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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
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Forget the title shuffles. The guys who made tech companies hot will continue to run them By STUART WHITMORE January 24, 2000 Web posted at 2:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 1:30 p.m. EST
So when the bosses at three of the world's most successful tech companies, Microsoft, Apple and America Online, announced changes in their roles last week, it was bound to be big news. Big, but largely meaningless. Take Steve Jobs, who with his usual showman's flourish told shrieking apostles at this month's MacWorld expo in San Francisco that he was dropping the word "interim" from his CEO title. What does it mean for Apple? Nothing much. No one seriously treated Jobs, Apple's prodigal founder, as a temp -- least of all the investors who have sent the firm's stock soaring from under $20 when Jobs returned in 1997 to over $100 today. The interim title was a sop to reassure the folks at Pixar, the animation studio responsible forToy Story that Jobs also heads up, that their leader wasn't jumping ship. Jobs will carry on doing what he's been doing these past two years: micro-managing Apple with an unerringly sure touch (ironic, seeing as the Steve Jobs cast out by the board in 1985 was the archetype of the flaky visionary who couldn't manage his own firm) and branding Apple as the computer-maker with cachet. He's not even dropping the "i" from his iCEO title, because he thinks it sounds "cool." Meanwhile at Microsoft, that notably shrewd manager Bill Gates announced he would be dropping the reins in order to concentrate solely on the vision thing. Gates remains chairman of the software giant, but hands off his CEO title to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's president. What does it mean for Microsoft? Nothing much. After all, Gates has already gone on record as dismissing the importance of titles, describing himself and 20-year Microsoft veteran Ballmer as "two people with one huge job." Gates will continue to be the visionary, Ballmer will continue to beat that vision into something real. Gates' move is designed to appease the U.S. Justice Department more than to revolutionize the running of his company. And the much-hyped new Internet strategy (the snappily-titled Next Generation Windows Services) that Ballmer is supposed to be spearheading? A new sheen for the same old approach that Microsoft, a company that can afford to throw cash around, has always taken: try everything and anything and keep whatever works. Then there was Steve Case. The chairman of AOL will become the chairman of AOL Time Warner, should the merger of the online service provider and the World's Largest Media Company® go through as planned. What will this newfound media baronhood mean for Chairman Case? Nothing much. Case is hardly the William Randolph Hearst type, so don't expect him to suddenly start playing media mogul just because Time Warner is in his stable. It was Gates who got into a recent slanging match with Rupert Murdoch about who was more powerful, remember. Case will continue to pound the same simple beat he has done for years: give subscribers access to any content, anywhere over AOL. If anything the deal between AOL and Time Warner (Asiaweek's parent company) will make Case's life even simpler. Time Warner gives AOL a steady stream of content, and the cable network to push it down. Case's AOL Anywhere message can finally be transformed from slogan to reality. Showmanship, surprise resignations and mega-mergers are all exciting ways of making the headlines. But when you've got a good manager in place, there's no point in rocking the boat by having them change their ways. Write to us at mail@web.asiaweek.com
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