2011-08-24

Resignation of the Jobs

If you look at the headlines of myriad technology news sources, you'll see that Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple. But he's not leaving Apple; he's going to become Chairman of the Board, with Tim Cook replacing him as CEO. It's basically the same thing that Bill Gates did at Microsoft many years ago, with Steve Ballmer replacing him as CEO, though this time, Steve Jobs did it because of his failing health making him unable to keep up with all the duties of being CEO.
Given that Tim Cook has had large responsibilities in the past in the affairs of Apple, I don't think this will significantly change anything. I don't know exactly what Jobs's new responsibilities will be, but I feel like he will still be able to exert a whole lot of influence over the company's direction even in his new position. And even though I strongly dislike many of the things Apple has done and moves it has made, especially with regard to the ridiculously proprietary and litigious business models it has made for itself of late, I really have to congratulate Jobs for turning the company around with his vision a few years after his return to Apple after his first ouster. Thanks to him, the Apple iPod (and its descendants) became more than ubiquitous, and the desktop OS landscape changed from essentially "Microsoft Windows versus nothing" to "Microsoft Windows versus Apple's Mac OS X"; plus, while the official counts show Linux's market share has essentially stagnated around 2%, the market share of Apple's Mac OS X has only grown and grown. So bravo Mr. Jobs on all the success Apple has had so far, and good luck and good health in your new position.
(Note: half of me felt the need to write this, while the other half of me still feels like Apple doesn't deserve quite as much media attention as it gets, and feels like I'm only feeding that frenzy. Oh well.)