Apple COO Tim Cook Speaks at Goldman Sachs Conference

[oldwatery]

It was a Q&A session, if no one in interested in the status quo (and why would they be) why would anyone bring it up?

Fair comment on the face of it.
But I don't believe that one of the crookedest companies on the planet and the most controlling and secretive one could ever have an honest and open Q&A session.

This was a PR exercise and Apple answered the questions they wanted asked.

I believe that what was not said is probably more important than what was. Apple TV questions? Yeh, really interesting!
Assuming this session was arranged to help investors learn about the company and it's future plans. The fact that not one question was asked of Apple's core business, computers, demonstrates to me that it was either staged or pointless.

 

[oldwatery]

True, but that meeting at Goldman was not the time and the place to ask about a refresh for hardware. You don't ask the CEO of Ferrari when a new engine for the F40 comes out when he is invited to talk about the strategic direction of his company. It's about profit, and at the moment most potential for fast growth is mainly in Apple's product categories that are in the development stage. Hence the iPad, iPhone and ATV questions (although I was surprised at the ATV question myself).

While I agree with the specific point regarding model refresh questions I disagree with you in general.
Are you saying that a general question concerning the core business of a company is not valid in this context?
As far as I was aware Apple still regard themselves as makers of computers. This meeting suggests to me that their strategic direction no longer supports that concept.

 

[DI2E/\MWEA\/EI2]

Hubris

The whole thing about having excessive hubris is a complete lie. Sina Tammadon, one of the executive vice presidents retired because the people at apple had lost their old ways, and had become a cutthroat mainstream company. He was the last employee except for Steve Jobs who was from Next. Apple has lost one of their best.

 

[peterdevries]

While I agree with the specific point regarding model refresh questions I disagree with you in general.
Are you saying that a general question concerning the core business of a company is not valid in this context?
As far as I was aware Apple still regard themselves as makers of computers. This meeting suggests to me that their strategic direction no longer supports that concept.

True, but a valid question would be the following:

GS: where do you see your core business of premium laptops and desktops going in the next year? How does this equate to the consumer electronics part of your business that is increasingly gaining momentum and market share in your business.

In a meeting that is about investment and strategic direction you don't ask about product refreshes.. If you do, your boss will kick you out at the next opportunity.

I don't agree with your last sentence. A large part of Apple's revenue is still their computer line and this will not change. In addition most if not all other products are in one way or another dependent on this line of computers. The halo effect is definitely still very powerful. I started out with a 3rd gen iPod and now I have own several apple products. Just look at those ridiculous signatures of many people on this board that like to show how much stuff they have. All of them started out with one Apple product...

Apple is very fast moving into the consumer electronics and content consumption business (music, software, books, movies etc..). With the introduction of the iPad there is another strategic move into this direction. There is definitely a fork in the road concerning apple's strategy, one being the core computing business, the other the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV business, but these two roads have many connections whose effect is that the strategy of one part of the business enforces the strategy of the other.

I joined this board when the 1st Gen. iPhone was just introduced. The board at that time was already overflowing with people that were only interested in the iPhone, and many people that were interested also in Macbooks, the unupdated mini etc were very annoyed at that. This will only get more when the iPad is introduced. many people will come here to discuss the iPad, and most likely they will drown out the information about Macbooks etc. because for many people this is just not sexy news (I agree this is a pity though). Sexy news is whether the 2nd gen iPad will have a camera or suppport flash, or the next iPhone will have a front facing camera.

The whole update cycle of apple will only reinforce this trend.

iPhone and iPad update time is somewhere in march-april. After that the fuss about iPod touches and other ipods starts for september. Then we start with iPads and iPhones again. The neverending story. In the mean time the iMacs, Macbooks etc will be quietly updated and once every three years apple will devote an event to the deletion of a firewire port or the introduction of a magnetic latch.

So, I see the general direction of this board going the same way as the general news direction: more towards the iPod, iPad, iPhone direction.. Maybe someone should start a new site that is dedicated to the other part of Apple's business.

 

[dru`]

I would have picked one up if it wasn't tied to iTunes.

In what sense it is "tied" to iTunes? Can't you rip your own dvds and shows to an TV compatible format, drop into iTunes and go? It's not a Tivo but...

Clearly it's just a HOBBY because they have a sense there's a use case for such a product but aren't as sure about the market. There's a lot of weird stuff going on related to TV... HD, DVD, BluRay, streaming, some have YouTube... could you eventually run iPhone OS apps (gaming?) on your TV? Maybe. Or not.

 

[Winni]

I believe Apple sees the problem in Intel demanding its own CPUs and chipsets operate exclusively together. With Intel, it showed its true colors when it kicked Nvidia out of the GPU/chipset market with Nehalem CPUs.

Since there has been some talk about irony in this thread... Isn't it ironic that the most anti-competitive company on the planet, Apple, could be concerned about the anti-competitive behavior of one of their business partners, Intel?

"Isn't that ironic, don't you think?"

 

[Cave Man]

The NVidia 7300 in the ATV is capable of 1080p, but you would really be pushing the hardware. A more serious limitation is the 256 mb of RAM in the ATV, which is pretty much bare minimum for 10.4 (the ATV's OS). The cpu cannot do the decoding, that's for sure. I tried it with a 9 mbps (not good quality) 1080p file resident on my ATV's hard drive with XBMC and it couldn't handle it.

It has the hardware for 1080p (2048x1536 at 85Hz), but that would require the software passing it to the Go 7300, and the video would have to be encoded in h.264, MPEG-2 or WMV. But since no one's ever seen the 7300 in action with this it's really difficult to say if it's functional in practice.

Right now, the best bet for 1080p on the ATV is to use XBMC with the Broadcom Mini-PCIe video card.

 

[Evangelion]

And not one question about MacBook Pro's. . . How ironic.

And what should they ask exactly? "when will you announce new MacBook pro's?": You do realize that those questions always get the same answer: "we do not talk about unannnounced products".

Asking something as stupid as that is a waste of time.

 

[Evangelion]

Oh reeeeaaalllly… iPhone is still the the only one-carrier-exclusive phone in Finland . The first and only ever so far…

Finland is not part of Scandinavia.

 

[qtx43]

Since there has been some talk about irony in this thread... Isn't it ironic that the most anti-competitive company on the planet, Apple, could be concerned about the anti-competitive behavior of one of their business partners, Intel?

"Isn't that ironic, don't you think?"

Irony noun
1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: Apple's anti-competitive success in the market annoys some.

 

[IlluminatedSage]

Tim Cook, who took over when Steve Jobs had his health care time off, was responsible for doing what he did at Compaq. Don't believe the hype, he is very much an IBM/Compaq type of guy. Tim cut costs at Apple, started to re-arrange Apple Retail and Corp sales. all to cut costs and do things that put the customer relationship in a poorer place for Apple. He literally gave retail the agenda to cut staffing costs. So they actually have a bit less talented people working there for less. His idea of quality staffing was cheaper Apple Store staff. hence a less intelligent staff, younger staff and such.

Tim, just isn't the visionary Steve is. When Steve came back from his time off, he tried a bit to rectify the work Tim did while he was away. But... Apple is a changing company now. Hard to see the customer being listened too these days.

Apple is solely about bottom line and squeezing the most $$ out of each customer relationship. from across their product line and their related stores. ie, itunes. Also the Tim Cook mentality is creeping into places like the App Store. where Apple is increasingly censoring programs from consumers.

I guess i worry about the future, when Apple may have a online store for software for Macs, will they continue the censorship?

Apple is a great company, but its continuing to lose its way. how?
1- Censorship in App Store
2- No Blu-Ray allowed for Macs, all to push itunes movies downloads.
3- Apple Retail is turning Style over substance. more bigger/cool stores, lower cost staffing being swapped out for higher salary/quality staff.
4- less product innovation and options, in order to cut costs and have higher profit margin on different computers.

yes, in Tim Cook's Apple, some innovation happens, but that is likely due to Jonathan Ives, not Tim. and even Ives needs to get bigger vision sometimes. It is the old PC people like Cook who bring the old Microsoft way into Apple.

oh well, i'm crossing my fingers that Apple changes its way and starts to listen to its customers more for what they want

1- Blu-Ray (for movies and storage)
2- Mythical Midrange Mac. more power and upgradeability than iMac, almost as much power but less than a Mac Pro.
3- stop censorship. let different App's get sold and made for iphone, ipod, etc. there needs to be a way for Apple to stop the censoring, make more money and... keep people out of programs that offend their sensibility.
4- offer more options on iphone, swappable batteries, real keyboard, better camera and flash. with micro SD data expandability.
5- censoring Flash from their ipad/iphone/ipod?? heck no, let consumer decide.
6- restricting iphone to ATT wireless in usa no more- let others sell it, especially t-mobile, which is also GSM

 

[theheadguy]

...Apple is solely about bottom line and squeezing the most $$ out of each customer relationship. from across their product line and their related stores. ie, itunes. Also the Tim Cook mentality is creeping into places like the App Store. where Apple is increasingly censoring programs from consumers....

+100

For space, I cut your post down to a single paragraph; but make no mistake, your entire post was relevant and well thought out.

What is frustrating here is that many people don't remember what Apple was, and what they truly cared about. Luckily, some people here do.

I agree with you, Apple changed in the short time Tim was running things, and the change continues today. I believe his time as CEO was a period of rapid acceleration in the direction he wants it to go, but the true direction change started several years earlier.

When I was working at Apple corporate in 2002, major changes were discussed in the way were going to do business. I remember many things, but one statement of an executive sticks out... "It takes a long time to turn a ship." I remember thinking to myself... wait a minute, are we not already heading in a great direction? Mind you, this was before iPods with color screens. I think that $$ signs were seen by many, including Cook.

At the same time, a fraction of our tech support was being sent to India. If you had come to the forums here at that very time, people were jumping up and down about how glad they were that Apple didn't do this. But they did do it, people here just had no clue.

Even with rapid success, some employee morale was on the decline for complex reasons. Again, if you visited these boards, people thought Apple employees were on lithium and were all at their dream jobs. But really, it's a bit more complex than that.

It was during this time that I wondered what role Cook had in all of this; and if he was responsible for style over substance. It was also around this time that Nike was taking major heat for their deplorable sweatshop conditions. I realized that our COO was on their board of directors. After a massive amount of negative publicity, they started to try to improve the conditions with inspections and so forth.

Sound familar?

I'm sure the fanboys will try to eat these facts alive, but hopefully they've moved on to the newest news of the day.

My point is... it's sad to see Apple become 'just another company'. As you said, Tim Cook does not actually care about the products or the fans. It's always been about the bottom dollar, and Apple has been very open about that internally. He just says otherwise to keep the massive ego filled to the top and keep negative publicity off his back.

---

Edit: I should make note that I think Apple has some extraordinarily talented people. I don't think Apple is 'doomed', but I think they have some major course correction to do before they really get back to their core values.

 

[Eric S.]

What is frustrating here is that many people don't remember what Apple was, and what they truly cared about. Luckily, some people here do.

And for those of us who do remember, the frustrating thing is that we do remember.

 

[IlluminatedSage]

+100

I agree with you, Apple changed in the short time Tim was running things, and the change continues today. I believe his time as CEO was a period of rapid acceleration in the direction he wants it to go, but the true direction change started several years earlier.

It was during this time that I wondered what role Cook had in all of this; and if he was responsible for style over substance. It was also around this time that Nike was taking major heat for their deplorable sweatshop conditions. I realized that our COO was on their board of directors. After a massive amount of negative publicity, they started to try to improve the conditions with inspections and so forth.

Sound familar?

My point is... it's sad to see Apple become 'just another company'. As you said, Tim Cook does not actually care about the products or the fans. It's always been about the bottom dollar, and Apple has been very open about that internally. He just says otherwise to keep the massive ego filled to the top and keep negative publicity off his back.

Edit: I should make note that I think Apple has some extraordinarily talented people. I don't think Apple is 'doomed', but I think they have some major course correction to do before they really get back to their core values.

I agree and understand 100%. it's sad to see Apple's corporate culture shift over the past few years. but it isn't without the ability to change. They just first have to realize they have a problem. and the grumbling at places here like MacRumors will spill over to mainstream media soon enough.

Unfortunately, we are an early warning barometer to Apple. While their bottom line is certainly growing, they do need to become a larger company to

1- offer more creative and open options to consumers
2- offer more diverse computer product line. the current lineup has some holes in it, ie midrange mac without monitor.
3- allow competing technology and software on more of their products. Blocking Blu-Ray and stop telling the media that the single best computer company at licensing can't license Blu-Ray? Oh Please.

oh well... i love the computers, love many people at Apple, i have worked with them. Problem is they are understaffed also, so... while the billions pile up. They really could use more people to help run the ship, maybe then they will actually pay attention to things like this. or maybe a big article in businessweek or time magazine which points to all of this.

 

[Evangelion]

And for those of us who do remember, the frustrating thing is that we do remember.

So what was Apple back then? Rehashed technology ("Macintosh+ turbo with color") with high price-tags? Confusing product-lines? CEO's that did their best to run the company to the ground?

Fact is that Apple is now shipping best products it has ever shipped in decades.

Then we have the clueless parroting the usual demands. "give us replaceable batteries! release the xMac! Make Apple's products more like some generic OEM-computers!". It's a good thing you guys are not running Apple. Yeah yeah, your demands sound reasonable, but every one of them has drawbacks that Apple is not willing to make.

Lets take iPhone and replaceable batteries. It would mean making the device more complicated mechanically. It would increase the chance of failure (Droid-users had to resort to taping their battery-covers shut since it kept on popping off). It would mean making the device bigger, since replaceable batteries and connectors waste space. And what benefit would you get? Well, you could replace the battery. And how many here carried spare batteries with you when you used a phone with replaceable batteries? None of you? That's what I thought.... So Apple should compromise the design of the iPhone just to satisfy a need for useless paper-spec that no-one would use.

Replaceable batteries are a means to an end, not end of means. The goal is to get better battery-life. And you have other means of achieving that both on the Mac and on the iPhone. You do not need replaceable batteries for that.

And rest of your demands are equally clueless.

 

[alent1234]

+100

For space, I cut your post down to a single paragraph; but make no mistake, your entire post was relevant and well thought out.

What is frustrating here is that many people don't remember what Apple was, and what they truly cared about. Luckily, some people here do.

I agree with you, Apple changed in the short time Tim was running things, and the change continues today. I believe his time as CEO was a period of rapid acceleration in the direction he wants it to go, but the true direction change started several years earlier.

When I was working at Apple corporate in 2002, major changes were discussed in the way were going to do business. I remember many things, but one statement of an executive sticks out... "It takes a long time to turn a ship." I remember thinking to myself... wait a minute, are we not already heading in a great direction? Mind you, this was before iPods with color screens. I think that $$ signs were seen by many, including Cook.

At the same time, a fraction of our tech support was being sent to India. If you had come to the forums here at that very time, people were jumping up and down about how glad they were that Apple didn't do this. But they did do it, people here just had no clue.

Even with rapid success, some employee morale was on the decline for complex reasons. Again, if you visited these boards, people thought Apple employees were on lithium and were all at their dream jobs. But really, it's a bit more complex than that.

It was during this time that I wondered what role Cook had in all of this; and if he was responsible for style over substance. It was also around this time that Nike was taking major heat for their deplorable sweatshop conditions. I realized that our COO was on their board of directors. After a massive amount of negative publicity, they started to try to improve the conditions with inspections and so forth.

Sound familar?

I'm sure the fanboys will try to eat these facts alive, but hopefully they've moved on to the newest news of the day.

My point is... it's sad to see Apple become 'just another company'. As you said, Tim Cook does not actually care about the products or the fans. It's always been about the bottom dollar, and Apple has been very open about that internally. He just says otherwise to keep the massive ego filled to the top and keep negative publicity off his back.

---

Edit: I should make note that I think Apple has some extraordinarily talented people. I don't think Apple is 'doomed', but I think they have some major course correction to do before they really get back to their core values.

so Tim Cook is the real genius and SJ is the mouthpiece?

people talked bad about Carly Fiorina but she had the foresight to figure out that some markets were being commoditized and took steps to prepare the company. Dell/HP and Apple just took different strategies to compete in the new marketplace. i remember the days when Dell had profit margins of what apple has today. they didn't screw up, technology changed.

same with Apple. the chose the right strategy for computers and were ahead of the curve on mobile devices. don't like the iPad, but i think we'll see iphone OS on an apple branded TV and other devices in the coming years

 

[theheadguy]

so Tim Cook is the real genius and SJ is the mouthpiece?

How did you get that from what I wrote? Do you honestly think that is what I tried to convey or were you simply dumbing down my thoughts into a single sarcastic sentence?

 

[Eric S.]

So what was Apple back then? Rehashed technology ("Macintosh+ turbo with color") with high price-tags? Confusing product-lines? CEO's that did their best to run the company to the ground?

"Back then" Apple was clearly a better choice than the competition. Now it's not even a better choice than what I can build myself, and that's pretty sad considering my hardware competence.

Fact is that Apple is now shipping best products it has ever shipped in decades.

A fact that is absolutely meaningless, given the pace of technology advancement. The point is not what Apple shipped in the past but what it could be shipping today.

Yeah yeah, your demands sound reasonable, but every one of them has drawbacks that Apple is not willing to make.

I haven't noticed any "demands," only desires. Is it clueless to want the products and features we want, or is it clueless to blindly accept what Apple says is best for us?

 

[50548]

Goldman Sachs conference?

Is that where all the CEOs come and kiss Satan's ring?

Yep, exactly...ya know, Satan loves money.

Yep, some of us old heads were using micro computers in the mid seventies. Same stuff, different day. Back then, it wasn't Mac vs PC; it was Altair vs SWTP.

In the sixties, we had one of the first personal computers in our high school. It wasn't a PC; it wasn't even a mini computer. It was an LGP-21 (http://wps.com/projects/LGP-21/). Before that they had an LGP-30. The LGP-30 was more powerful, but it used vacuum tubes. The LGP-21 was transistorized, and cost one third as much. (Does anyone use the word "transistorized" any more? LOL! I see that the spell checker still recognizes it!)

In college, in 1969, we had the PDP-8 and the Internet. You haven't experienced the internet until you experience it at 300 baud.

At Sperry, we used a Varian 620i mini-computer in our collision avoidance system. When Motorola came out with the 6800 microprocessor, it had the same CPU architecture and instruction set as the Varian, AND it only cost $100.00. Some Motorola engineers formed Mostek and produced the slightly less powerful 6502 and sold it for $25.00. That was the processor Steve Wozniak chose for the Apple Computer.

Skip to today, my daughter's iPhone is more powerful than the iBook my daughter used in college, and her MPB is more powerful than my five year old mini-tower.

I am much younger (getting to my mid-30s) but remember fondly MY times of personal computers in the late 80s/mid 90s...Brazilian clones of the Apple //e (TK 3000//e), Sinciair ZX-81 and Spectrum (TK-85 and TK-90x), Amiga 500, Apple IIGS, then my first Mac (a Quadra 605) and so on...good times indeed, those of cassette tapes, floppies, green phosphor monitors, unregulated Internet, 2400 baud modems...I feel nostalgic now

 

[alent1234]

How did you get that from what I wrote? Do you honestly think that is what I tried to convey or were you simply dumbing down my thoughts into a single sarcastic sentence?

i've read some of these complaints for years about the old HP. the reality of the modern marketplace is that no one does pure research anymore except a few companies that can afford it. Microsoft is one. and starting with Clinton the government has tried to push a model where the universities do most of the research and license the patents to companies who concentrate on products

Sounds like Tim Cook realized it years ago. Most of the complaints i've read on the internet from people were those who had some project or other they worked on for years that was cool but never saw the light of day and never made money and was paid for by other products.

apple is another systems integrator today. most of the hardware is made in asia and they work with Foxconn. Apple's strength is in the software. the hardware is always changing and it doesn't matter who builds it