Not according to Fortune.com
That balance sheet is a potent strategic weapon: It allows Cook to lock in suppliers and club competitors. In 2005, Apple introduced a new iPod, the Nano, a music player that was revolutionary because it used far more flash memory than existing products on the market. Cook’s team accurately predicted tremendous demand for the Nano, and prepaid $1.25 billion to suppliers like Samsung and Hynix to effectively corner the market through 2010 on a specific kind of memory. “That’s the sort of thing they wouldn’t have thought of in the days before Tim Cook,” says Kevin O’Marah, chief strategist at the Boston consulting firm AMR Research, which specializes in supply-chain analysis. The memory purchase also shows that Apple’s operations strategy isn’t only about cost cutting. “Way too much of the supply-chain world has been about taking the last cent out,” says Blake Johnson, a consulting assistant professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, who has deep contacts in Apple’s operations group. “Apple doesn’t do that.”
Not saying Jon didn't have a role in the iPod, but Tim Cook was leading the team.
Tim Cook is the supply chain genius. My guess is his role was active in this as it has been for 20 years at Apple.
