Okay, so people are having a field day with Steve's no-show for this Macworld, the last for Apple. Does it mean Steve is transitioning out of the company (yes, he has been for 16 months now) or that Apple has no new products to introduce (they do, and they will surprise you) or that Steve is dying (we all are)
I enjoyed this article – written by an ex-Appleite like me – who can attest to the pressure and challenges that working at Apple affords and rewards. A Fortune column thinks that Phil's "one more thing" will actually be Steve himself. Both need to remind Steve to open up, as my previous post implores.
But if you've listened closely to Steve in the last 3 Macworld keynotes you'll hear him tell you the real reason why Apple doesn't need Macworld anymore. The Apple Stores. More potential customers (and not the Apple faithful who attend MacWorld) were introduced to a Mac than attend 12 Macworlds. That's a Macworld every month. And that was 3 years ago.
Today with the Apple Stores, their website and their fantastic marketingApple can create the type of buzz it needs while it generates the sell-through required to succeed. And that several million dollar payment to IDG for Macworld can go into developing even better new products or marketing more effectively the ones they have now.
You’re probably right that MacWorld’s usefulness has been replaced by Apple’s own retail presence as far as customers go. I guess they’ll use WWDC to bring their products and services to the developers and engineers. Personally, I don’t care if they replace MacWorld with Apple’s own PR equivalent. I think it would be a mistake to eliminate this type of event completely for the simple reason that they get an incredible amount of PR as the date of MacWorld approaches. Everyone speculates as to what products Apple will unveil and what other areas they may be entering. To simply ignore this level of interest is foolish and will cost at least the same amount in their own advertising and PR dollars as they spend on the tradeshow. Not to mention the ripple effect this will have on the other exhibitors who will see that attendance and interest in this conference will drop dramatically going forward.
My question is why does Apple have to make their exit so dramatic? Is Steve dying or retiring? Will Phil be the next BIG guy or someone else? Why not come out and say this is what we’ve decided and these are the reasons. Steve should be doing this last keynote if for the only reason of nostalgia. He’s the man. Make this the last show but the biggest one. Apple could have gotten alot more out of this especially if they wind up with limited new products to announce.