[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Apple is Headed for a Fall, Says Forrester CEO here

[Relayman5C]

And who is Forrester Research again? I think I'll start a research company and say that Forrester is headed for a fall!

[AsdfJkl1vri]

I think Apple is better without Jobs.

[DavidSafir]

Every time I see a story like this I am thinking that someone is attempting to manipulate the stock market. Someone check and see if Colony has bought any options lately. Regardless, there was hardly any guarantee that Jobs himself could have continued this kind of innovation. Maybe he would have run out of spectacular innovation as well. The idea that Apple will continue to come up with things as successful as the iPhone and iPad is speculative at best. Time will tell.

[nonseq]

This time around- Jobs had 14 years to pull together a team, especially at its core, who shared his vision for developing new experiences- elegantly and in new and unexpected ways. This nucleus may very well keep Apple on course for a number of years and just maybe, there may be those in the company that can keep envisioning and creating long into the future. Only time will tell. The markets are fickle and believe the strangest rumors and pundits.

[edelbrp]

Apple's simply too large to be so dependent on a single personality. Reading most of Jobs' biography, it was pretty clear he wasn't an innovator, per se, but rather a whip cracking manager. I'm not saying he wasn't a significant influence, but he wasn't magical and there are other managers.

[StevenKeller]

This world is absolutely full of creative and talented people. Jobs is not the only one. In some ways, a more laid back Apple just might be a better Apple. Good techies can make things happen and talented people can make those things look good. The real lesson from Jobs is that he was more concerned about quality than profits and that eventually proved to be the most profitable course. The magic of Apple is that I never owned an Apple product I was not absolutely delighted with and proud of. I got more than my money's worth every single time and I felt my Apple products were the best. Many companies produce products just like this because their CEOs get it. Jobs was not the only one.

[EdCampbellknic]

Remind me why I should pay attention to Forrester? Or PCWorld for that matter?

[SikFly]

Hey, news flash for today:

Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) shares ended Wednesday's session 8.9% higher, after the company said late Tuesday that it nearly doubled its profit last quarter. The most striking data point: Apple handily beat analysts' expectations for iPhones, selling 35.1 million during the first three months of the year.

Doesn't sound like their heading for a fall to me. Pretty lame article, you could have mentioned my name instead of Forrester's and it would carry the same weight.

[shinginthebay]

"The iPhone will not substantially alter the fundamental structure and challenges of the mobile industry," Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said in a report this month (Jan. 2007)... http://www.bloomberg...id=aRelVKWbMAv0

[husainbarri]

competition is Apple's enemy.

[linuxrants7xpg]

edelbrp, on 25 April 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

Apple's simply too large to be so dependent on a single personality. Reading most of Jobs' biography, it was pretty clear he wasn't an innovator, per se, but rather a whip cracking manager. I'm not saying he wasn't a significant influence, but he wasn't magical and there are other managers.

I tend to agree with Colony on this. There's no really good way to tell if he's right other than wait four years and see what happens. It's my personal opinion that Apple is absolutely dependent on Jobs, not so much from an "innovation" standpoint, but in convincing people that what Apple was doing actually was innovation. If you look, there were devices very similar to the iPhone prior to Apple's announcement (no one even remembers the LG Prada these days). HP designed a device very similar to the iPad years before even the iPhone was seen. Very few people would call LG or HP "innovative", despite the fact that they arguably beat Apple to the market by years. It's my belief that that was what Jobs brought to the table. The ability to convince people that Apple's product was beautiful, or magical, or special in some way. I don't think that Apple will be able to maintain that image without Jobs. We'll have to wait and see.

[LawrenceWiiz]

George Colony is right in his own thinking. But he should have added the truth about Apple's profit. Several big phone companies paid $600 for iPhone to sell back to subscribers at $200. They took $400 loss per phone while hoping the subscription would cancel out the loss. Read last quarter's news, you'll find it. Apple made money from the loss of others. It will come to a point when phone companies can't take the loss anymore to raise the price of iPhone to $600 then subscription with iPhone will come down while there's very good alternative such as Samsung.

[edelbrp]

linuxrants7xpg, on 25 April 2012 - 04:11 PM, said:

edelbrp, on 25 April 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

Apple's simply too large to be so dependent on a single personality. Reading most of Jobs' biography, it was pretty clear he wasn't an innovator, per se, but rather a whip cracking manager. I'm not saying he wasn't a significant influence, but he wasn't magical and there are other managers.

I tend to agree with Colony on this. There's no really good way to tell if he's right other than wait four years and see what happens. It's my personal opinion that Apple is absolutely dependent on Jobs, not so much from an "innovation" standpoint, but in convincing people that what Apple was doing actually was innovation. If you look, there were devices very similar to the iPhone prior to Apple's announcement (no one even remembers the LG Prada these days). HP designed a device very similar to the iPad years before even the iPhone was seen. Very few people would call LG or HP "innovative", despite the fact that they arguably beat Apple to the market by years. It's my belief that that was what Jobs brought to the table. The ability to convince people that Apple's product was beautiful, or magical, or special in some way. I don't think that Apple will be able to maintain that image without Jobs. We'll have to wait and see.

But you don't go through multiple generations of iPhones and iPads and keep being the #1 seller simply because of salesmanship or marketing. At some point you have to admit that the products are selling because people want them and not just because "Steve said so". Breaking into the well established cellphone market when it did was quite a risk, and even the tablet market (tablet computers have been around for over 10 years now, of course). As they say, you have to be first or better to succeed.

[javajolt]

I would love seeing apple take a big fall because they think they are so much better than everybody and they do no wrong. Timmy Cook is pure boring, but at least that dead guy is gone.

[TomAmsugo]

He forgot to say, Microsoft without Gates, a better example of what happens to a market company when its champion steps aside.

[HarleyWaybill]

DavidSafir, on 25 April 2012 - 03:28 PM, said:

Every time I see a story like this I am thinking that someone is attempting to manipulate the stock market. Someone check and see if Colony has bought any options lately. Regardless, there was hardly any guarantee that Jobs himself could have continued this kind of innovation. Maybe he would have run out of spectacular innovation as well. The idea that Apple will continue to come up with things as successful as the iPhone and iPad is speculative at best. Time will tell.

[edelbrp]

LawrenceWiiz, on 25 April 2012 - 04:20 PM, said:

George Colony is right in his own thinking. But he should have added the truth about Apple's profit. Several big phone companies paid $600 for iPhone to sell back to subscribers at $200. They took $400 loss per phone while hoping the subscription would cancel out the loss. Read last quarter's news, you'll find it. Apple made money from the loss of others. It will come to a point when phone companies can't take the loss anymore to raise the price of iPhone to $600 then subscription with iPhone will come down while there's very good alternative such as Samsung.

Subsidizing cellphones is nothing new and they certainly understand the math in advance. Wireless providers have been doing that for many years now.

[HarleyWaybill]

Oh, heck, yes. I'm amazed by what business news is created by and for business journalists. It's almost enough to shake your faith in capitalism.

This post has been edited by HarleyWaybill: 25 April 2012 - 04:29 PM

[johnmerritt]

Beyond legacy, doesn't anyone think Jobs was savvy enough to leave behind a road map? A device to guide Apple? Seems to me a company like Apple would have years of creative devices on the drawing board or in some state of development. That said, a guy like Jon Ive at the helm wouldn't hurt.