John Gruber has written a fascinating piece on his Daring Fireball in which he compared Apple’s strategy to the competition and Tim Cook’s leadership of the company in Post Steve Jobs era.
John Gruber on the difference between Apple and other competitors:
[su_quote cite=”John Gruber” url=”http://daringfireball.net/2014/06/only_apple”]Apple’s commitment to making its own hardware provided necessary distinction while the company was relatively small. Now that the company is huge, it still provides them with distinction, but now also an enormous competitive edge that cannot be copied. You can copy Apple’s strategy, but you can’t copy their scale.
Microsoft and Google have enormous market share, but neither has control over the devices on which their platforms run. Samsung and Amazon control their own devices, but neither controls their OS at a fundamental level.
Microsoft and Google can’t force OEMs to make better computers and devices, to stop junking them up with unwanted add-ons. Apple, on the other hand, can force anything it can achieve into devices. Apple wants to go 64-bit on ARM? Apple can do it alone.[/su_quote]
John Gruber on Tim Cook’s leadership of the company:
[su_quote cite=”John Gruber” url=”http://daringfireball.net/2014/06/only_apple”]Everyone knows that Tim Cook deserves credit for this operational success. Manufacturing, procurement, shipping, distribution, high profit margins — these are things we’ve long known Tim Cook excels at managing.
As the Cook era as Apple’s CEO unfolds, what we’re seeing is something we didn’t know, and I think few expected. Something I never even considered:
Tim Cook is improving Apple’s internal operational efficiency.
[….]
Jobs was a great CEO for leading Apple to become big. But Cook is a great CEO for leading Apple now that it is big, to allow the company to take advantage of its size and success. Matt Drance said it, and so will I: What we saw last week at WWDC 2014 would not have happened under Steve Jobs.
This is not to say Apple is better off without Steve Jobs. But I do think it’s becoming clear that the company, today, might be better off with Tim Cook as CEO.[/su_quote]
I couldn’t have agreed more with Gruber’s take on Tim Cook leadership of the company. For all his genius, Steve Jobs would have struggle to do a better job.
In my opinion Steve Jobs ran Apple with a startup mentality, which is great if the company was struggling and needs revitalisation. Today, Apple is the biggest tech company in the world and needs a leader to ensure things stay that way for a long time. Suffice it to say, Tim Cook is the right man for the job.
