SJ’s email to employees re MobileMe - what does it mean?
On August 5, 2008, TechStock2000 posted the following:
In case anyone has been too busy to read the posts from last night, SJ sent an email to Apple employees yesterday afternoon about the problems with the MobileMe launch. Little in his analysis of what went wrong is news to members of Applelot - our own analysis was spot on.
Here is some of what SJ wrote:
- MobileMe was launched before it was ready
- The launch was not up to Apple’s standards
- MobileMe needed more time and more testing
- The MobileMe services could have been rolled out slowly rather than as one “monolithic service.”
- It was a mistake to try to launch iPhone 3G, the App Store, iPhone 2.0 software and MobileMe all on the same day
- MobileMe could have been delayed without any major consequences
In a major reshuffling of the Executive Team, the MobileMe operation will no longer report to Sina Tamaddon (SVP of Applications), but will not report to Eddie Cue (who heads internet software - iTunes and the Apps Store). Eddie, who used to report to Sina, will now report directly to Steve.
Those are the facts. Now for some analysis.
- This is a major slap-down for Sina. Steve is saying that when people at Apple screw up, there are consequences - and that this was a major screw-up.
- This is a major vote of confidence for Eddie. iTunes has been a huge success for Apple, and the App Store has been very successful in its initial month. Getting to report directly to Steve moves him from the second circle at the company into the inner circle.
- Items #1 and #2 together show how SJ continues to build and underscore the culture that he wants to have at the company. Ever since he returned from the wilderness, SJ has worked hard to build a culture in which Apple requires performance at the highest levels. Performers are rewarded handsomely and non-performers are punished.
- The launch of four major new products (iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software, App Store & MobileMe) stretched Apple beyond its breaking point, and the ball that was dropped was MobileMe. To me, this highlights that Apple employs some of the best in the world at managing complex projects, but does not have enough of those world-class project managers to simultaneously work them.
- The fact that SJ is now (one month after the launch) taking action tells me that he was further removed from the launch of MobileMe than he has been from any other major Apple launch in years. It could be that he was busy with other things and depended on Sina to make sure that MobileMe was under control. This could well be the same point as #4, but applied to SJ personally rather than to Apple as an entire company. It could be that he simply does not have the same level of personal interest in the background plumbing as he has in the actual things that customers hold. It could be that SJ was busy with things that we have not yet learned about - but which we will learn in the future.
- The fact that the email to employees was leaked to the public within hours of being sent had to have been expected. SJ was not simply communicating with the Apple employees, but with the customers, the product analysts, and the company’s stockholders. He has done this a few times in the past (the “everything is OK with the company even though the stock price sucks” email last spring and the “off the record” phone call to the NY Times a few weeks ago spring to mind). Steve seems to think that communications like this work as well, and perhaps better than, traditional press releases. I suspect we will see more indirect communication like this in the future.
- As much as Apple is a large company, it is still immature in many ways. Why were the people that were actually working on the MobileMe implementation unwilling/unable to stop the process and delay the launch? Did the pressure to meet a deadline override their professional judgement or was the stigma of being a naysayer so great that the software engineers kept quiet and just hoped for the best? Or worse - did the engineers doing the work report that the system was not ready, only to have those warnings ignored? We will probably never know the actual answer to those questions, but unless the company implements systems that ensure adequate testing and a true “go/no go” decision at the last moment, the company will have these problems again.
- The biggest issue raised by this entire fumbled launch is that it raises the question of whether Apple can be trusted by enterprises to “just work” in the way that consumers trust Apple. I believe that this is the reason that SJ has personally stepped in, and done so in a way that shows that finding and fixing the company issues are a high priority for him.
TS2K
techstock2000 @ August 5, 2008
I think this shows more than anything that wireless is a complex business and that even though Apple has done an amazing job entering the business, occasionally they show their inexperience. I just wonder where the heck AT&T was at in the process.
I agree, Scout. The infrastructure and software needed for a project like MobileMe is very complex, and perhaps there was a bit of hubris on Apple’s part to believe that they could get it right quickly - even though they have entered complex new fields with great success before.
I’m not sure that AT&T would have been helpful, however. I don’t think of them either as innovative or as having bulletproof systems.
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