Either Cook, et al, deliver a breakthrough product, create a whole new stream of revenue, or Apple becomes Microsoft, a continuing moneymaker, but hardly cutting edge.
OK. You’re an investor. You wanna know where to put your money. For nearly a decade, Apple was a secret hiding in plain sight, it only went up, hell, it even rebounded after the 2008 crash. But now it’s the highflier, everybody’s clued in, and the company’s managed as if it’s an independent startup and the Street is trying to tear it down like RadarOnline picking at Taylor Swift for screwing too many guys. I get it, she’s famous. If she were twenty three and unknown, we’d be giving her kudos for playing the field before marriage, besting the men at their game. But since she’s a superstar, our goal is to bring her down. And she bites back. Hell, she even wrote a song about me!
But she won’t be doing that anymore. The public won’t stand for it. Taylor Swift burned out her paradigm.
And Apple’s stealth strategy has gone by the wayside too. There’s just too much information. Hell, did you see that report on MacRumors today, repeated all over the web, about a new iPad and a low-cost iPhone? Even before his untimely death Steve Jobs could no longer maintain secrecy. Because these products are no longer built by one company, alone in a skunkworks, but by a plethora of component makers, some of whom talk. If you think Apple can prevent leaks, you probably believe the government is riddled with conspiracies. But that’s not true, someone always speaks, the truth outs.
Everybody wants what’s cool. People want to attach themselves to that which has momentum. By removing itself from the dialogue, Apple is hurting sales. Let’s see, do I buy an iPhone or a Galaxy? Wait, I read in the paper that Apple’s stock is tanking, everybody’s talking about Galaxy features! Facts are irrelevant, the perception is that Samsung is the comer and Apple is the loser, despite Apple scoring the fourth biggest quarter in the history of any company!
Richard Gere didn’t have to respond to gerbil rumors, he wasn’t selling himself so much as the movies he was in, which are dependent upon writing, cinematography…hell, it was a very short window within which he could open a film. But Apple’s computers and iPhones and iPads ARE the product. Tim Cook has to protect them. But he keeps going on an endless victory lap, telling us to trust him, when we don’t even trust the President. Ain’t that America, we’re all from Missouri these days, we all live in the SHOW ME STATE!
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