“That someone in this case is Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, who seems bent on besting his former boss, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in a battle he’s simply not equipped to win,” Hickins writes.
“The eyes of the blogosphere were on Apple yesterday, and only a fool would have tried to upstage Steve Jobs (the prodigal who has now managed not one, but two triumphal returns to the helm of the company he helped create). There’s a reason that Democrats and Republicans don’t hold their national conventions at the same time. But there was Jon Rubinstein launching a new device yesterday, trying with all his might to shout, ‘Yes we can!’ while all around him people shouted ‘What did Steve Jobs say…?'”
“What’s going on has less to do with marketing strategy than machismo. Rubinstein was the unknown engineer who helped Jobs rescue Apple, and now he wants the recognition he didn’t get while working under Jobs’s shadow,” Hickins writes. “Well guess what, Jon? You’re still under his shadow.”
Full article – very highly recommended – here.
[UPDATE 9/11, 9:30am EDT: Fixed article link and formatting issue in related articles. This article originally published on September 10, 2009, 11:09pm EDT.]