Board expecting miracles?
This whole questioning Tim is really the bane of success. The more successful you are, the more demanding shareholders, and by extension, the board, become. When you're a relatively small company, doing well, everybody is happy. Then when you start growing, and become really successful, any hiccup, even if only temporary, is enough to question if the sky is falling, and a call for heads to roll. My sense of what may be happening here.
While he may not have the vision of Steve, Tim is, and has been, a great CEO, doing an excellent job of running an almost impossible company to oversee. To wit: The relentless pressures of staying at the top; securing of supply lines into the future; research; innovation; acquiring the right companies to further your future goals; protection of IP; keeping a lid on products under development, so as not to tip off the competition; staying abreast of different legal requirements in different markets; holding on to top talent; mediating personality conflicts at the highest level; motivating and inspiring a workforce of almost 73,000, and setting an impeccable personal example to said workforce; endless lawsuits; environmental policies; being 'green' in everything from manufacturing facilities, new buildings, as well as all consumables used on a daily basis; constant governmental scrutiny; constant criticism of worker abuses going on at APPLE's manufacturing partners; stock market performance; having an innate sense of which direction to go in, tech wise; product decisions; market timing; and I could go on and on. This is a labor of love and a 24/7 job to be sure, 9to5ers need not apply.
I can not see anybody on the horizon, at the moment, who could do a better job running APPLE. If a great visionary popped out of nowhere, and became the new CEO, that would be no automatic guarantee, that he/she wouldn't run the company slowly into the ground. It takes more than vision alone, to run the world's foremost technology company profitably and efficiently.
Until this new 'Superman/woman' comes along, Tim who was after all handpicked and 'groomed' by Steve himself to be his successor, has my undivided support.
