Apple VP Of Developer Relations Leaves Apple

by , 11:00 AM EST, March 30th, 2001

Peter Cohen of MacCentral broke the news last night that Clent Richardson, Apple's vice president of worldwide developer relations, has left Apple. Mr. Richardson is taking a position with One 2 One, a UK cellular communications company. There were no reasons reported.

Check out MacCentral's article for more information.

The Mac Observer Spin:

There are two things we are going to talk about. The first is the fact that we have seen more than one Mac Web site report this as news based on "online" reports without attributing MacCentral or Peter Cohen. Not attributing original reports seems to be a more frequent occurrence, and it is our opinion that this flies in the face of journalistic standards. Our policy is that if we are going to repeat news that we feel that our readers will be interested in that we make it obvious, attribute the original report, and encourage Observers to check out the reporting site.

That out of the way, let's Spin this news. It is very interesting that Mr. Richardson has left Apple, especially now. Mac OS X was just released, and developer relations are crucial to Apple as they work towards getting more Native Cocoa or Carbonized apps. Mr. Richardson has largely been praised for his work at Apple, and there is little doubt his departure will be felt.

So this begs the question of whether or not there is a shake up happening in Apple or if this was simply a matter of a talented exec getting a better job somewhere else. At this point, with little evidence to the contrary, we will assume the latter is true. Adding weight to that contention is the fact that Apple would have been more likely to have announced his departure had he been canned. In fact, to draw upon even more, and at least as vague circumstances, we can easily assume that Mr. Richardson wanted to wait for the rollout of Mac OS X before he departed Apple. Please note the utterly speculative nature of these comments.

MacCentral's Article