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Saturday, August 27, 2011

iQuit - Steve Jobs Resigns: Apple CEO Stepping Down






Official Press Release from Apple

CUPERTINO, California - Apple’s Board of Directors today announced that Steve Jobs has resigned as Chief Executive Officer, and the Board has named Tim Cook, previously Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, as the company’s new CEO. Jobs has been elected Chairman of the Board and Cook will join the Board, effective immediately.

“Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple's Board. “Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration.”

“The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO,” added Levinson. “Tim’s 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does.”



Jobs submitted his resignation to the Board today and strongly recommended that the Board implement its succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.


Letter from Steve Jobs
August 24, 2011

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Who is Tim Cook?


Currently. Timothy D. Cook is Apple’s chief operating officer and reports to Apple’s CEO. Cook is responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also heads Apple’s Macintosh division and plays a key role in the continued development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships, ensuring flexibility in response to an increasingly demanding marketplace.

Before joining Apple, Cook was vice president of Corporate Materials for Compaq and was responsible for procuring and managing all of Compaq’s product inventory. Previous to his work at Compaq, Cook was the chief operating officer of the Reseller Division at Intelligent Electronics.

Cook also spent 12 years with IBM, most recently as director of North American Fulfillment where he led manufacturing and distribution functions for IBM’s Personal Computer Company in North and Latin America.

Cook earned an M.B.A. from Duke University, where he was a Fuqua Scholar, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Auburn University.

Read more: http://everythinginbudget.blogspot.com/2011/08/iquit-steve-jobs-resigns-apple-ceo.html#ixzz1WCRuy0gc

Steve Jobs - The iCon says 'iQuit'

Steve Jobs has resigned in a long-expected move and named Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook as his replacement. In tribute to the 'iCon' here's a look at Jobs through the years. PHOTOS BELOW.

Steve Jobs(AP Photo)
In Pictures: Steve Jobs through the years
Click on the thumbnails BELOW to view a brief history of Steve Jobs' now legendary career. 

Apple's legendary co-founder and top ideas man Steve Jobs resigned as chief executive Wednesday, the company said, in a long expected move after he began a dramatic fight with cancer.

In a written statement, Apple, the world's second biggest company by market capitalization, announced that chief operating officer Tim Cook would take over as CEO but that Jobs would stay on as chairman of the board.

"Steve's extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world's most innovative and valuable technology company," board member Art Levinson said in a statement.

No reason was given for Job's resignation, but his health problems, including a lengthy medical leave for a liver transplant in 2009 and his increasingly gaunt appearances at public events, fueled speculation he would have to give up the everyday running of the company he co-founded in 1976.

Cook ran Apple when Jobs went on medical leave and has essentially been running day-to-day operations since early this year with the company racking up record revenue and profit.

Jobs is seen as the heart and soul of Apple, with analysts and investors repeatedly expressing concern over how the Cupertino, California-based company would handle his departure.

"The board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO," Levinson said.

"Tim's 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does," Levinson continued.

Jobs submitted his resignation on Wednesday and urged the board to implement its succession plan and name Cook as his replacement, according to Apple.

In Pictures: Steve Jobs through the years

Cook was previously responsible for Apple's worldwide sales and operations, including management of the supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries.

Jobs is a living legend in Silicon Valley. He is the beloved visionary behind the Macintosh computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad.

Born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco to a single mother and adopted by a couple in nearby Mountain View at barely a week old, he grew up among the orchards that would one day become the technology hub known as Silicon Valley.

Jobs was 21 and Steve Wozniak 26 when they founded Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs's family home in 1976.

While Microsoft licensed its software to computer makers that cranked out machines priced for the masses, Apple kept its technology private and catered to people willing to pay for superior performance and design.

Under Jobs, the company introduced its first Apple computers and then the Macintosh, which became wildly popular in the 1980s.

Apple's innovations include the "computer mouse" to make it easy for users to activate programs or open files.

Jobs was elevated to idol status by ranks of Macintosh computer devotees, many of whom saw themselves as a sort of rebel alliance opposing the powerful empire Microsoft built with its ubiquitous Windows operating systems.

Jobs left Apple in 1985 after an internal power struggle and started NeXT Computer company specializing in sophisticated workstations for businesses.

He co-founded Academy-Award-winning Pixar in 1986 from a former Lucasfilm computer graphics unit that he reportedly bought from movie industry titan George Lucas for $10 million.

Apple's luster faded after Jobs left the company, but they reconciled in 1996 with Apple buying NeXT for 429 million dollars and Jobs ascending once again to the Apple throne.

Since then, Apple has gone from strength to strength as Jobs revamped the Macintosh line, revolutionizing modern culture with the introductions of the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iTunes online shop for digital content.

Friday, August 26, 2011

What Determines a Company's Performance? Shape of the CEO's Face! All a matter of how wide your head is!





What Determines a Company's Performance? Shape of the CEO's Face!

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2011) — Believe it or not, one thing that predicts how well a CEO's company performs is -- the width of the CEO's face! CEOs with wider faces have better-performing companies than CEOs with long faces. That's the conclusion of a new study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
The Milwaukee-Downer "Quad" NRHP on ...Image via Wikipedia

Elaine M. Wong at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her colleagues study how top work. But they have to do it in indirect ways. "CEOs and don't typically have time to talk with researchers or take batteries of tests," she says. "Our research has primarily been at a distance." They've analyzed the content of letters to shareholders and looked at things like how a CEO's educational or personal background affects how well his or her company does. Wong and her colleagues, Margaret E. Ormiston of London Business School and Michael P. Haselhuhn of UWM, wanted to look at another aspect of CEOs – their faces.



Looking at faces isn't as crazy as it might sound. Several studies have shown that the ratio of face width to face height is correlated with aggression. Hockey players with wider faces spend more time in the penalty box for fighting. Men with higher facial width are seen as less trustworthy and they feel more powerful.

"Most of these are seen as negative things, but power can have some positive effects," Wong says. People who feel powerful tend to look at the big picture rather than focusing on small details and are also better at staying on task. She and her colleagues thought that feeling of power might also be correlated with a company's financial performance.

Wong and her colleagues based their analyses on photos of 55 male CEOs of publicly-traded Fortune 500 organizations. They only used men because this relationship between face shape and behavior has only been found to apply to men; it's thought to have something to do with testosterone levels. They also gathered information on the companies' financial performance and analyzed letters to get a sense of the kind of thinking that goes on at those companies.

CEOs with a wider face, relative to the face's height, had much better firm financial performance than CEOs who had narrower faces. "In our sample, the CEOs with the higher facial ratios actually achieved significantly greater firm than CEOs with the lower facial ratios," Wong says.

Don't run out and invest in wide-faced CEOs' companies, though. Wong and her colleagues also found that the way the top management team thinks, as reflected in their writings, can get in the way of this effect. Teams that take a simplistic view of the world, in which everything is black and white, are thought to be more deferential to authority; in these companies, the CEO's face shape is more important. It's less important in companies where the top managers see the world more in shades of gray.

Provided by Association for Psychological Science (news : web)

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Post-Jobs Apple: New research shows Cook will do fine

Performance as CEO all a matter of how wide your head is


Forget about your Ivy League/Oxbridge/Harvard business school education, your connections or how many millions in personal funds you can plough into the business: the one thing you really need as a CEO is a big face, at least according to a new study to be published in journal Psychological Science.

Elaine M Wong of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her colleagues analysed photos of 55 male CEOs of publicly-traded Fortune 500 organisations and found that chiefs with a wider face, relative to face height, had much better firm financial performance that those with narrower faces. (And if you're wondering why this only applies to male CEOs, it is because the whole fat-face thing only works with men – apparently it has something to do with testosterone levels.)

According to Wong and her team, launching this study wasn't completely out of left field, because previous studies had shown big-featured guys were more prone to aggression, seen as less trustworthy and felt more powerful – and they thought these attributes could be a winning combination for CEOs.

steve jobs
Good ratios: Rory Read,
CEO of AMD

"Most of these are seen as negative things, but power can have some positive effects," she said.

Obviously, the Reg couldn't help a little completely unscientific application of these conclusions considering the two new CEOs in the techie stable: Tim Cook at Apple and Rory Read at AMD.

AMD is looking good with Read, since although he's not really got a big face, he hasn't really got a very long face either, so the width-height ratio is probably good.

But Cook is definitely sporting some height there and with those slimly-defined cheekbones, could Apple be in trouble? But no wait, he's practically Jobs' face twin, they're both rocking that lengthy angular look, and Jobs seemed to do OK. Could it be that the concept is not infallible?

steve_jobs_and_tim_cook comparison pics from apple tv and university youtube vid still
Steve jobs (left) and Tim Cook. Separated at birth?

Well, actually, it could. Wong's team found that the way top management felt could interfere with the effect of the head honcho's huge countenance. Teams that took a simplistic view of the world, in which everything is black and white, are thought to be more deferential to authority, so the CEO's face-shape-mojo worked. Big heads are less important in companies where the top managers see the world in shades of grey. ®

Mother of all scams - Many fall for Bukit Aman scam, Syndicates clone caller IDs of enforcement agencies





Many fall for Bukit Aman scam

By AUSTIN CAMOENS austin@thestar.com.my 24/8/11

PETALING JAYA: We have heard of the Nigerian 419 scam, the AL-Globo lottery scam, but the Bukit Aman scam must surely be the mother of all scams.
Part of Bukit Aman's police facilities, as see...Image via Wikipedia

A syndicate posing as police officers from Bukit Aman has been ripping off unsuspecting victims of hundreds of thousands of ringgit by claiming that they are being investigated for alleged money laundering.

Their latest victim is an elderly woman who lost about RM260,000.

Relating the ordeal, the woman who only wanted to be known as Margeret, in her 60s, said she received a phone call on Aug 18 from a man claiming to be a police inspector from Bukit Aman.

She said the “officer” told her that she was being investigated by the Hong Kong police over dealings with two drug dealers there.

“The officer told me that if I did not cooperate fully with police investigations, I would be extradited to Hong Kong to face charges for the offence,” she told The Star yesterday.

Margeret said the officer then passed to her the number of a senior police investigator in Hong Kong to verify the matter.

“I called the number given and a man claiming to be a police officer warned me that I was being investigated together with 28 other people for alleged dealings with drug dealers there,” she said, adding that the man told her to cooperate fully with the police here.

She said she then received another call from a senior police inspector in Bukit Aman who asked her to transfer all her money into an account provided by them.

“They said this was to help them verify that the funds were not linked to drug dealers in Hong Kong,” she said, adding that she transferred a total of RM260,000 from five separate banks to the police here.

Margeret said the officer told her to transfer any additional funds she had to facilitate police investigations failing which she would be arrested.

“I told them that I had an additional RM128,000 in a fixed deposit account in Temerloh, but I could not withdraw the money until the next day.”

Fearing something was amiss, she lodged a police report with the Mentakab police.

Federal Commercial Crimes Investigations Department (CCID) deputy director Deputy Comm Datuk Tajuddin Md Isa said police were investigating the case and appealed to the public to contact Bukit Aman to verify the calls.


 Syndicates clone caller IDs of enforcement agencies

By AUSTIN CAMOENS and RASHITA A. HAMID newsdesk@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: Syndicates are using special technology to dupe unsuspecting victims into believing they are being called by real law enforcement agencies.

The Voiceover Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology is used to replicate phone numbers of the police, Bank Negara and other government agencies.

“The victims do not know they are being duped as the caller ID is identical to the real number of the relevant authority,” Federal head of CyberSecurity and Multimedia Investigation Division Asst Comm Mohd Kamaruddin Md Din told The Star, referring to reports on the Bukit Aman scam.

VoIP is a family of technologies, communication protocols and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet.

The modus operandi of the syndicate involved in the Bukit Aman scam was to tell victims that they were being investigated by Hong Kong police for money-laundering activities.

“The syndicate then tells the victims that they must transfer all their savings into an account which is provided by the syndicate in order to verify that the funds are not linked to any cases,” ACP Kamaruddin said, adding that victims were told the money would be transferred back to their accounts once Bank Negara had completed investigations.

He said there had been 76 such cases reported nationwide amounting to losses of more than RM3.05mil between January and June this year.

ACP Kamaruddin advised the public to immediately contact the relevant authorities if they received such calls.

He said there had been a total of 367 cases involving bogus police, bank and government officials between January and June this year, resulting in losses of more than RM10mil.

“Last year, there was a total of 996 cases amounting to about RM17.4mil in losses,” he said, adding that in most cases the money could not be retrieved as the syndicates operated from outside the country.