World of Apple

Philip Elmer-DeWit over at the Apple 2.0 blog has written a post on the mainstream media and the constant obsession with Steve Jobs’ health and future return to Apple.

The post is in response to several reports from top mainstream publications around the world who have supposedly received confirmation that Steve Jobs will return to Apple at the end of this month.

The first mention of Steve Jobs’ return was in his own memo that announced his medical leave for six months, at the end of the memo Jobs wrote, “I look forward,” adding “to seeing all of you this summer.”

Since that memo Apple has reiterated multiple times that Jobs will return to the company at the end of June, usually with the following thirteen words.

“We look forward to Steve returning to Apple at the end of June.”

Falling fowl of Apple’s consistent statement was UK based The Times who wrote:

“Steve Jobs will return to work at Apple at the end of this month, it was confirmed today…”

According to The Times confirmation comes in the form of an Apple spokesman who said:

“We look forward to Steve returning to Apple at the end of June.”

Seem somewhat familiar?

Luckily The Daily Telegraph didn’t fall down quite so hard, but the sensationalist headline has something to be desired.

A report from the Wall Street Journal suggests that Apple may hold a special event to coincide with the return of Steve Jobs in late-June.

While Mr. Jobs has been on sick leave, some Apple directors have gotten weekly updates about his medical condition from the CEO’s physician, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Jobs’s recovery “is coming along” and he is on schedule to return to work later this month, said this person, who has seen Mr. Jobs in recent weeks.

WSJ cites sources who have ties to Apple senior management who told them that the company is trying to co-ordinate Jobs’ return with a product launch.

Much of the buzz appears to be conjecture of the type that has swirled around Apple and Mr. Jobs for years. But two people who do business with Apple said senior Apple managers have told them the company is now trying to coordinate Mr. Jobs’s return with a product launch or public event.

The article does not cite when the event would be or what product would be launched alongside Jobs’ return.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recently had a chance to talk with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Wozniak commented from the “All Things D” hosted by the Wall Street Journal saying that Jobs sounded “healthy” and “energetic”.

Wozniak said that Jobs “doesn’t sound like he’s sick,” but didn’t ask directly how his health was.

Steve Jobs began a six month long break as Apple CEO in January to recuperate. Jobs is said to be returning to Apple in late-June.

On Tuesday evening Steve Jobs was due to attend a Woodside town council meeting to put forward the case to have a 30-room mansion demolished. More details and history can be seen in this article.

Of interest from last nights meeting was the lack of Jobs’ attendance, “I don’t think he would be strong enough if we were here until 1 a.m., and I think there’s a strong possibility of that,” said Howard Ellman, Jobs’ attorney.

As journalists are not officially allowed to enter the shareholders meeting and attendees are not permitted to have communication devices details of the meeting often trickle through several hours after the close of the meeting.

According to a detailed account by Prince McLean both a shareholder and blogger for AppleInsider the meeting was dominated by politics but also gave way to a happy birthday rendition and some questions for the executive team.

Both McLean and the Associated Press are reporting that Tim Cook fielded a question on Steve Jobs’ plans in which Cook assured investors, and shareholders that Steve Jobs plans to return to the company in June.

The investor had pressed for details about when the board of directors knew Jobs planned to step away from his daily duties. Apple director Arthur Levinson responded only by saying that since Jobs announced Jan. 14 that he needed to go on leave, “nothing has changed.”

Also despite the ban on communication devices some members of the Investor Village’s AAPL Sanity board posted a live blog from the event.

Here’s what they filed (all times EST):

12:04 Cheddarmuff: Just waiting to go in to the meeting. Hanging out with idannyb in the hall. Another solid apple shareholder.

No sign of Goldman yet… more to come later.

12:21 idannyb: Cheddarmuff and I are in the meeting now … Music playing and shareholders filing in. Reuters cornered us to ask a few questions. Apple rep tried to give the reporter the bums rush.

12:46 Cheddarmuff: They separated the media from the shareholders. Not sure who we will and won’t see at this point.

Agenda

1 welcome and intro’s
2 admin (quorum, etc)
3 present board nominees
4 stmts to shareholders and presentation of shareholder proposals
5 other
6 vote
7 q and a

Mgmt team just came in. Phil, johnny, tim

Gore is here.

12:51 Cheddarmuff: Andrea Jung from Avon is here

Looks like most of the mgmt team is here (no Steve of course).

About to begin.

12:54 idannyb: The BOD have taken seats
Gore and Andre Jung (Avon) + full Apple ex mgmt team (sans SJ) -TC, PO, jonny Ive, Ron J., Phil S.
TC….
Starting intros

12:54 Cheddarmuff: Tim talking

Dan cooperman general counsel.

Whole board is here. Tim said no jobs due to medical leave.

1:05 Cheddarmuff: “I am not a crook ” Shelton is not a fan of al gore. Already some drama and comedy (cracking jokes about this being like the academy awards…board election)

1:08 idannyb: Environmental activist now railing about Apple environmental sustainability. Calling out Gore

1:10 Cheddarmuff: Talking about political spending proposal. UAW rep talking

Hp, dell are better than apple at disclosing information.

1:21 Cheddarmuff: Starting to interesting…I like Sheldon, keeps it interesting. Just called the people proposing socialists.

Now talking about climate change.

There was one attempt to talk about jobs health that was shot down quick. Bet there will be more in the Q&A

1:23 idannyb: AFLCIO made a speech on universal health care … Tried to bring up SJ health. Cooperman cut him off
Another shareholder railed over “socialist” AFLCIO… Used profanity and then left the mtg.

Another environment activist took tv mike blasted Gore… Wants AAPL to get greener

1:32 Cheddarmuff: About to move toward q and a. Should be interesting.

1:40 idannyb: Proxy stuff over
TC PO and DC now on stage
Apple has increase rev 4xs in 4 yrs
$8 billio to $32 billion… Income growth even better
Mac and iPod share growing
iPhone 13.7 million iphone’s in 2008
Macbooks very green
iTunes team sold more of something than Walmart
iPhone in 70 countries
App Store success is staggering
Retail opened a store per week
Best experience
Top notebook provider to education in US
T Cook is on a roll!

1:44 idannyb: AFLCIO hitting hard on SJ health
Art Levenson responding.. Nothing new disclosed
We have met all disclosure

1:46 Cheddarmuff: First question about disclosure of Jobs health quoting 10b-5 rules. Saying company should correct bad data

Arthur levinsom responding…jobs still involved. Succession plan has regularly discussed. No disclosure about health or plan.

Next person is complimenting company for beautiful products. Wishes Steve well. Singing happy birthhday to Steve..EVERYONE singing.

[1:51 Reuters is reporting that the shareholders voted to re-elect the company's slate of directors and voted down several shareholder-sponsored resolutions regarding executive pay, sustainability and healthcare reform. (link)]

1:52 Cheddarmuff: Next person asking why there isn’t more diversity in exec team.

Tim- we take diversity very seriously.

Next person… Long preamble and complaining that apple is getting out of macworld.

Tim- I have very fond memories of Macworld. Where we are now with retail investment blows macworld out of the water. Also we can announce press conferences whenever we want now which is better for the company.

1:57 idannyb: TC responding to “keep macworld” speech… Spoke eloquently about Apple stores, Apple reaching so many customer and platform build of iphone and app store

1:59 idannyb: Far more responses being delivered by BOD members

2:04 idannyb: Too many soap box agenda driven questions this year…
No core shareholder vaule Qs
Tempted to grab a mic but mtg winding down

2:22 Cheddarmuff: Meeting over. I got to talk with Tim Cook after the meeting…a very nice guy. We overheard a discussion with Peter as well.

Got to talk with Jim Goldman on the way out. Nice guy.

# # #

On Wednesday February 25th 2009 Apple will hold its annual shareholders meeting and CEO Steve Jobs will not be attending for the first time in more than ten years.

As Bloomberg reports the meeting will give shareholders a chance to question Apple executives and directors on the state of Apple and most likely Steve Jobs’ health.

Steve Jobs has been on medical leave from Apple since mid-January and is set to return to the company in June.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission is planning to review Apple’s disclosures about Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs’s health problems to ensure investors weren’t misled.

Bloomberg adds that the SEC investigation doesn’t mean investigators have seen any wrongdoing.

To bring any case, the SEC would probably have to show the company tried to benefit by withholding information about an unambiguous diagnosis, said Peter Henning, a former federal prosecutor and SEC lawyer who now teaches at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.

“It would be difficult, and certainly a new area of the law,” Henning said. “You would have to pin down exactly what they knew, and with a health issue — unlike a merger or a decline in revenue — it’s not subject to definitive answers.”

“The company has used him and made him a public figure to increase the value of Apple,” said John Dienhart, who holds the Frank Shrontz Chair for Professional Ethics at Seattle University. “If you take the good from that, then you have to take the bad.”

After announcing record breaking revenue in the first fiscal quarter of 2009, Peter Oppeinheimer and Tim Cook held a conference call with analysts and members of the media to answer any queries.

During the call which will be available for replay shortly the two senior executives fielded questions on most subjects.

Netbooks

When asked about a netbook priced at around $500, Cook answered, “We’re watching that space, but right now from our point of view, the products in there are principally based on hardware that’s much less powerful than we think customers want, software technology that is not good, cramped keyboards, small displays.”

Adding, “We don’t think people will be pleased with those products. It’s a category we watch, we’ve got some ideas here, but right now we think the products are inferior and will not provide an experience to customers they’re happy with.”

Apple TV

During the call and in it’s results Apple declined to give specific numbers of how many Apple TV units it had shipped but Tim Cook did disclose that sales were up 300% year-over-year. Apple still considers Apple TV a hobby but Cook said, “We will continue to invest in it because we fundamentally believe there’s something there in the future.”

Steve Jobs

The question was inevitable and Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes couldn’t help himself and asked straight up how Jobs was doing. Naturally Oppenheimer repeated the current Apple mantra, “Steve is the CEO of Apple and intends to be involved in major strategic decisions”.

Cook added that Apple has a strong executive team in charge of 35,000 employees who he described as “wicked smart”. Cook went onto explain that the values of Apple are “extremely well-entrenched,”

“And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and the self-honesty to admit where we’re wrong. And I think regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well. I would just reiterate that Apple is doing the best work in its history,” said Cook.

iPhone nano

In response to a question on iPhone pricing Apple COO Tim Cook replied, “We are now in over 70 countries with the iPhone and you’re correct, some of them are non-subsidized markets. Examples are, the largest is in terms of size of the market, our sales are clearly materially less in those markets than they are in the subsidized markets with contracts. We are constantly evaluating the best way to play in these markets. We know there’s a huge opportunity here, and we will make adjustments in the future there to play in a better way.”

Cook went onto talk about speculation around the iPhone nano saying, “You know us, we’re not going to play in the low-end voice phone business. That’s not who we are. That’s not why we’re here. We’ll let somebody do that, our goal is not to be the unit share leader in the phone industry. It is to build the best phone.”

Many will recall that this is not the first time that Apple Chief Operating Officer has stepped in while CEO Steve Jobs dealt with a medical condition.

Back in 2004 Cook ran the shop for just over one month while Steve Jobs recovered from surgery that removed a malignant tumour from his pancreas. At the time Apple’s stock also suffered in a similar way to how it has today dropping 2.3% on August 2, 2004 the day following Steve Jobs email from his hospital bed. By September 1, 2004 AAPL was back at $35.86 or a 10.9% gain since early August.

The differences between Apple now and Apple then are fairly stark, in July 2004 the company reported earnings of $61 million on sales of $2.014 billion. Apple had around $5 billion in the bank.

In Apple’s last quarterly statement (the next is due on January 21) the company announced $1.14 billion on sales of $7.9 billion, with nearly $25 billion in cash.

Tim Cook was given the title of Chief Operating Officer in 2005 and oversees Apple’s supply chains, sales, and support services as well as the company’s Mac division.

In 2006 the Wall Street Journal profiled Cook describing him as a “low-key operator” who fixed Apple’s serious manufacturing and inventory issues in the late 90’s. Cook is also said to have a reputation for detail.

Fortune also published an extensive profile of Cook in late 2008 after months of speculation about Jobs’ health, the article was aptly titled “The genius behind Steve”.

Image courtesy of Flickr user lemagit.

The New York Times is reporting that two people familiar with Steve Jobs health issues have confirmed that he is not suffering a reoccurrence of cancer.

According to the sources Steve Jobs is suffering from a condition which prevents his body from absorbing food, doctors have advised him to cut down on stress.

Steve Jobs announced via an email to employees yesterday that he will be taking a sideline at Apple until the end of June, in the mean time COO Tim Cook will take the reins.