At Apple’s annual shareholders’ meeting today, “Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who returned a decade ago to lead the computer company he helped found, said he sees many potential successors among Apple’s current executives,” Connie Guglielmo reports for Bloomberg.
“‘We’ve got great talent, and I think the board would have really great choices,’ Jobs, 53, said today at a shareholder meeting at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. Possible successors include operations chief Timothy Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer, he said,” Guglielmo reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Right now, it looks like Apple’s best hope, and a very good one at that, is Jonathan Ive… He seems to work well with the engineers responsible for the hardware. He is obviously a meticulous genius. And he has “that certain something” which, importantly, comes across on camera and in person. Whether he has the extremely rare “vision thing” that Jobs possesses; well, that’s still an open question…
Watch Ive in the Power Mac G5 intro video. Ive first appears about 40% in, at the 2:50 mark of the 6:33 minute video. Note that he is almost wearing a black mock turtleneck already. Contrast his presentation style and enthusiasm with the other Apple presenters. Can you sense the almost Jobsian, call it Junior Jobsian, aura? Ive has “it” while all of the other Apple employees in the video are just nice people talking about a computer. And Ive should only get better with time. Could we be watching Steve Jobs’ successor, Apple’s future CEO, in the 31-year-old Ive?
Jonathan Ive, Apple Computer CEO circa 2025. It has a pretty nice ring to it, doesn’t it? You heard it here first. I think Mr. Ive could pull it off. And I think Jobs thinks so, too; in about twenty years… – SteveJack, August 20, 2003 (What happens when Steve Jobs dies?)
Guglielmo continues, “Jobs also “reiterated his goal of selling 10 million iPhones this year, including in new markets in regions such as Asia. He declined to say specifically when Apple would start selling the phone in China.”
Full article here.
Scott Hillis reports for Reuters, “Jobs also was asked if the company planned to start a dividend or stock buybacks. ‘At this time, we have no plans to do either,’ he told shareholders.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: As many media outlets (MarketWatch and CNBC, among others) continue to get this wrong even today, to clarify: Apple’s publicly-stated goal is 10 million iPhone units in 2008 alone. iPhone units sold in 2007 do not count towards the 10 million goal.
• Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in his Macworld Expo 2007 keynote address that Apple would set the goal of selling 10 million iPhone units in 2008, the first full year on the market. Jobs, standing in front of a 20-foot tall slide, no less, that said, “1% market share = 10M units in 2008,” stated, “1% market share = 10 million units. This is exactly what we’re going to try to do in 2008, our first full year in the market, is grab 1% market share… We’re going to go for it and see if we can get 1% market share, 10 million units in 2008 and go from there.” (Macworld Expo 2007 iPhone Introduction: Jobs’ remarks on iPhone goals begin at 1:15:52 into the QuickTime video).
• On July 25, 2007, during Apple’s conference call discussing Q3 – 2007 financial results, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer reiterated Apple’s goal of selling 10 million iPhone units in 2008.
• On January 22, 2008, during Apple’s Q1 08 financial results conference call Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer again reiterated Apple’s goal of selling 10 million iPhone units in 2008.
• Just last week, Apple COO Tim Cook once again reiterated the goal and stated publicly that Apple is confident that the company is on track for hitting their goal of selling 10 million iPhone units in 2008.
