Steve Jobs has officially stepped down an Tim Cook, aged 50 has taken over as CEO of Apple. Cook joined Apple in March and before he joined he was vice president of corporate materials for Compaq. He was “responsible for procuring and managing all of compacts product inventory” which is a similar role to the one he took at Apple when he originally joined. Before Compaq, he was COO of Intelligent Electronics’ reseller division.
Cook has been at the reigns of Apple before, back in 2004 he ran the company for 2 months while Steve Jobs had surgery for pancreatic cancer, and again in 2009 when Jobs had a liver transplant.
Since January of this year, Cook has been responsible for day-to-day operations of Apple, with Steve Jobs still said to be holding final decision-making authority — until today.
If Steve Jobs was known for his product sense then Tim Cook would be known his ability to keep inventory low, ship products quickly, and achieve extremely high profit margins. He has served as Apple’s COO since 2007 and in 2008 Fortune ran a profile on Cook which has a quote that has gotten alot of play over the years when ever there were talks of who would take the reins of Apple. “Come on, replace Steve? No. He’s irreplaceable… That’s something people have to get over. I see Steve there with gray hair in his 70s, long after I’m retired.” We hope that cook’s foresight is clearer for Apple’s product line then it was in looking at his career.
Cook is a logistics and operations wizard. He isn’t nearly so charismatic as a speaker. In his career, his strength has been in handling the nuts and bolts of running a big company, like making sure the company has enough memory chips on hand. He grew up in Robertsdale, Ala., the son of a retired shipyard worker. He is described as quiet, calm and unflappable.
Cook has been responsible for all of Apple’s worldwide sales and operations. He managed Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, service and support in all markets and territories. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and played a role in the development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships. That means he had to arrange for multi-year supplies of memory chips and displays with giants such as Korea’s Samsung.
Tim Cook has the full confidence of Steve Job which was made clear in his letter of resignation and the board of directors all feels that Cook is the right man for the job. We’ll miss Steve’s flare for taking the stage, but look forward to seeing the ripple’s the announcement will cause in the ecosystem. August a slow month for news, we think not!
