"One explanation could be the fact that in these countries, Apple was historically perceived as a supplier to creative professionals, not as a company being attracting to consumers. As a result, "die hard Apple fans" in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland might still connect more to the products rather than the company itself."

Another is that outside of the US, consumers are not as hysterical and have a tendency to take a more balance sophisticated view of things. Steve Jobs is a genius, but there's no reason for the vast majority of Apple product users to change their view of the company without him. I don't think it has anything to do with "die hard Apple fans" in Europe, and more to do with the fact the he is not a cultural phenomenon to non-Americans, but merely a clever man who they may admire, but certainly don't worship.

FWIW, Mac market share in Switzerland is very high, and it is rising fast in Germany too.

Steve Jobs is immortal! He will live on forever through Apple's innovative products!

The US does seem to drift from one Cult of Personality to another. Jobs ain't Apple any more than Gates was MS or Henry was Ford. They may have started their respective enterprises but after a while the enterprise goes on regardless.

I'm wondering why so may seem to think Jobs will retire in 3-5 years. He isn't that old and he seems to enjoy running Apple. IMO Jobs will stay where he is until he starts making mistakes and then will be gently pushed into retirement by the board. I could see him at Apple another 10-25 years, if not 20.

Jobs "ain't Apple any more than Gates was MS or Henry was Ford"?

1. Call the grammar Nazi's
2. uh, on what do you base this assumption?
3. You make this statement the day after Kevin Rollins leaves Dell in its worst situation in decades and Michael Dell returns to the helm to salvage a floundering company (kind of the same way Jobs returned to Apple and Gates has thrust himself back into the spotlight eventhough he's NOT running Microsoft per se).

Silly comment really.

Steve Jobs being gone would be a shame, Jonathan Ive being gone would be a travesty.

Tiger, since you're already calling for proper grammar, you may want to use proper grammar when doing it:

"Call the grammar Nazi's"... what? I assume you wanted say "Call the grammar Nazis" (not just one grammar Nazi; several, or many of them). What you wrote was an unfinished sentence. If finished, it would perhaps sound "Call the grammar Nazi's sister" (for example).

Isn't it really poor English when people use possessive form (i.e. noun, followed by apostrophe, followed by 's') when they mean plural (noun, followed by 's', or sometimes 'es')...? Then, again, who am I to judge; I didn't learn English until I was in high school. I should better leave judging to those who speak it from birth.

I think, plain and simple, that Steve Jobs can be considered the Walt Disney of Apple. He really demonstrates the same desire to shape and guide the entire image, quality, and offerings of The Company. Walt didn't draw the cartoons-- but he hired the people who he thought would best do the job he wanted. Steve Jobs seems to operate in much the same way at Apple.

Yes, this confirms my impression that Americans tend to worship "heroes" while I'd say the Germans cured themselves for that in their relatively recent past. In addition to that, my impression is also that whatever problems Apple has, is actually related to the same phenomenon, as one personality is allowed to premeate the entire ambience of a corporation.
I've read stories on how Gates' colleagues used to sit rocking together with him since he had that weird habit!
I would hope that we would see a new player appear in these markets, coming from Europe. It would have been interesting to see whether the corporative culture would have been any different. How many links Ollila with Nokia, for instance? Who is the CEO of Sony Ericsson?

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geoduck wrote:
The US does seem to drift from one Cult of Personality to another. Jobs ain't Apple any more than Gates was MS or Henry was Ford. They may have started their respective enterprises but after a while the enterprise goes on regardless.

I'm wondering why so may seem to think Jobs will retire in 3-5 years. He isn't that old and he seems to enjoy running Apple. IMO Jobs will stay where he is until he starts making mistakes and then will be gently pushed into retirement by the board. I could see him at Apple another 10-25 years, if not 20.

Steve had pancreatic cancer, albeit one that is rare and treatable. Even still, that second, rare form has an average life expectency of 5 years.

If Steve is an average man physically he may not be long for Apple.

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Guest wrote:
Silly comment really.

Not really.
Henry ran Ford until his retirement. Then Ford has gone on just fine. MS is running just fine without Gates involved in day to day operations. Sure he sticks his nose in for this and that but others have taken most of the load. The same will be true of Apple after Jobs. Apple will continue without him.

The opposite would be a place like my folks shop. When they retired and sold it to someone else, it was closed within two years. My folks were the heart and soul of the place and it could not continue without them, no matter how hard the new owners tried. Customers went elsewhere, suppliers that would give Ralph and Ruth an extra few percent, or expedite an order when needed would not do that for the new guys. The personal relationship between them and my folks evaporated the minute they walked out the door.

When you're talking about a large publicly traded corporation like Apple, one person, no matter how high a profile or important to the creation of the company, is indispensable.

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Guest wrote:
Steve had pancreatic cancer, albeit one that is rare and treatable. Even still, that second, rare form has an average life expectency of 5 years.
If Steve is an average man physically he may not be long for Apple.

Oh yeah, that's right. I had forgotten about the cancer. That could very well shorten things.

Of course Jobs isn't going to be around forever. Although I tend to think that Apple will change fundamentally when he leaves, there is some hope.
I work for a company that was started by one man 95 years ago. The principles that he started the company on are still the core values today. And the company is still growing, and doing quite well with about 5000 regular employees.
I think it will be different because Apple is in the technology sector. I feel that Apple has done so well because of Steve's ability to visualize innovation. They've been working on the iPhone for 2.5 years already. They didn't announce it until it was just right. And it will ship when it is ready. How many prototypes did they have that didn't make it? How many other companies have the ability to hold off and sit on a product like that?
How I see it (and you may disagree, I could be wrong): Steve is a perfectionist (don't ask what happened to AppleTV) and the products that Apple puts out show it. Shareholders trust him to release valid, marketable products when they are ready.. not when they are first conceived. If Dell had been working on an iPhone type product, it would have been known long ahead of time and their shareholders would have been clawing at the CEO (of the day) to release it.
I do fear the day Steve leaves. But it is possible for Apple to continue as they are today. It will take a lot of discipline, but it is possible.

At the time he was forcibly 'retired,' Henry Ford was actually running the place into the ground. Family members threatened to sell their shares of the company unless he left. Ford's grandson, Henry Ford II, had to work very hard to rebuild the company.

See above subject up there overhead.

Have fun you guy's and girl's. Don't forget to pat your dog's and cat's. Kiss your boy's and girl's. Be nice to your neighbor's. And 'stop wa'sting all tho'se expen'sive apo'strophe's!

Bot's

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Tiger wrote:
1. Call the grammar Nazi's

How typical. Any discussion of Germans ends up about Nazis. P.S. Jobs will "retire" by September.

I thought all German's where Nazis....but what do I know, I'm an "hysterical" American.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_nazi

2. Maybe the answer is that English speakers/listeners are more easily caught up in Steve's RDF. I am sure that he is not as effective when being translated into Deutsche.

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Guest wrote:
I thought all German's where Nazis....but what do I know, I'm an "hysterical" American.

Did you know that Hitler is not Germany's king anymore? He's dead.
Just kidding. But it's truly amazing what Americans "know" about Germany. They regularly do a hell of a job to ruin their image. At least most of us get that George W. Bush is your president and not Kennedy.

And btw his keynote is available on iTunes Germany in English only. Who would translate and dub that?

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Tommo_UK wrote:

Another is that outside of the US, consumers are not as hysterical and have a tendency to take a more balance sophisticated view of things.

Oh please... I love how people stereotype Americans in whatever way they see fit. Seemingly to try to feel better about themselves.

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Guest wrote:

But it's truly amazing what Americans "know" about Germany. They regularly do a hell of a job to ruin their image. At least most of us get that George W. Bush is your president and not Kennedy.

Considering he's the president of the most powerful country in the world, I wouldn't doubt it.

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Guest wrote:
Steve had pancreatic cancer, albeit one that is rare and treatable. Even still, that second, rare form has an average life expectency of 5 years.

Untreated.

Jobs was successfully treated by surgery:

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/08/01.2.shtml

Ive's is great, but he runs a whole team of creative people. Accordingly, I suspect he can be replaced, and Apple would still come up with perhaps different, but still some great ideas. That is not to say he should be replaced, just that he could be.


Moreover, I read an interview with Ive's once. People probably forget, but he was at Apple in 1992, well before Jobs' 1997 return. This was even before Gil was still running the show. Nonetheless, we never heard his name until after Steve returned.

Ive's fairly credited Jobs' management stye and vision to his teams' ability to be able to do what they do. He said under Gil, and his predecessors, management would always be over their shoulders. They also did not recognize his talent. Moreover, after the iMac, Ive's could have worked anywhere. Yet, he stuck it out with Steve. Keep in mid after the iMac, Apple's rebound was not yet established.

Under Jobs, Ive's and his team are given the space to do what creative people do. Jobs also is the one who saw Ive's designs and promoted him to the head of the design department.

Accordingly, Steve should get credit for being able to recognize talent, and be able to foster it. Not everyone can. Apple's former CEO's certainly did not. Ive's had already designed a prototype of the iMac, but Gil was not interested.

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Websnap wrote:
Steve Jobs being gone would be a shame, Jonathan Ive being gone would be a travesty.

Actually Ford was a visionary, and Ford has not gone on just fine. Japanese companies are kicking its butt.

Ford understood that in order to sell cars, people had to have money to buy the cars. Accordingly, he came up with creative ideas for Ford customers to make money to be able to buy his product. For instance, he started using soybean made fabric for the interiors, so farmers could grow the soy beans, be paid, and be able to afford Ford trucks.

Nowadays, Ford makes a crappy product, and is laying off all the people who buy their product. They are unable to adapt to changing times. Under Henry's leadership, Ford will still be kicking butt.


Microsoft will continue without Gates, but Gates was hardly a visionary, just a smart business person.

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geoduck wrote:

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Guest wrote:
Silly comment really.

Not really.
Henry ran Ford until his retirement. Then Ford has gone on just fine.

Oh yeah, that's right. I had forgotten about the cancer. That could very well shorten things.[/quote]

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Considering he's [Bush] the president of the most powerful country in the world, I wouldn't doubt it.

I wouldn't trumpet the fact that we, supposedly the most powerful country in the world, voted for a moron twice to be our President.

Don't blame me though, I didn't vote for the imbecile.

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deasys wrote:

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Guest wrote:
Steve had pancreatic cancer, albeit one that is rare and treatable. Even still, that second, rare form has an average life expectency of 5 years.

Untreated.

Jobs was successfully treated by surgery:

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/08/01.2.shtml

The article I read stated 5 years average life expectancy following successful treatment. I sincerely hope this is wrong... "Long Live His Steveness!"

Look how much Apple has changed from CEO to CEO. When Sculley and company kicked Jobs out they made some serious changes in their strategic targets. Gil Amelio almost killed the company, and right before Jobs stepped back in Apple was licensing it's hardware designs to allow 3rd parties to produce Macintosh compatible computers.

I would be amazed if Apple did not change again after Jobs leaves/retires.

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Guest wrote:

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Considering he's [Bush] the president of the most powerful country in the world, I wouldn't doubt it.

I wouldn't trumpet the fact that we, supposedly the most powerful country in the world, voted for a moron twice to be our President.

Don't blame me though, I didn't vote for the imbecile.

Haha yeah, I never said he was a GOOD president. Just stating the facts.

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Henry ran Ford until his retirement. Then Ford has gone on just fine. MS is running just fine without Gates involved in day to day operations. Sure he sticks his nose in for this and that but others have taken most of the load. The same will be true of Apple after Jobs. Apple will continue without him.
(...)
When you're talking about a large publicly traded corporation like Apple, one person, no matter how high a profile or important to the creation of the company, is indispensable.

Aren't you contradicting yourself here? Meant to say one person is not indispensable?