Dec 24th, 2008
What’s the MacWorld Expo Deal, Apple?
Is there any tech company more followed than Apple? Yes, I admit, I am a big fan (although I’m not unknown to call them on the carpet) as well as (for full disclosure) a stockholder. Still, I think that for all watchers of the company in Cupertino, there was a bit of surprise when they announced that not only would the iconic Steve Jobs not give the keynote address at the MacWorld Expo San Francisco gathering in January, the company would no longer participate in the show after this year.
Speculation about the health of Jobs (again) ran wild and the stock (again) took a beating.
Interestingly, I have some personal and professional experience with pancreatic cancer, the kind Jobs encountered a few years back. That sentence I just typed in and of itself says a bit–”a few years”. No one I know professionally or personally has survived more than a year after such a diagnosis, some not even lasting a few months. I’m not saying I have any information about the health of Jobs (while I love the company and I think he’s done a masterful job since his return, my personal hero pantheon includes the “other” Steve, Wozniak, rather than Jobs)–I hope he’s well as he’s claimed so many times in recent months–but this kind of speculation appears a bit ghoulish.
Perhaps Steve is planning to move on, but maybe Apple has decided it’s time to move on for other reasons as well. The Internet has made the distribution of information very different, and perhaps the feeling is that large trade shows and their accompanying expense are no longer an efficient or effective way of doing business.
Apple also is conscious about their stock price, and large movements–a lot of time downward–have been associated with big product announcements. Like the rest of the stock market, AAPL has had a difficult time of it in 2008, down 54.56% year to date.
Perhaps for any or all or just a few of these reasons, Apple has decided that MacWorld Expo will no longer be for them. Sad, but just as so many of its other decisions have ended up with them doing better in the long run, this may be a decision that helps both them and their shareholders.
There are several very good reasons for Apple to drop Macworld but let us keep it easy. It is the worst possable time for new product launches (after the buying is over) and the rumor mill is greatest coming into the forever fixed time slot.