By CNET Editorial
17/12/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050495,62049379,00.htm

Jobs to skip Macworld keynote as Apple backs out

Posted by Tom Krazit



Apple CEO Steve Jobs has given his last keynote address at Macworld in San Francisco.

The company announced that January's Macworld would mark its last year participating at the show, which is run by publishing company IDG. In addition, Apple said Phil Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, will deliver the keynote, usually handled by Jobs.

Apple representative Steve Dowling declined to comment on Jobs' health, a prominent topic of discussion this year. Jobs' keynote addresses at Macworld have become almost legendary events, launch pads for some of the company's most important products and strategies. His absence from what many in the Apple community consider their Super Bowl will once again revive rumors that Jobs is ill.

"Phil is giving the keynote because this will be Apple's last year at the show," Dowling said. "It doesn't make sense for us to make a major investment in a trade show we will no longer be attending."

Apple seems to be declaring that it no longer needs industry events like Macworld to get its message out. The company has 250 retail stores around the world that draw millions of people a week, and its Web site is among the top 10 sites, in terms of traffic, on the Internet.

IDG and Apple have had a rocky relationship in the past. Apple used to participate in far more Macworld events than the San Francisco event, and a rift developed between the companies when IDG made the decision to move the Macworld event in New York to Boston, near the company's Framingham, Mass., headquarters. Apple promptly pulled out of that event, and the East Coast Macworld was canceled in 2005 due to lack of interest without the star attraction.

An IDG representative did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The decision to have Jobs skip Macworld does not necessarily mean that his days as Apple's primary spokesman are over. It seems that Apple is planning to shift its resources toward producing its own events, such as the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June and the September iPod-music event.

But much of the company's vaunted marketing buzz has come from Macworld, which, unlike those other events, allows Apple fans on the street to purchase a ticket and gawk at new Apple gear on display. It's not clear at the moment whether Apple plans to introduce an event that fulfills a similar function, but that will be interesting to watch.

Schiller's keynote address is scheduled to take place at 9am Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, January 6.

IDG did not return our calls seeking comment regarding Apple's decision, but IDG's Paul Kent is telling various members of the media that the company still plans to put on Macworld Expo 2010, with or without Apple.

Via CNET News

Without Macworld, how will Apple create the buzz?

Posted by Tom Krazit



With its decision to end its relationship with the Macworld Expo, Apple is cutting one of its last ties to an era in which it wasn't a technology powerhouse.

The shocking news that January's Macworld would be the last with Apple's participation--and that CEO Steve Jobs will not appear--reveals an Apple that has decided it no longer needs to make an appearance at the event that has come to define the company in recent years. In doing so, it's also preparing for a future when its iconic founder no longer dominates the stage the way he currently does while confirming a shift in its strategic thinking when it comes to reaching customers.

Apple relies on two types of marketing: One, the slick commercials with the cool music that showcase what its products can do, such as the Mac versus PC ads and the famous silhouetted dancing iPod listeners. The second method is the Stevenote: Jobs is a master at the art of presenting new products and rolling out strategies to both the public (Macworld) and the press (WWDC, iPod events).

Macworld was Apple's signature Stevenote, drawing rabid coverage from the tech press and a mention on almost every nightly news show in US the night following one of Jobs' presentations. The various other Apple-produced events during the year, such as the June Worldwide Developers Conference or September iPod event, haven't always generated as much buzz as Macworld, where Apple has trained the media and its customers to await the company's Next Big Thing. That fever pitch reached a peak in January 2007, when Apple confirmed the long-standing rumors that it would enter the mobile phone market with the iPhone.

But industry events like Macworld Expo have been losing their luster inside Apple for some time. This is not a company that spends much time hanging out with its peers in the personal computing and mobile phone industries; Apple is often conspicuously absent at the types of panel discussions and press events that draw other companies on a regular basis.

And quite simply, the nature of technology marketing has changed a great deal as tech has evolved from something reserved for professionals to something that almost everyone uses on a day to day basis.

Apple's newest legion of fans--teenagers and young professionals--are not going to wander around San Francisco's Moscone Center in January soaking up the scene when they can simply wait for the products to appear online or at the nearest Apple Store, or follow the coverage on their favorite blog.

Those customers can be reached through a combination of relentless television and Internet advertising and word-of-mouth campaigns, which Apple doesn't even have to engineer itself thanks to the legions of Mac bloggers and news coverage. But the company can't simply hunker down in Cupertino behind its advertising agencies and friends in the media; there's no substitute in business for the human touch, and Apple will need to make semi-regular public appearances to keep its machine humming.

So what if Apple could produce its own show, something akin to Oracle's gigantic OracleWorld lovefest in San Francisco every autumn? It could still draw the usual Mac faithful that showed up at Macworld every year and tailor much of the experience to the new generation of Apple customers.

Or it could hold a number of smaller events at its flagship retail stores in New York and San Francisco, drawing the same amount of coverage and fans while maintaining tight control of its message.

And that has always been one of Apple's top priorities. The company's tight fist on the outbound flow of information from Apple means that events like Macworld take on the utmost importance; Jobs' keynote is an hour and a half when this industry comes to a complete halt, as hundreds of thousands of people hit refresh on their live blog of choice to find out if the rampant rumor and speculation has come true.

To keep its position as one of the tech industry's most buzz generation machines, Apple will need to find something to duplicate that experience without attending Macworld. And that of course brings up the elephant that has been in Apple's room all year long: the future of Jobs' association with Apple.

Apple declined to comment specifically on Jobs' health, but the company has had to fight off rumors of a recurrence of his cancer ever since June, when he appeared to have lost a lot of weight. The move to have Phil Schiller keynote Macworld doesn't necessarily give any credence to those rumors--although watch the stock market run wild with them tomorrow--but no matter how you slice it, Apple the corporation is going to outlive Jobs the CEO.

The end of Apple's association with Macworld gives the company a chance to introduce new faces and new methods of putting together its most important marketing presentations of the year. Apple has been making room for executives other than Jobs for years on the keynote stage, but the most important topics were always reserved for Jobs alone.

And Macworld was always going to be associated with Jobs' legendary performances; very few current Apple executives could have hoped to duplicate that exact role. But if Apple takes this opportunity to develop its own event, with a broader roster of Apple executives and employees taking the stage to discuss the company's growing line of businesses, it would reduce the reliance on Jobs' appearance to set the tone for the company. That way when it does come time for Jobs to relinquish control of the company, Apple will have set a precedent for someone other than Jobs to deliver the big news at the event.

Apple is developing its own gravitational pull at this point in its history. The company has never been more influential or rich, and it is using that power and money to set its own agenda for the next decade.

It may seem obvious to say this, but Apple's performance in the future will mostly rely on the quality of its products rather than its marketing vehicle of choice. Still, don't discount the role that Apple's singular ability to whip the digerati into a frenzy has played in the company's fortunes over the last five years.

That has to continue in some fashion for Apple to remain a tech powerhouse.

Via CNET News

How does Apple's Macworld decision affect the faithful?

Posted by Daniel Terdiman



Apple's decision to make January's Macworld its last offers fodder for endless speculation. But another big question is how this will go down with the Mac faithful who have flocked to this annual event through good times and bad.

To be sure, there will be official Apple events in the future, like the Worldwide Developers Conference. But most fans--the civilians--likely won't be able to gain access to such events, which are usually reserved for press, analysts, VIPs, and developers.

So, as one colleague of mine put it, Macworld has long been the public carnival for Mac fans, and Apple's decision to get out after the 2009 version doesn't bode well for Macworld's future or for the future of a single, mass event for the hardcore Mac community.

"It's a big disappointment," said Leander Kahney, the author of The Cult of Mac and Inside Steve's Brain. "A lot of Mac fans will be royally bummed. It's a huge part of being an Apple fan--looking forward to what Steve (Jobs) will unveil at Macworld. It's like Christmas for grownups."

For Mike Leeds, a Mac technician at a Portland, Oreagon, college, one of the biggest losses of an Apple-free Macworld will be the chance to hobnob with the company employees who staff the event.

"I got to wander around and talk to the Apple employees that are on duty manning the show," Leeds said. "With luck, you manage to find a particular employee that actually knows the particular issue that you might have, and can give you some background on what their plans are for addressing the issue or other ways of dealing with it. Half of the time I'm down there...I'm walking around and talking to Apple employees, and that's going to be gone."

For Leeds, then, not having Apple participate in Macworld means he likely won't make the annual trip to San Francisco for the event. And he's not alone.

"It matters a lot that people get to see Jobs," said Kahney. "This is the big show for Jobs' fans. People look forward to this all year. They camp out overnight and take a vacation to go to Macworld and travel from all over the world. It's the big gathering of the tribe."

Further, Kahney pointed out that for many Apple fans, Jobs' keynote speeches have provided a regular sense of spectacle, something worth traveling to San Francisco for, and which will be sorely missing both next month--when Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, gives the keynote speech--and in the future, when Apple doesn't participate.

"Jobs is hugely entertaining," Kahney noted. "There's nothing like it, in tech or anywhere else. It's marketing theater at its best. And with concerns about Jobs' health, people want to see him in the flesh--see if he's OK."

For its part, Apple had no comment related to Jobs' health.

Of course, Mac fans aren't the only ones who would be disappointed by an Apple-less Macworld.

"What a bummer for everyone," Kevin Mathieu, a Bay Area artist who has been going to Macworld for 17 years, said about the news. "From Mac fans to local union workers and local bars," which will undoubtedly lose business.

Still, Kahney pointed out that the faithful will still have places to congregate.

"Luckily, there's the local Apple stores," said Kahney, "which have a ton of community events. They're not just stores. They really are community gathering places, especially the flagship ones in New York and Los Angeles."

But to some, the end of Apple's involvement in Macworld spells trouble for the continuity of the cohesiveness of the Mac faithful community.

At Macworld, Kobi and Ron Shely, two Israeli filmmakers, will be debuting their documentary, MacHeads, which is about the Mac and Apple community. Kobi Shely said a big part of the movie is an exploration of just the issues raised by Apple's announcement.

"Apple is on an ongoing process that started back in 1998 when the Internet started to take over," Shely said. "The Mac community was based on in-person meeting places such as the Mac users groups. What's holding it all together is the hundreds, if not thousands, of communities across the world spreading the passion and creating the myths. Their meeting place is Macworld."

But Shely added that while making MacHeads, he found that Apple and its community, while deeply connected, are indeed separate.

"And today I think...is the most significant sign (of) that relationship," Shely said. "The Internet has changed the community. Today the young generation doesn't need to get together in groups. They can get online. But at least they had Macworld. In my view, the Mac faithful will have difficulties continuing the fandom without that direct contact. I hope Macworld will continue to be the gathering place of 'Mac heads' and the shelter for Mac users all over the world."

Via CNET News