Kris Tuttle

MacWorld Step Is Yet Another Positive for Apple

I agree that Steve Jobs is more than a cult-factor and has had a very visible and material role in getting the company executing again. Seems like more people are expecting Apple to at least start discussing the formulation of a transition plan if and when Steve Jobs decides to do something else for whatever reason.

This is likely to bring anxiety in the Apple investor base since they may be forced to recalibrate their long-term visions of who is running Apple and how are the doing it.

However I'm not sure that it can't be done well. Hurd has done well over HP and he's basically an execution/numbers guy, not a genius in design or technology. Similar things could be said of Gerstner when he came into IBM.

In fact it could be that as Apple transitions into more of a mainstream computer company a different leader could be even better. This isn't too say that there are not reasons to worry. Until we know what the plan looks like and get some visibility of what the new team would be like it's hard for investors to decide how important an issue this is.

Big Shoes to Fill, no doubt.


On Dec 18 10:50 AM fakeAppl wrote:

> You forget that Steve Jobs doesn't just represent the cult-factor.
> Many investors and journalists see him as the only sole reason Apple
> products have great design or are easy and intuitive to use. He has
> a special talent of knowing what product works and doesn't, most
> of the time. That talent is crucial and is the largest risk factor
> to Apple.