>
> Succession Rumors Say Jobs Will Be
> New Chairman
>
> By Galen Gruman
>
> Move would let him set strategic direction
>for the company
>
> The Macintosh industry has been rife with
>rumors that Steve Jobs is
> about to be named chairman of the board of
>directors for Apple
> Computer, a post that ousted CEO Gil Amelio
>had held. According to
> sources at several companies, Apple will
>announce Jobs's appointment
> to the chairmanship next week or during the
>Macworld Expo in Boston
> the following week.
Good pump for MacWorld.
>
> According to these sources, such a position
>would let Jobs determine
> the direction of the company without having
>to handle day-to-day
> operations or take the blame for any
>failures that might occur. The
> search for a new CEO continues, but it's
>unclear whether Apple will be
> able to attract a strong CEO if Jobs had the
>chairman's role, given
> Jobs's tendency to insert himself into
>strategic decisions. Jobs
> apparently instigated several initiatives
>behind the scenes while Amelio
> was CEO.
Hey, at least Steve has a clue.
>
> According to industry sources, Jobs has been
>looking to sign up
> Advanced Micro Devices, which makes a
>Pentium-compatible CPU, as
> a partner in creating OpenStep-based
>Internet servers (using the
> Rhapsody for Intel OS that is one of the
>several Rhapsody efforts
> underway at Apple), in an apparent move to
>use Apple as a vehicle to
> resurrect Next. This has created fears among
>some executives at IBM
> and Motorola that Apple might abandon the
>PowerPC in favor of an
> Intel-based Rhapsody strategy several years
>from now, after Rhapsody
> is first released and its success on both
>the PowerPC and Intel platforms
> can be assessed. Such a strategy would
>likely involve deemphasizing the
> Mac and focusing Apple's attention on being
>a Sun Microsystems-like
> vendor of server and Internet products, such
>as Next's WebObjects.
This is, if true, a way for Steve to say to Andy Grove, Hey! Look what
were willing to do. I said it the other day, Moto will be out of the PPC
business by 2K.
>
> The first full implementations of Rhapsody
>Yellow Box (essentially a
> version of Next's OpenStep OS) are due in
>about a year. The Yellow
> Box flavors promised by Apple are Rhapsody
>for Intel, a full Yellow
> Box OS for PCs; Rhapsody for Windows, a
>Yellow Box OS that runs
> inside of Windows 95 and NT; Rhapsody, a
>combination of the Yellow
> Box and Mac OS 8.x; and Rhapsody for Mac OS,
>a Yellow Box OS that
> runs inside of the Mac OS for Macs that
>don't support the full
> Rhapsody OS.
Apple software vendors are dropping like flies. Nisus who has had the
*best* Word Processor for any platform for years tanked it last week, and
Now Utilities the makers of the largest selling set of enhancment utilities
for Mac probably aren't going to support Sys 8. So I say, junk the Mac
emulation, just bring out OpenStep.
Tim
-
... at least you can drive something fast, arm your-
self with powerful tools, and look good doing it.
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<> tbyars@earthlink.net <>