suggest that Apple may have an inventory problem next quarter.”
MacDailyNews Take: Hold, please… (laughing our asses off) … (still laughing) … (still) … Ahem, okay. We refer you to the following articles, each of which were followed by record profits topped only by successive quarters and/or years:
• Enderle’s infinite loop: ‘This year will be really nasty for Apple’ – January 22, 2007
• Enderle: ‘4th quarter will be Apple’s hardest since the first iPod Christmas’ – September 18, 2006
• Tech Pundit Enderle: ‘fourth quarter should be ugly for Apple’ – August 09, 2005
• Tech Pundit Enderle: ‘This year will be more difficult for Apple Computer’ and iMacs in earthquakes – January 24, 2005
Enderle continues, “So I wonder if somehow Steve Jobs is being tricked into making these decisions so that he can be easily removed when the options problem once again makes the front page.”
MacDailyNews Take: This is what happens when you try to generate wonder from a fused ganglia.
Enderle continues, “Harming others, particularly fans, and particulaly over the holidays just feels evil… This time, it is Apple that has strayed far over the line and I think it will hurt the company a lot as it tries to fight off the CES mob next year.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple “just feels evil” because, again, some guy from Forbes wrote a joke article and because another guy is pleased. The “CES mob” will be completely overshadowed by Apple just like last year. They’re lucky that they’ll be trotting out their fake Macs, fake iPods, and fake iPhones a week ahead of Macworld Expo this time. At least they’ll get a few days of coverage.
Enderle continues, “There is clearly something rotten at Apple and we’ll know in a few months whether is it is a coup in the making. Until then, our hearts go out to Dan Lyons and his family, as nobody should have to deal with this any time – particularly not at Christmas.”
MacDailyNews Take: For crying out loud, Lyons’ piece was a joke, you cheesily-mustachioed moron.
Enderle continues, “Folks are clearly thinking differently about Apple in 2007, which is why I’m thinking Apple is rotting at the core.”
MacDailyNews Take: Enderle “thinking?” Impossible.
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “ChrissyOne” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: He’s getting progressively worse. It’s really bad now. Just wait until Mac cracks 10% market share. His head’ll pop right off like a dandelion.
c1 stole my thunder :-C
Subject: Re: Another day, another Apple hit-piece by Enderle
From: Christina Wiley
Date: December 28, 2007 1:36:48 PM PST
To: renderle@enderlegroup.com
Kudos on your support. I did know about the reversal, which is what I meant by ‘at it again’. I didn’t know that you supported it since i never saw it in one of your articles. And yes, you are correct – there are countless examples os Microsoft’s abuse of power. I brought a case where I personally knew people that were hurt by a company’s actions. Like you did. Only mine wasn’t a joke.
But you’re missing my point, Rob. You create these imaginary battles for Steve Jobs to fight, and you don’t do it for anyone else. If anyone has behaved insanely over the years it’s Mr. Ballmer, yet for some reason Steve Jobs seems to be the singular object of your scorn. Why not let us in on who these people are on Apple’s board who want to distance themselves from undeniably the most important person in the company’s history? You do a fine just setting up the suspicion and the contempt, but back it up with a lot of ‘may’s and ‘might’s. And you seem to do it every quarter or so.
‘This year will be more difficult for Apple Computer’ and iMacs in earthquakes – January 24, 2005
‘fourth quarter should be ugly for Apple’ – August 09, 2005
‘4th quarter will be Apple’s hardest since the first iPod Christmas’ – September 18, 2006
‘This year will be really nasty for Apple’ – January 22, 2007
http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback46.html
“I live in California, earthquake country, and the old iMac was one of the most stable products in its class, the new one places the weight too high and relies on a base that is too narrow making it likely that it would fall.”
WTF? This is the best you can do? Earthquakes?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/45264.html
“”fourth quarter, in particular, should be ugly for Apple” due to the company’s Intel transition.”
…and they went on to ship 1.25 million of them, representing 20% growth. Your crystal ball needs a new timing belt.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/must-read/55271.html
“Apple released its financials last week, and 2006 was a very, very good year for the company. However, its forecast suggests that 2007 may be starting out as one of Apple’s worst years this decade,” “Apple is clearly not going away — but this year, compared to last, will be really nasty for the company.”
I mean that’s just hilarious.
Why? Why Apple? Why are you so wrong, so often, so consistently?
I know. Most of your readers don’t, but then we know how folks that read the internet can be. Say one bad thing about Apple and they chew you into dog food. *I* do this, too. It’s fun, and as we know, you can make a living out of it. You write a lot of good information about Apple, then you pepper with with sensationalistic tripe to get folks going (like I’m going right now) ;P, just like your buddy John has for 20 years. I wish you the best at it, but please, don’t play dumb with me, Rob.
“What “Crack Research Team”?”
Exactly what I was wondering.
Oh, and you might want to let Think Secret know they’ve been shut down. They seem to have forgotten.
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0712lawsuit.html
-c
If it were not for people like Enderle, there would be no word such as “schadenfreude”.
On Dec 28, 2007, at 9:28 AM, Rob Enderle wrote:
I’m sorry, so you are arguing what that it’s OK for big companies to shut down fan sites they disagree with (not a big freedom of speech person huh?) and to personally threaten someone’s income and family over the holidays? Wow… Would you have felt the same if Microsoft had done the very same thing? I get the fan thing but a lot of folks died for our freedoms it seems very strange folks like you seem to want to toss them out with the trash. And no I don’t make a cent for doing this.
Rob Enderle
Apple did not shut down the site. It was a negotiated settlement because they knew they would lose the case. And as far as income was concerned, it sounds like the Think Secret guy made out quite well.
Enderle is so, so misinformed it’s unfortunate he’s allowed to write anything. Now I’m being a hypocrite for getting upset about this bonehead after my comments earlier. Let’s expend energy on something else than Enderle, period.
FM
Enderle still a blithering idiot, film at 11.
-jcr
Hey, Can we focus, STFU!
You’re spoiling the moment, trying to get all serious an shit… besides, if you could afford a MacPro you wouldn’t be whinin’.
I’m not wrong about this.
Whew! All that mudslinging has me tuckered out.
I had a similarly long-winded email exchange with Rob Enderle a few years ago, Chrissy, and I will never do it again. He has the most amazing knack for *deflection* that I have ever seen. You think that you’ve said something as plainly and clearly as possible, so there’s no chance that he can misunderstand… and yet he does.
He never fails to find a way to incorrectly interpret the evidence in front of his face. He’s brilliant at coming to the wrong conclusion.
He does the reading public — or what’s left of them — a huge disservice. He admits that his pieces are opinion/editorial, and yet you’ll never see any kind of disclaimer on his column, so the reader is left to assume that hey, this guy seems to have insider knowledge, and wow! Look at what he’s saying about Apple! Holy crap, Steve Jobs is threatening some guy’s family!
I despise such a lack of journalistic integrity as Enderle displays, and I don’t say that often.
The Fountainhead was a great book. I read Atlas Shrugged over a dozen times, years and years ago.
CrissyOne:
Awesome job!!!
Enderle is counting on statistical probability.
At some point in the future, Apple will have a failure. Most of us may not be alive to see it, but it will happen.
Then Enderle’s descendants will be able to say, “Look! Great-great-great grandpa Rob was right!! Apple screwed up!”
“Enderle the Inept is vindicated!!
pearls before swine c1, but nice job all the same.
@ ChrissyOne
Your crystal ball needs a new timing belt.
‘scuse me if I borrow that sometime
“…it’s full of rotting zombie worms…”
This is just Enderle’s way of ensuring that when people do web searches for ‘zombie’ they don’t just find Windows!
@ Gandalf
No problem, as long as Pixar forgives me for the line I stole from Ratatouille.
@ macPinche
I’ve learned that you speak the truth. I just his latest reply, and I’m out.
—————————————————–
From: renderle@enderlegroup.com
But in your example it was Microsoft as the victim not the instigator and, even then they reversed themselves which cost them a lot. And this was years ago, the news about the Lyons thing happened after I wrote not before. I think it is Ironic that you dismiss your own lack of research on a past event while pounding me for not knowing something that happened after I wrote.
Most the things I read on Microsoft are critical of the firm, most of the things I read on Apple are positive (though that appears to be changing as they mainstream), neither is all good or all bad, I’ve always enjoyed picking subjects that are not on the beaten path. But I’m in this to make a difference, Steve Jobs blows off folks who say nice things about him thinking they are kissing up. Steve Ballmer blows off folks who attack him probably as a survival mechanism. I know a lot of people in both companies and my personal goal is that neither fails on my watch.
On the iMac thing I actually know a woman who was put in a wheelchair because of one. The 2nd generation was one of the best products of its age, the current generation, in my view, was a cheap end run in comparison. I still think Apple went in the wrong direction and needed to get back on course. It is basically a copy of a product that showed up in Europe a few years before and that clearly wasn’t the case with the prior generation. Hell you can’t even adjust it for height or swivel it without actually picking it up.
On the predictions, I have no crystal ball, but doesn’t it seem reasonable that doing a platform transition should result in some sales shortfall? It would have with any other company but for some reason it didn’t with Apple and some day I’d love to understand why. I’m not psychic but you should be asking were the positions defensible not whether they turned out in hind sight to be wrong. If you can find a psychic analyst point me to them.
On the 2007 prediction, I was commenting on what the Apple execs seemed to be saying during the financial report and trying to explain that. My point was they had real reasons to be concerned, as it turns out, they overcame them.
In the end, however, we all like certain things and don’t like others. A column is supposed to be about opinions and folks seem to like strong ones. So I try to pick things I feel strongly about. I have no desire to force people to agree with me and, in fact, often pick subjects I believe I feel differently about than most. Am I focused on page views? Yes but not for money, I believe they speak to relevance, if people aren’t reading you, then you aren’t relevant and then what is the point to doing it in the first place?
Now you do realize that I write between 4 and 7 columns every week and you are only pointing to less than 1% of them right? Pull a random sample of say 25 of them in one year or 50 or more across several years (and I do mean random) and see if you form the same opinion. That’s analysis.
…to which I replied….
————————————
Microsoft caved in because it has no principals outside market share.
When I can read a writer’s work that consistently and reliably attacks the principals of one man, let along one company, time and again, more often than not on sketchy rumors and accusations, and I can tell without a by-line who wrote it, to me it’s not the sign of a particularly fair journalist.
You write the same article every time you write about Apple.
And we’re both writing the same email back and forth now, so I’m out. You win. The wheelchair thing is just too much for me to touch.
It’s sincerely been a pleasure talking to you today, Rob. I mean it.
-ChrissyOne
lol. What else can you do but shake your head?
MW respect. Now that’s just not fair.
Interesting dialog.
I found this comment from Enderle during the e-mail exchange quite intriguing:
“my personal goal is that neither [Apple or Microsoft] fails on my watch.”
It would be very interesting to see a psychoanalyst’s take on Enderle’s writings, not to mention his responses in this soon-to-be-famous e-mail exchange.
@ Zuno the Clown
Our final exchange may hold another clue:
————————————————————–
Me:
Happy New Year to you, too. And I’ll venture a headline for you:
2008 Apple’s most successful year ever.
Rob:
It could well be, we’ll see. Strangely enough I hope so too.
> On the iMac thing I actually know a woman who was put in a wheelchair because of one.
I can’t stop laughing! I’d *really* like to hear that story! It’s just such a bizarre direction for him to go.
I can see his headline: “Woman Victimized by Apple Inc., Blames Steve Jobs for Ruining Her Life”
Film at 11.
Whatever this is that is being done to Enderle, it’s great. Thanks for the posting of the e-mails here. What a train wreck.
Bahahahahahahahaha!
This is what I like about MDN, the crazy nut cases that always predict the downfall of Apple. I just find it amusing that a settlement with a rumor site is the cause.
“Rumor is that there are people on the Apple board who have had enough of Steve’s shenanigans and would like to distance the company from him once again.”
I loved this one. Why on earth would you distance yourself from the one man that has made Apple a multi-billion dollar business 3rd to Google and Microsoft in the tech realm. Steve Jobs is a marketing powerhouse.
Rob Enderle you are the most stupid liberal that I have ever come across. Think Secret was committing Industrial Espionage and that, you stubborn moron, IS A CRIME. Being a greedy child doesn’t excuse him. He made a big name for himself and most likely lots of money. Basically your stupid free speech arguments makes you a criminal supporter.
You’re really not helping the other side much, Dave.