The news that Steve Jobs will not attend this year's Macworld Expo has caused outrage among his devoted followers, writes Amanda Andrews.
WHEN it comes to secrecy, Apple's Steve Jobs could give the Knights Templars or Priory of Sion a run for their money.
Macolytes have been preparing for months to see what innovations the iGod, as he is known by adoring fans, has up his sleeve. A trip to Macworld, an annual event in January, is akin to a pilgrimage for diehard Apple consumers.
Rarely do Apple's planned announcements leak, as members of Silicon Valley's secret circle keep the latest innovations close to their chests in anticipation of Jobs' keynote address at the annual event. Even press agencies contracted by the firm are not sent the release until minutes before the event.
"Like the Wizard of Oz, Jobs tries his best to hide behind a curtain, keeping a tight rein on media access and dealing harshly with friends who say too much to biographers," says one San Francisco reporter.
At the yearly event, Jobs would pace up and down the stage attired in his signature jeans and black turtleneck, revealing what he has in store for adoring enthusiasts, as thousands of tech bloggers simultaneously report and comment on the much-awaited news — be it a higher-capacity iPod or 3G iPhone.
However, the Macworld Expo hides a secret deeper than increased megabytes and slimline, white laptops and clinical retail outlets. The announcement last month that Jobs would not be giving his keynote address — with his senior vice-president Phil Schiller stepping in — has caused outrage among thousands of Apple enthusiasts concerned that their iGod was preparing to step down.
More significantly, it rekindled speculation about Jobs' health following his battle with pancreatic cancer.
At the July launch of Apple's 3G iPhone, Jobs looked gaunt, although he insisted he was healthy. There is speculation that surgery to treat his cancer makes it difficult for him to digest some foods. According to one blog, he is disappointed that he can no longer drink his favourite beverage, a non-alcoholic grape juice from California's Navarro Vineyards.
Apple's shares dived after concerns about succession at Apple, but in Jobs' secretive, or arguably controlling, style, he has not uttered a word.
This is far from surprising. It took him months to confirm he had pancreatic cancer five years ago following a flurry of rumours.
Colleagues say Jobs' requirement for total control over all announcements feeds into his day-to-day running of the company. Jobs, 53, is known for his controlling, perfectionist approach, throwing himself into all aspects of the business. It is thought that even some of the tunes that find their way into Apple's iPod advertisements may have come straight from his playlist.
But his need for control comes as little surprise. Insiders say that he lost Apple once and made a pact that this would not happen again. In 1976, when Jobs was 21, he and Steve Wozniak, a friend from the now-legendary Homebrew Computer Club, started their own business from the Jobs family garage in northern California. It was known as Apple Computer Company.
The long-haired, bearded fan of psychedelic music was reportedly forced to sell his prized Volkswagen campervan to finance the original design of the Apple 1. A local company ordered 25 Apples and, within four years, Jobs was worth $US165 million. However, in 1985 the honeymoon ended following a boardroom scuffle with then chief executive John Sculley.
From then on Jobs knew he needed to retain control and remained in the driver's seat for other projects. Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specialising in the higher-education and business markets.
In 1986, he bought The Graphics Group, later renaming it Pixar, from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for $10 million, transforming the studio through film successes such as Toy Story. When NeXT was bought out by Apple Computer Inc in 1997, it brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its chief executive since.
When he returned to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, the company accounted for about 3 per cent of the market and Microsoft's PC operating systems software ruled. It was a matter of months before he became the man who miraculously resurrected the decaying Apple into one of the world's coolest and most successful brands.
Many people still believe Steve Jobs is the embodiment of Apple. However, his influence alone is not responsible for the cutting-edge, ergonomic designs, and 21st-century Apple is the result of thousands of skilled designers and engineers.
The British designer Jonathan Ive is internationally renowned as the principal designer of the original groovy, multi-coloured iMac, the aluminium PowerBook G4, the iPod and iPhone. Many industry sources believe his departure would hurt Apple more than if Jobs exited.
Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco in 1955, the child of unmarried parents who had travelled to California from Wisconsin before giving him up for adoption.
He was adopted by Justin and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, California. His biological parents, Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali — a graduate student from Syria who became a political science professor — later married and gave birth to Jobs' sister, the acclaimed novelist Mona Simpson. She never knew her famous brother existed until she was an adult.
Attending Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, Jobs developed his passion for computers at an early stage, growing up surrounded by engineers and regularly seen at after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company.
In the 1970s, Jobs took a position as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular video games. But it was the final days of flower power and free living, and entrepreneurship and computer design were not always at the forefront of his mind. Jobs was intrigued by the mystical ideas of the decade and had a passion for Bob Dylan.
On his hippie quest in the mid-1970s, Jobs backpacked around India with a college friend — and, later, the first Apple employee — the engineer Daniel Kottke, in search of philosophical enlightenment. He returned with his head shaved and wearing Indian attire.
During this time, Jobs reportedly experimented with psychedelic drugs, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things (he had) done in (his) life."
His rescue of Apple should surely be added to that list.
TELEGRAPH
If the cap doesn't fit, who wears it?
THE BRAINS trust at the funds management arm of Lazard Carnegie Wylie will no doubt be hoping that two of their recent sorties down at the small-cap end of the market will come good this year.
They'd want to, as so far they've been very disappointing indeed.
The two companies concerned are the employment group Chandler Macleod Group and Commquest, a marketing services and communications outfit.
Chandler Macleod went into free-fall mid-year when the shares dropped from 50 cents to 20 cents, and along the way people who knew the company well, such as the Plummer family, were buying scrip by the bucket load.
But the shares continued to fall and the company, which favours the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation version of results, now expects to make a mere $3 million to $4 million for the half just concluded on revenue of $470 million.
Some months ago, Lazard Carnegie Wylie Investment Management went where others feared to go and decided to pump money into Chandler Macleod by subscribing for a swag of shares at 25 cents each.
To cut a short story even shorter, the shares continued to fall, the company's results continued to be mediocre, a share issue was made to all shareholders and Lazard Carnegie was one of the sub-underwriters to the issue, along with the Plummer family.
The issue price showed just how far out of favour the scrip had become, and by the time the documents were signed it was just 12.5 cents a share.
Chandler shareholders had had enough and few of them put up their hands, with the result that Lazard Carnegie and the Plummers ended up with the lion's share of the issue.
So, from putting up cash at 25 cents a share, Lazard Carnegie has now stumped up more cash at 12.5 cents a share, and everyone's got their fingers crossed that the business can start extracting reasonable profits from all those revenues.
The shares, by the way, got a sudden wriggle on Friday when they jumped by no less than 40 per cent to 14 cents on turnover of just $21,271.
Meanwhile, as 2008 drew to a close, the Lazard Carnegie folk were busy with another less-than-impressive performer in the shape of the aforementioned Commquest.
Commquest has slid from $1.20 to a recent four cent low, and that company, too, has been busy raising money.
Lazard Carnegie is now up to a shade under 20 per cent of the company and its main entry price, eerily reminiscent of Chandler Macleod, has been at 25 cents, well above the market price.
Like Chandler Macleod, the shares have got a bit of work to do until they get back to Lazard Carnegie's entry price. Commquest is fetching 16 cents.
Q acrimony
HOSTILITIES between the Crage family, which runs the listed computer hire group Hire Intelligence International, and Paul Choiselat's diminished outfit, Q, keep bubbling away.
"I do not propose to enter into further discussions/correspondence with you in relation to the issues raised in your letter," Q chairman Kevin Campbell recently told Tom Crage.
"Most of the matters mentioned in your letter have been canvassed in prior correspondence with you or at the annual general meeting in October 2008. The proper forum for shareholders to make inquiries of the board is at the AGM of the company."
Mr Campbell assured Mr Crage that Q was being managed "having full regard" to the requirements of the Corporations Act, the stock exchange's listing rules and stock exchange governance principles and recommendations.
"Pursuant to the continuous disclosure requirements, the company will make announcements when announcements are required to be made to keep the market and shareholders informed." Q has fallen from an adjusted $5 to 35 cents in the past year. The reporter has an interest in the stock.
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