Apple executive parade not prelude to change
Jony Ive, Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, was one of several Apple executives to share the stage with CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)Could Apple be getting closer to a leadership transition?
That's what Sam Diaz at our sister site ZDNet thinks. In this video, he argues that Apple's decision to have CEO Steve Jobs share the spotlight at Tuesday's notebook event with other executives such as COO Tim Cook and Jony Ive, senior vice president of design, means that the company is trying to showcase those executives ahead of an eventual departure by Jobs, whose health has been the subject of much bottom-feeding speculation this year.
I wasn't at the event, having flown back East to attend the wedding of a close friend. But I've been to many Apple events over the past several years, and Diaz fails to note that it's not unusual to see other Apple executives onstage with Jobs.
Scott Forstall, head of iPhone software, has played prominent roles in major Apple keynotes dating back to 2006. Jobs often defers to other executives during questions posed by shareholders at the company's annual meeting. And Schiller has been a source of comic relief for years during Jobs' speeches, playing Lou Costello to Jobs' Bud Abbott.
It's been an oft-repeated canard this year about Apple: because the company has not shared its succession plans with the world, it must not have any idea what it will do if Jobs becomes unable or unwilling to run the company. But it's hard to believe that a company that takes its products so seriously, run by a CEO as meticulous as Jobs, has not developed a plan for Apple in the post-Jobs era.
Apple may have decided to showcase its non-Jobs executives at its events in order to assure people that the company is about more than one man. But the practice of sharing the stage is nothing unusual, no matter what color shirt Cook wears onstage.
Tom Krazit, a staff writer for CNET News, focuses on all things Apple. He has covered traditional PC companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, chip companies such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and mobile computers ranging from Research In Motion's to Palm's. E-mail Tom.
I can remember the first flat panel iMac introduction video that had Ive showcasing all the design stuff of the new iMac, also on that video Black Eye Peas was present talking about it.
Phil Shiller and other has taken stage too for the iPhone, others for Mobil Me and so on, so please come on and be serious and don't spread false information or guess to the general public.