A Bad Start To November For Apple
It appears November is not turning out to be great month for Apple. After the successful launch of the iPad mini and fourth generation iPad, things appeared to be going down hill for Cupertino-based company at the moment. The stock price is taking a beating from Wall Street, They were asked to pay VirnetX $368 million dollar in damages for infringing their patent and Samsung Galaxy SIII has outsold the iPhone 4S for the first time. Can things get any worse?
Of course it can!
A former employee is trashing the company’s CEO – Tim Cook. According to a report by ReadWrite, “David Sobotta, a former Apple sales executive who just published The Pomme Company, a memoir of his 20 years (1984-2004) at Apple.”
In his memoir, Sobotta, had a few harsh things to say about Tim Cook. According to the report Sobotta said, “that he has no ax to grind even though he remembers Cook humiliating Sobotta’s team at a sales conference by putting up a slide with a picture of a toilet plunger as commentary on the group’s performance.”
Here are a few gems from the post:
Tim Cook Is Not A People Person
[quote] Well, for starters, Cook is not a people person. He certainly will not stand behind someone if the going gets rough. He is not that kind of guy. I sense no personal loyalty in him, and I suspect employees already understand that.
Tim will react to the numbers or his fear of being wrong quickly. Fear of being wrong is a managerial trait that runs strong and deep in Apple because of the way Steve ran the company. Even the appearance of being wrong when in the end you might be right is dreaded at Apple.
You don’t make mistakes at Apple and get a second chance. That often hinders decision-making and creates a lot of passive-aggressiveness between teams that should be cooperating.[/quote]
Sound like Steve Jobs to with regards to not working with B and C players on the team. In addition, Tim Cook, would not have survive under Steve if he was scared of being wrong.
Tim Is Not Tech Person
[quote] Technology-wise, I think Tim Cook is a lightweight. I never felt passion for technology from Tim like I did from Steve and some of the great engineers.[/quote]
In the Walter Isaacson Biography, Steve Jobs openly stated Tim Cook is not a product person. That is the reason why Jony Ive has been given some much power at Apple during Steve’s reign as Apple’s CEO and now in Cook’s tenure.
The Painful Part – Windows 7 Is Better Than Mountain Lion
[quote] I use Mountain Lion and Windows 7 both every day. Windows works better. It pains me to say that. I would rate Apple’s screwing around with the ‘Save As’ command [Apple removed ‘Save As’ from OS X Lion but restored it, sort of, in Mountain Lion] as one of the dumbest user-interface decisions in the history of computing. I’m not sure pulling DVD drives out of iMacs is much better. Certainly the maps decision [in iOS 6] will haunt Apple for a long time.
t is going to get worse at Apple. It is not a sustainable business culture.[/quote]
Continue living in the pass Mr. Sobbat, some of us what to live in the present and the future if we can. No mention of Windows 8
Apple’s Fans Are Not Loyal To The Company Anymore
[quote] The third is that Apple is a `next great thing’ company, and that in and of itself is unsustainable. They haven’t found the next great thing after the iPad and iPhone, and their shares in both those areas are slipping. Of course they are ignoring traditional computers to a large extent.
I could add a fourth [factor] related to the third point, but it’s debatable. Always in the past when Apple screwed up or got too cocky, they could fall back on a core group of `prosumers’ who were dedicated to Apple’s products. I think Apple has lost or is in the process of losing those folks, but I have no way to measure that other than I know a fair number of folks like myself that are no longer Apple products evangelists.
I got a note from [a former Apple colleague] last night that it was time to replace his wife’s MacBook and he offered to get her whatever she wanted. She chose Lenovo.[/quote]
Utter nonsense. All I can say is good riddance Mr. Sobbat.
Source: ReadWrite
