Why did Apple hire Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch? - Page 3

I care about Apple making great products not whether their executive team "looks a lot more like America".

I'd second that. I'd like to see something like iWeb brought current.

 

Is it? I'd say it isn't, since they're not. There's plenty of really good talent there, sure, but apparently it's not up to executive snuff. 

 

I'd say all of them, given that there isn't one.

Who would you place blame on for choosing LG for Mac Pro Retina displays? There's a lot of display quality issues being mentioned on what should be an Apple flagship model. I think Anant is correct that ultimately someone in Apple management is responsible, altho passing the buck might make you happier.
http://9to5m**/2013/03/20/macbook-pro-with-retina-display-problems-in-every-dimension/

(You can figure out the two missing letters)

Maybe it's as simple as Apple trying to keep their friends close and their enemies closer.

wait...so your saying there are no women talented enough to make "executive snuff" at Apple? Or just in general?

 

I agree that Lynch seems like a bit of a jerk, but he is certainly not Mansfield's replacement: Mansfield is a hardware guy and Lynch is purely a software guy.  It's also worth keeping in mind that the hiring process at Apple involves the new prospect talking to people from all over the company.  Tim Cook would have had input on this from many people.

I am afraid that's where your misunderstanding stands. A glass ceiling does not have to be a deliberate, institutionalized or even conscious barrier. People, women and minorities in particular, will be much more inspired when they look at Apple and see that they too could be at the top of the coolest, most successful company in the world.

 

There was no legal barrier to a black man becoming the American President before 2008. But most black youths did not even think about aspiring to that position. Obama, however you may feel about his politics, has changed that.

You don't know what he was aspiring to. He can't replace Bob, because, in this unusually straightforward article by Dan, you can see that he is software, and Bob is hardware. Likely, his talents, and he is talented, will serve to aid Bob, but there is no way he can replace him.

Remember that Apple is a vastly larger organization than is Adobe.

Fortunately, there are people in this world who care about social issues as well if not more than how to spend disposable income.

 

That's a shame, since part of the human drive for existence is breaking barriers. "Being the first" is a legitimate enough goal in our species for it to advance simply on that point alone.

 

If they don't want to strive to achieve what they're looking at simply because they don't have a pathway paved out for them, then no, I don't want someone doing a job who doesn't even think they can do the job. 

Vastly indeed.

 

But, interestingly, if you disregard the retail staff, the discrepancy is not as large as you'd think.

That's just speculation on Shameer's part here. He can't replace him. Remember what Apple did when he first left. That's not the point of this hire.

Well-written article I enjoyed it thanks.

My point is that you sure as heck CAN'T resonably surmise, and even if you could, you couldn't draw any dramatic conclusions about what you're guessing at.

If you start with the premise that they're developing these new screen and touch-layer technologies into mass-produced products for the first time anywhere—no one else has risked trying it—especially at the global scale that they are doing it, then you might make room in your critical judgment paradigm for the hardware equivalent of a beta release. It takes time to ramp up something totally new into massive numbers, especially in a tricky area like displays.

Instead of being amazed that they are able to do it all, which is probably the more reasonable option, you are kvetching that their operations are on a slide, based on no real information at all other than delays and shortages. I don't have any real information either, but I know enough about doing real work with machines and processes that things do not always go as your best planning has predicted.

By the way, I would say it's the perception of Apple's incompetence that's tanking the stock as much or more than any actual fumbling. If you deny that, I would understand, because right now you're part of that perception.

Do guys like you ever pay attention to the facts, or do you imagine them while you post? Sorry to be so strong in my reply, but I'm reading a lot of nonsense posts, and I've just begun to read them.

You may, in some point of time, have read that Jonny Ive is now in charge of software UI. That certainly isn't going to change.

My read on this is that Apple needs someone to work between software and hardware, to help integrate the two for best performance. And as he has written some damn good software that needs to be integrated on different platforms, particularly apple's, he would be a good choice for that position.

It's about grass roots. Kids and youngsters need role models in their development. How many people became engineers or pilots because of American astronauts landing on the moon?

 

It is natural that many are additionally inspired by certain role models because we can relate to them more closely? Many Asian kids were inspired by Michael Jordan, but many more took up basketball when Yao Ming became a sensation. Similarly, how can we fail to recognize that girls and minority children can better relate to role models at technology companies that are their own reflections? Are you so stubborn that you can't admit to the transformational consequences of Marissa Mayer taking over at Yahoo, Ursula Burns at Xerox and Ginni Rometty at Xerox?

 

Honestly, which team reflects a greater population: http://www.google.ca/about/company/facts/management/ or http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/? You can't see that girls or boys of minority heritage might be inspired by one more than the other?

 

These are my last words. You either don't understand the issue or are simply being intransigent. Either way, it is disappointing.

 

 

Apple already has the hardware chops, however, they can always use more software talent. Software is the future of Apple innovation.

 

I strongly disagree on both counts.  Apple has a real and obvious problem with gender disparity (as do most of the tech giants admittedly), and while in an ideal world hiring should be gender blind, it's completely acceptable and quite normal to emphasise female hires over male for a short period so that it's at least somewhat rectified.  This is not only standard business practice in the case of minority and gender disparity, it's sound practice that leads to a good result.  

 

There is absolutely no evidence at all that putting a thumb on the scales for a black or female or "other" candidate has ever seriously inconvenienced or had a bad effect on the white male majority.  There is however an avalanche of evidence to the effect that in a white male dominated industry, if you wait for the white guys to do the right thing or for "naturally superior" minority candidates to be rationally identified, that it won't happen at all.  

 

Additionally, this scary thing is that this guy is being hired for a job that's maybe one or two seats away from the "executive page," and one of those seats belongs to Bob Mansfield who has already retired once only to come back when the candidate they got to replace him failed miserably.  

 

This guy is a bad hire.  Plain and simple. 

 

Also to counter those saying it … he didn't just support Flash because he worked for the company that made it, he was an evangelist for it.  A rather rabid one at that.  He publicly and childishly ridiculed Apple many times about their lack of support for Flash.  He went far beyond the call in terms of supporting Flash.  I'm sure most have already seen the video where he puts an iPHone in a blender and then runs over another with a steamroller right?  He's a f*cking idiot. 

 

He's also since doctored his resume page to only mention the cool Apple related things that he's done and removed all the references to all the anti-Apple things he's done (and was proud of).  

At the very least this guy is a dishonest poseur.  His glasses are stupid looking too. 

 

ZOMG!  You have to be joking on this.  Adobe puts out a version quickly because it's almost identical to the last version.  They essentially sell point upgrades as full package upgrades and get away with it because they have a monopoly.  There is more difference (relatively speaking) between Pages 4.2 and Pages 4.3 than there is between CS3 and CS5.

 

Apple is indeed having trouble getting software out the door but in their defence, they have a much bigger to-do list than Adobe.  

I find it hard to believe that Jobs didn't have a say in the matter for someone at that high level.

This one is easier for you responsibility fans. It seems to have been a mistake to include LG among the suppliers, a mistake to ship them all with the fan issue, an ongoing disgrace that they're not addressing the issues publicly, and so on. This is all Apple's responsibility. But who at Apple? Name some names from the COO on down. Or Tim Cook.

You probably won't, or shouldn't, because you don't know who exactly was/is responsible. My point is that you have no business naming Tim Cook or his operations guy(s) for supply issues with the mini iPad or the iMacs without knowing a single thing about the technology or the suppliers. With these Retina MacPro issues, you do know something, so start naming your names, if you feel you must.

Causation?

 

It sounds like you have never held a job with important responsibilities. If you did, you'd know that you, and not your underlings or subcontractors, are responsible when the project you lead does not meet milestones on time.

 

The buck stops somewhere. When Apple promises a product by a certain date and cannot deliver, they are the most responsible party even if Joe Mo in Taiwan was sick for two weeks. That doesn't make them incompetent. But it makes them responsible.

 

If all the iMacs start failing, do consumers sue Apple or Foxconn?

 

Your obstinacy is verging on ignorance.

Didn't know what Crazy Eddie was- so I googled it, informed myself- and your post makes zero sense.  So Apple sometimes defrauds, embezzles, and rips off shareholders?  Huh?

I'd be curious to know who's decision it was to hire him - Mansfield or Cook.  I'm assuming since he's going to work for Mansfield that Mansfield had a say, or even the final say.  So then are we to question his judgement?  He seems to be rock solid in terms of hardware engineering.  And I've read that Ive really likes working with him (and perhaps had something to do with getting him to un-retire).

To improve on software efficiency, that is the only reason i could agree on. Which Apple is definitely lacking. Both in terms of Web services and Desktop Software. For a piece of Software as Complex as Adobe Photoshop i think Adobe is actually doing an reasonable if not a fairy good job.

But then if that was *really* the point i could think of at least 5 more who are better then him in the industry.

 

First, Eddie Cue is Cuban. I think that qualifies as a minority. Second, people should be hired based strictly on talent. Is it not possible that more men are interested and thereby qualified in engineering? Jesse Jackson once attended an Apple shareholder meeting and questioned Apple's record on hiring minorities. Apple pointed out it hires based on talent, and subsequently a large portion of its workforce is Asian. You didn't hear from Jackson on the matter again. A hard cold fact is there aren't a lot of people in the US qualified in the fields of engineering and the ones that are are generally men. 

 

You don't see men up in arms because they are disproportionally represented in health care fields and office administration despite some of those jobs being well paying. Further, you have top women CEO's like  Marissa Mayer dissociating themselves from the feminist movement. 

 

I assure you Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Sony, or any of the extremely successful Japanese companies aren't worrying about how many women they hire as executives.  Maybe Honda North America, etc- but absolutely not at the corporate level.  It always cracks me up how your average feminist school teacher talks about how much they care about equal rights- then drive a Honda.  I'm for equal rights, equal pay, and diversity- so long as the best person gets the best job- regardless of gender or race- not "The best african american female" for the job.

The problem is in these technology fields- or any major corporation for that matter- it's all the good old boy mentality.  I wish there was a fortune 500 CEO degree... I'd get that.  Unfortunately- they just recycle the same handful of guys from company to company to company regardless of how well they did or do.

Yeah like Pages is a complicated application compared to any of CS Suite apps? People who don't own or use a product really shouldn't comment on it.

Here is a list of what's new from CS3 -> CS5

(some of these were introduced in CS4 but improved in CS5)

 

You mean John Siracusa's opinion of what he thinks Apple needs to do.

If its about software why is this guy reporting to Mansfield instead of Federighi or Cue?  Seems a bit odd 

Are you: (a) Implying that I don't care about Apple making great products? (b) The two are mutually exclusive, somehow?

 

Otherwise, I'll just chalk it up to your trying to funny or fatuous.

That is nonsense. How do you suppose companies like Google and IBM manage to find them?

 

Give me a break.

Mansfield used to be VP of Hardware but his title now is Senior VP Technologies. Software could be considered a technology, no?

Interesting that you would name a trivial personnel problem, Joe Mo in Taiwan, when the problems they ran into with the mini were more likely due to things like the chemistry of the films or the adjustment or modification of complex new processing machinery that had never been deployed before.

My point, the reason for my obstinacy, is that internet posters turn themselves into bad clowns when they throw blame around without knowing what they're talking about. And it's damaging to Apple at a critical period during this regime change to be talking trash about the management—trash because it's talk based on ignorance.

 

Because they're there… and not at Apple.

andysol>Didn't know what Crazy Eddie was- so I googled it, informed myself- and your post makes zero sense.  So Apple sometimes defrauds, embezzles, and rips off shareholders?  Huh?

 

Uh, no.  Apple sometimes does bizarre things that make no apparent sense, things that seemingly even do serious damage to themselves and the Apple eco-system in general.  (Just for example, Apple fired Jobs at one point, remember?)  The phrase "Crazy Eddie" used the way I used it in such a context is a phrase and concept out of the novel "The Mote In God's Eye" by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven.

 

Sorry, I should have been more clear instead of simply suggesting googling the phrase and thereby "informing yourself."  I should have mentioned the book.  Or said something like, "Google the phrase, then Wikipedia it, then take a moment to carefully review the disambiguation page to figure out which one fits."   My bad.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by dmarcoot - 3/20/13 at 2:50pm

LOL. That makes no sense at all.....

Really? Did I mention share price?  

You probably thought Browett was a good choice too.  If you think Cooks ability to pick Apples' VP leadership for the next decade is not questionable than the only one here that should be ignored is you. 
 

I have skin in the game, I want Apple to do great. And this guy is not a great choice.
 

Edited by dmarcoot - 3/20/13 at 10:06am