Apple 22-Year Veteran Cue Steers Company Into Post-PC Era Jobs Envisioned
Steve Jobs’s vision of a post-PC era of Web-based applications is being left to Eddy Cue, the 22-year Apple Inc. (AAPL) veteran responsible for building the iTunes platform and cultivating the planned iCloud file-sharing service.
Cue, who had been vice president of the Cupertino, California-based company’s Internet services business, was promoted by Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook in September to senior vice president. The promotion expanded Cue’s oversight of the App Store, which sells downloadable software for iPads and iPhones, as well as the iAd mobile-ad business that competes with Google Inc. (GOOG)’s AdMob.
In his earlier roles in building iTunes music, movie and TV service, Cue handled negotiations with Hollywood studios and record companies. A gregarious man known for an easy sense of humor, Cue often has done most of the negotiations, with Jobs coming in to close when necessary, according to Tim Bajarin, founder of Campbell, California-based consulting firm Creative Strategies Inc.
“He’s a key guy,” Bajarin said. “But if you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t think so” upon meeting him, he said.
The promotion reflected his role in building iTunes and the App Store, and it puts him on the same level as such Apple executives as design head Jonathan Ive and iPhone software chief Scott Forstall.
“Apple is a company and culture unlike any other in the world and leaders like Eddy get that,” Cook wrote in the memo announcing the promotion. “Apple is in their blood.”
Digital Life
Cue was a manager in Apple’s customer support unit in 1997 when Jobs returned to the company after an ouster more than a decade earlier. Jobs put Cue in charge of one of his first efforts: to build an online store. The success of the store helped Apple sell directly to customers rather than through a less efficient network of dealers and third-party retailers.
Cue later helped develop the initial iTunes store as well as the processes that would make purchasing songs or downloading apps simple and secure. One of the recent steps in the company’s evolution is iCloud, which will let users access content across multiple Apple devices without having to physically transfer files from hard drive to hard drive.
Jobs proclaimed in June that iCloud would become the hub of digital life and “demote the PC and the Mac to be just another device.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Burrows in San Francisco at pburrows@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net.
Eddy Cue
Steve Jobs’s vision of a post-PC era of Web-based applications is being left to Eddy Cue, the 22-year Apple Inc. veteran responsible for building the iTunes platform and cultivating the planned iCloud file-sharing service. Photograph courtesy of Apple
Steve Jobs’s vision of a post-PC era of Web-based applications is being left to Eddy Cue, the 22-year Apple Inc. veteran responsible for building the iTunes platform and cultivating the planned iCloud file-sharing service. Photograph courtesy of Apple
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Steve Jobs, who built the world’s most valuable technology company by creating devices that changed how people use electronics and revolutionized the computer, music and mobile-phone industries, died. He was 56. Bloomberg's Erik Schatzker reports on the life of Apple Inc.'s co-founder and former chief executive officer. (Source: Bloomberg)
Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak talks about the evolution of the company and his fellow co-founder Steve Jobs, who died yesterday at age 56. Wozniak and Jobs founded what is now Apple Inc. in 1976 to sell their computers. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, surpassed Microsoft Corp. in 2010 to become the world’s most valuable technology company. Wozniak speaks from Cupertino, California, with Susan Li on Bloomberg Television's "Asia Edge." (Source: Bloomberg)
Apple Inc. Co-Founder Steve Jobs
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc., at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2011 in San Francisco, California, on June 6, 2011.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc., at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2011 in San Francisco, California, on June 6, 2011. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Apple Inc. Co-Founder Steve Jobs
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc., at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, California, on June 7, 2010.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc., at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, California, on June 7, 2010. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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