Apple’s latest quarterly earnings beat pretty much every goal you could possibly imagine, in what are still very tough economic times. CNBC’s “Mad Money” star Jim Cramer proclaimed: “With or without Steve Jobs, Apple’s taking over the world.”
It’s hard to admit this, but I agree with Cramer. You could not have passed a TV set, radio or Internet news site this week without seeing reports of Jobs’ medical leave. Apparently respecting Jobs’ wishes to keep it a private matter, analysts during Tuesday’s quarterly conference call said nary a word about Jobs’ health. The closest they got was a question from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who acknowledged he wasn’t fishing for a future product road map but trying to get a sense of how far Apple plans into the future, like one year or five years?
So, should financial analysts have been more prying about Jobs’ health status? The debate resumes over how much a CEO of a company like Apple should be required to reveal. The last time this came up with Jobs, I remember thinking that yeah, he should be up front about what’s going on. But that was when he initially thought it was some kind of hormone imbalance that turned out to be far more serious. This time around, people are aware of his liver transplant – he even mentioned it at one of his public appearances last year – and now he should be left alone to deal with whatever. I’m as curious as anyone and I’ll be listening if he does decide to say something, but until that time, I say leave him alone.
Of course, it’s easy for me to say that because I don’t own stock in Apple. The question for those investors who do goes to how much they believe Apple equals Steve Jobs, who, in many consumers’ opinions, is the tech equivalent of a rock star. Not to diminish anything about Steve – even when I don’t always agree with what he says, he’s a “fantastical” persona in what’s otherwise a rather bland corporate tech-speak world. I think he uses the word “magic” way too often, but hey, OK, here we go: He does have a certain “magic” about him.
Apple has sold more than 160 million iOS devices, and it’s built an ecosystem that is so far untouched by anyone else out there. It’s in 90 countries with the iPhone and adding more every day for the iPad. If growth in Mac sales is any indication, this idea of people buying an iPhone and then considering or actually buying another Apple device seems to be working. So, it’s firing on all cylinders, but it’s still got that nagging, and frankly real tiresome, problem of not being able to sell even more iPhones because the supply is not keeping up with demand. It’s got to fix that, and while I’m sure Jobs would bring his clout to any negotiations with suppliers, he’s got people to do that for him. Apple is not just Steve Jobs. He built what it is today and he’s a notorious micro manager, but if his execs really need to talk to him, I’m sure he’s just a phone call away.
