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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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eddy_cue_headshot-150x171.jpg
With Apple's management changes announced earlier this week, several current executives have seen expansions of their responsibilities. Among those is Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president for Internet Software and Services, who is seeing Siri and Maps added to his portfolio.

Cue's responsibilities have grown substantially throughout during his 23 years at Apple, from the company's online store to the iTunes Store to the App Store. More recently, Cue has added the iBookstore, iCloud, and iAd to his responsibilities, and just over a year ago he was promoted to the senior executive team.

CNET today published a profile of Cue, offering an interesting glimpse of the executive who has reportedly played a crucial role in holding Apple's content services together in a landscape that involves frequently contentious negotiations with third parties.
The 48-year-old Cuban-American played a major role in the creation of Apple's Web store, iTunes, and iPods. And as Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, he's kept the peace with key partners and helped fix product messes. Few people know that five years ago, he helped prevent the relationship between Apple and the large record companies from collapsing when the sides almost "went nuclear." When MobileMe, the division that oversaw Apple's Web services and software, appeared to run hopelessly off track, it was Cue who salvaged the operation and transformed it into iCloud.
The entire lengthy profile is a solid background on the challenges faced by Cue and how his calm temperament served as a bridge between Steve Jobs and media executives involved in negotiations.
"If you were going to be successful with Steve you couldn't compete for oxygen," [former Warner Music executive Paul] Vidich said. "You had to allow him to be him and shine in the greater glory that Steve sought for himself, and Eddy had this calm demeanor. He never said: 'Hey look at me,' to anyone. He just did a great job."

"Eddy doesn't care about those other guys, the flashy executives who want the spotlight," said an executive who has negotiated with Cue. "He's the kind of person who is happy to be in the engine room making sure that everything is clicking along."
Cue certainly remains busy, not only maintaining the ever-increasing stable of licensing agreements with content providers across music, movies, books, and more, but also taking on the more recent challenges of building out iCloud and now fixing Siri and Maps.

Article Link: Apple's 'Master Negotiator and Product Resuscitator' Eddy Cue Profiled
 

Junipr

macrumors regular
May 4, 2011
170
712
You might say Eddy forstalled the collapsed between Apple and music corps with an approach that was on cue.. :sorry:
 

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
1,463
Washington DC
I never knew much about Cue which I took as a sign that he was a good guy. No news is good news for this kind of thing.

Looks like that was the actual case.
 

east85

macrumors 65816
Jun 24, 2010
1,343
495
r39v2.jpg


A photo with Rupert Murdoch usually makes people look like corporate slime,
but not Eddy!
 

numlock

macrumors 68000
Mar 13, 2006
1,590
88
am i missing how transforming mobileme into icloud (as it is now) is some work of genius?
 

highdough

macrumors regular
Sep 10, 2008
192
64
Kind of off topic, but I've never understood the hyphenation of people whose parents are from "ethnic" countries. Nobody is ever described as a British-American. Or even an Australian-American.
 

krravi

macrumors 65816
Nov 30, 2010
1,173
0
am i missing how transforming mobileme into icloud (as it is now) is some work of genius?

It isn't to someone who just logs in to iCloud. But it is, to all the people behind the scenes that made it happen.
 

Popeye206

macrumors 68040
Sep 6, 2007
3,148
836
NE PA USA
It will be interesting to see the fruits of these changes.... It seems as though Tim Cook is not happy with some of the recent mistakes and how the changes on the retail side have affected the customer experience and the employee morale.

I think these changes overall will be good for Apple.
 

east85

macrumors 65816
Jun 24, 2010
1,343
495
am i missing how transforming mobileme into icloud (as it is now) is some work of genius?

The company didn't fall behind the curb and managed to implement a cloud that was more useful for the average person and geared towards convenience. Just look at how iOS and OS X have integrated the cloud to make your life that much easier. Whether that's genius to you or not, that's your own call. I'm pretty impressed personally.
 

WestonHarvey1

macrumors 68030
Jan 9, 2007
2,771
2,187
It isn't to someone who just logs in to iCloud. But it is, to all the people behind the scenes that made it happen.

A better title for MobileMe was "Contacts and Calendar Database Ruiner". Even when it worked correctly it didn't offer much of a value proposition to customers.

iCloud, besides fixing the problems MobileMe had, is now central to the OS X and iOS experience. The way you can bootstrap an iPad or iPhone or new Mac right out of the box just by entering your email address is a great leap forward.

Documents in the cloud and key/value storage for app developers is also great.
 
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