s the second anniversary of the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs ticked by on Saturday, the debate about what the company ethos should be is as open ended as ever.
By anyone’s estimation it remains a hugely successful company. It is the most watched tech firm on the planet, its new phones fly off the shelves at a ridiculous rate and reviewers largely rate their products among the best in their categories.
But is that enough for a company that taught its alarmingly loyal customers to expect frequent game-changers?
On Friday, Tim Cook, the man who took on the impossible task of following Jobs as Apple’s chief executive, wrote an email to Apple employees telling them that his former boss would be proud of them for the work they had continued to do.
He said he still often thought of Jobs, and spoke fondly of the company continuing to dedicate itself to the work he loved.
However, commentary about the company has started to shift away from the breathless to the impatient, as product launches have increasingly featured unsurprising incremental improvements. There have been no new category killers unveiled since Steve Jobs left the stage.
Nokia found out that the coolest companies can quickly seem quaintly old-hat.
Despite Apple’s shares sitting comfortably above the level when Jobs resigned, they have declined almost a quarter in the last year as competition from the likes of Samsung and Google has begun to bite.
Apple has also been notably absent from the fresh wave of wearable technology, epitomised by smartwatches and glasses, and still hasn’t launched the long anticipated iTV.
“It was always an easy call that Apple would struggle to find someone to replace Jobs. When people need an example of a corporate visionary, Jobs is always close to the top of any list, and Cook is a sustainer, not a visionary,” IBRS technology analyst James Turner says.
“I think in nearly any other company, they’d be delighted to have a CEO like Cook, but Apple has not been a normal company . . . it has been about making the best computer.
“Without the vision of Steve Jobs to create new markets to dominate, the future of Apple now lies in creating the best ecosystem for content.”
Turner says that, under Cook, Apple has become more established as a content distribution company, competing with the likes of Google and Amazon. Supply-chain wizardry is crucial in that game, but is not exactly inspiring to outsiders in the way the iPad was at its launch. Former Nokia design chief Nuovo says he received a large amount of positive feedback from friends and acquaintances in the industry following his earlier warnings about Apple’s innovator dilemma.
He tells The Australian Financial Review that he is not being critical of Apple’s leadership when he points out their latest phone models are not revolutionary.
However, he feels it needs to use some of its vast cash reserves to create new independently run companies tasked with making new breakthroughs.
It’s better to be beaten to the punch by a young upstart you own than one you don’t, he reasons.
“It is all about maturity and understanding that when you have something that so many people trust and rely on like the iPhone that companies like Apple almost have a responsibility to their customers not to radically change it, but to iterate it and explore,” Nuovo says.
“Tim Cook is doing a fine job of maintaining course for the ship. Going back to dock and charting a whole new course is not as easy as people think, otherwise companies would be doing it right and left . . . Tim Cook is maybe the right guy to keep that going and give people what they love, but they have to allow things to break out elsewhere.”
ELLISON NOT OPTIMISTIC
Less optimistic is Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle and one of Jobs’s closest friends. Speaking to CBS in August he suggested Apple has entered a lengthy period of decline.
Comparing Jobs to Thomas Edison and Pablo Picasso, he said the world had already seen during the late 1980s and 1990s that Apple fails without Jobs.
“We saw – we conducted the experiment . . . we saw Apple with Steve Jobs, we saw Apple without Steve Jobs, we saw Apple with Steve Jobs and now we’re gonna see Apple without Steve Jobs,” Ellison said.
Others disagree, and say that laying all of Apple’s success at Jobs’s feet fails to recognise the enormously efficient global machine.
Telsyte analyst Foad Fadaghi says that while Apple clearly has challenges ahead, it is a long way from appearing to be in decline.
He says Apple products have an enviably high rate of repeat purchase in comparison to its competitors.
It has also shown a willingness to deviate from the Jobs playbook when required, in launching the commercially successful iPad Mini.
Jobs had always refused to consider selling a smaller tablet.
“While the company lost Jobs, they still have Jony Ive, who was a key player in Apple’s turnaround. He and Cook have done a great job of continuing the Jobs philosophy in that the company continues to focus on usability and simplicity, both in its products and product lines,” Fadaghi says.
“Apple has shown that it is happy to do things the Apple way, regardless of popular opinion or conventional wisdom. An example of this is the company’s refusal to produce a low-cost iPhone for emerging markets . . . the challenge for Cook from here is to balance the need for profit-making innovation, while maintaining the philosophies of usability and simplicity set by Steve Jobs.”
Source : Jobs World
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