Larry Ellison Hints at Bleak Future For Apple Without Steve Jobs

[ThunderSkunk]

God I hate this dithering. There's no excuse for it. With 1000x the money of other highly innovative industries combined, and hundreds of thousands of the smartest designers and engineers around, you're telling me there's NO ONE else with the grand vision & passion & dedication to lead that ship into the future? Not possible.

In every industry I've worked in, including computer mfg, there have been standout guys like SJ in every department, and they are largely ignored or barely tolerated. ...product guys with the big picture vision that can see the future and figure out how to get there, yet have no power, because shortsighted management or marketing shlubs make the decisions. That's what made SJ the success he was, he was the 1 in a millionth "dreamer with a plan" that just happened to have held on to the crazy train long enough to find himself in the seat of power to actually make those dreams happen. That 1 in a million doesn't mean no one else can do it, it means they need to be allowed to do it.

All Apple has to do is not be afraid to line up behind their creative people.

 

[DanCorleone]

Evaluate Tim Cook's performance based on the facts that we have. 1) Does put anti-glare dispalys in the iMac, but then goes for that new technique in fusing the glass to the housing (or whatever) and the result is production problems causing delays in getting the product to market, and then the displays are too color vibrant for me, too hard to look at for extended periods. And the 21.5" RAM can't be user upgraded? Poor design!! 2) 2012 Mac Mini uses Intel HD graphics 4000 which in that generation are unsatisfactory (not against Intel HD graphics, especially the 5000 in the new Air looks good, but just saying that the 2011 Mac Mini had a better graphics subsystem even if limited to 256 MB of very fast discrete VRAM) 3) No real Mac Pro update since 2010 (all they had to do was release one with Thunderbolt please with $170 billion can't they afford this?) and when they finally announce one, it is this redesign and we are still waiting for it! And it only has 4 RAM slots so apparently is limited to 64 GB of RAM for the next year or two at least. 4) >4" screen iPhone is probably NOT coming out this year, which is NOT SATISFACTORY. 5) No 7" tablet. Conclusion: Tim Cook has done some good things such as the iPad mini but he appears to be a perfectionist who is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and he is not filling the product niches. As for really innovative entirely new product lines, well I'm willing to give him another two to three years for that. Real innovation happens when a variety of factors converge. It was 6 years between the iPod and the iPhone, then 3 before the iPad. But he might be gone before then if he doesn't stop taking too long to get new products out and then they are disappointing.

 

[haruhiko]

God I hate this dithering. There's no excuse for it. With 1000x the money of other highly innovative industries combined, and hundreds of thousands of the smartest designers and engineers around, you're telling me there's NO ONE else with the grand vision & passion & dedication to lead that ship into the future? Not possible.

In every industry I've worked in, including computer mfg, there have been standout guys like SJ in every department, and they are largely ignored or barely tolerated. ...product guys with the big picture vision that can see the future and figure out how to get there, yet have no power, because shortsighted management or marketing shlubs make the decisions. That's what made SJ the success he was, he was the 1 in a millionth "dreamer with a plan" that just happened to have held on to the crazy train long enough to find himself in the seat of power to actually make those dreams happen. That 1 in a million doesn't mean no one else can do it, it means they need to be allowed to do it.

All Apple has to do is not be afraid to line up behind their creative people.

SJ didn't only have dreams. He had the ability and power to befriend powerful people and persuade or compel people to do what he wanted. Anyway it's a company that he founded!

 

[portishead]

This article is dumb. And it's crashing all my iOS browsers. Something with the youtube link. That should have been my first sign to stay away.

 

[/V\acpower]

Yup it's happening. Just look at the state of iOS 7 and the cheap plastic rumoured iPhones. Steve Jobs would have never allowed this.

After "What would Jesus do?", we now have "What would Steve Jobs not do ?" (hint : the answer appear to be everything Apple do…)

 

[satchmo]

Apple also has a war chest of oh I don't know, $146 billion in cash!

Not saying Apple can't fail or be on the decline, but that kind of money can carry you for a good many years. Just look at Microsoft for the past decade.

 

[donutbagel]

God I hate this dithering. There's no excuse for it. With 1000x the money of other highly innovative industries combined, and hundreds of thousands of the smartest designers and engineers around, you're telling me there's NO ONE else with the grand vision & passion & dedication to lead that ship into the future? Not possible.

Maybe not quite as good as Steve Jobs, but I still feel like they're holding back people who should be making progress. Sadly, they have to be high on the ladder, and Steve Jobs got that way by co-founding the company.

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Yeah, Jobs would never go from a high class aluminum phone to cheap plastic...oh wait.

What do you mean? If you're implying that Steve Jobs ever went from metal to plastic on any products, I can't think of any occurrences.

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Completely agree, people around here are like "Tim's just as good!" And then there they're like "Why the hell is the stock value going down? Apple's doing just fine!" They can't accept the fact that Apple isn't the same.

The stock price right now is actually higher than it's ever been with Steve Jobs as CEO and with him alive. It spiked massively to an unreal $700 later and has dropped to a price still a little higher than the Jobs-era price. I'm surprised the market didn't dump AAPL more than it did right after his death, and it was only a temporary dip that was quickly recovered. He was totally the person who made Apple as we know it.

 

[iLilana]

Look

We all know the steve era was never going to last. He dies and we all moved on. There will be a transition and we may go through a couple CEO's. Eventually the right guy... maybe even ashton kutcher or Jony Ive or even elon musk will step into the roll and everything will keep moving forward. the difference between apple and other companies is this. There is no real life behind them. What keeps apple apple is the user base and they will probably guide the company with its buying habits. Innovation is happening. Until we figure out how to make holographic projecting watches like the mandalorian bounty hunters use, there will really be no visible innovation. A smartphone can't get much smarter looking. A new recipe for change within the industry is needed. the first thing that needs to happen is to loosen the stranglehold on innovation in general.

 

[pboy2k5]

Here's one that is probably working in this era of non-stop news stream: publicity sells. I really don't see the point of Ellison making such statement and it probably doesn't matter anyway because any business will have to face the reality of going uphill or downhill. In fact, I find it to be pretty insulting considering how close Jobs was with Ellison. Imagine if you have a best buddy and when you die, the person makes a prediction that your son/daughter will have a bleak future because he/she doesn't have a parent. That is what it feels like if you make the analogue from a corporation to an individual.

Companies come and go because the market is changing from time to time. The tech oriented market where Apple dwells right now is probably reaching a point of saturation because no company is yet to find a breakthrough technology. There's only so much you could do with a smartphone at current time because it has everything that we need: a camera, retina display, touch screen, music player, gaming console; all mushed into one small device. Even Samsung's Galaxy S4 is not selling as many as they expect even though they are more popular than iPhone at present time. On the tablet front, the iPad has defined the gold standard of what an oversized but crippled smartphone should look like. Other companies just copied Apple and ended up having to innovate on the software side to differentiate from iPad. Apple's best shot is to make a phablet but everybody knows Apple usually avoids making a half baked product. The PC industry is shrinking with the exception of people who still need a full blown computing device to do tasks that are too power consuming for a tablet.

I would rather pay my attention to the opinions of tech writers from The Verge, BGR, Engadget or Gizmodo because they give their opinions as reporters whose job is to present us with news rather than the head of a large corporation who might be biased because any statement he/she makes equates to a publicity which eventually will affect the company's profit.

 

[Kabeyun]

You want to ruin Apple, put a fake Steve Jobs in charge.

You want to ruin Apple? Give credence to the idea that without Steve Jobs it's dead in the water.

 

[Torrijos]

Cue the Apple fans in denial.

Exactly!

I mean, sure it will only take around 50 years for Apple to burn its cash reserve (if it stop making profits NOW!), plus they have obviously been proved wrong when we see all those concurrents companies, that decided to do things differently, making all the profits...

 

[ferdinandcc]

With all respect to Jobs but he could have also said: "We saw — we conducted the experiment. I mean, it's been done. We saw Apple without Ellison. We saw Apple with Ellison. We saw Apple without Ellison. Now, we continue gonna see Apple without Ellison."

For some reason, the grammatical error makes this even better.

 

[anomie]

I've been saying that since he died. People are too loyal to the brand and it has clouded the Apple faithful. Tim Cook is no visionary. Time to stop pretending he is.

Maybe. But Jobs also said he had "everything set up" and that he was involved in the next five years products.
Maybe he also was not the visionary you'd like him to be.
Time to stop pretending he was?

 

[Solomani]

When Steve Jobs passed away..... the (Jobs-Ellison) bromance had to come to an end.

 

[JayCee842]

Yup it's happening. Just look at the state of iOS 7 and the cheap plastic rumoured iPhones. Steve Jobs would have never allowed this.

You cannot say he "would have never allowed this" because he changed his mind many times, and he also isn't here, so you're just speculating. And what the heck is so wrong with iOS7?

 

[antonis]

I'm sorry but I believe him. I wouldn't believe 1000 analysts if they said that, but I believe Larry Ellison. He was very close to Steve and Apple for a long time, he knows things from the inside and, after all, how can anyone argue with his point:
We saw apple with SJ, without SJ, with SJ, and now...without SJ.

 

[Ryth]

The difference here is that Steve left people in charge he trusted...especially I've... Who many know is the heart of Apple.

The first time Steve was forced out.

These 2 times aren't even close to being the same thing.

Right now I see no concern at all... Apple is in good hands and we'll readdress this in a few months after we see what happens with the #s.

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All Apple has to do is not be afraid to line up behind their creative people.

I foresee Ive moving into the spotlight soon in that regard. He's the next face of Apple.

People think Jobs was perfect... All you have to do is look at all the bad products he had the second time around also. And there are a few.

Many have blinders on and refuse to look for these failures to support Apple is doomed.

If Apple is doomed then Samsung and the rest are damned.

 

[macs4nw]

Funny, Ellison steps down from the board in 2002, right around the time that Apple's second coming started in earnest.

As co-founder and CEO of Oracle, this could have simply been, due to a real or perceived conflict of interest.

Coming from the guy who is one bad weekend away from turning into that Macafee guy that's pretty rich.

Larry Ellison is a clueless arrogant prick.....

Who also happens to be last year's highest paid CEO in the US, at a total compensation of $96.2 Million. The man is entitled to his opinion. Besides I have a sneaky suspicion, many Apple admirers are (despite the current great shape Apple appears to be in), deeply worried Larry might be right.....Personally, I certainly hope he's wrong.

 

[Ryth]

Exactly!

I mean, sure it will only take around 50 years for Apple to burn its cash reserve (if it stop making profits NOW!), plus they have obviously been proved wrong when we see all those concurrents companies, that decided to do things differently, making all the profits...

You mean the companies that copied their products... Yeah that is thinking differently.

Can't wait for the watch copycats coming up...

 

[thasan]

Thank you! I completely agree and it seems that nobody around here can this through their heads.

Interesting both registered in 2013. I think the taste in 2013 is different....

 

[ricosuave]

I wonder what Larry's motivation is for this "interview"

 

[Solomani]

The difference here is that Steve left people in charge he trusted...especially I've... Who many know is the heart of Apple.

Just like all Jedi Masters eventually must die.... but their Padawans carry on the legacy.

 

[donutbagel]

And what the heck is so wrong with iOS7?

The ridiculous icons and inconsistent graphical design.

 

[Krauser]

What do you mean? If you're implying that Steve Jobs ever went from metal to plastic on any products, I can't think of any occurrences.

Ummm, the first generation aluminum iPhone to the plastic iPhone 3G maybe?

 

[robertosh]

Anyway, will be better than Oracle's.