Een week geleden kon je hier op MacFreak lezen dat Phil Schiller weer een stap terug had genomen uit het management van Apple. Dat werd geschreven met de aanname dat  dit vooral gebeurde vanwege zijn leeftijd (hij werd op 8 juni 66 jaar), maar er lijkt toch meer aan de hand.

Want volgens Mark Gurman zou deze nieuwe stap terug van Phil Schiller ook te maken hebben met verschillende inzichten in de App Store.


Apple’s nieuwe CEO John Ternus en Eddy Cue (Apple’s senior vice president of Services and Health) zouden inzetten op het halen van maximale winst uit de App Store, terwijl Phil Schiller denkt dat dit slecht zal vallen bij zowel ontwikkelaars als overheden.

Schiller was degene die jaren geleden zich binnen Apple al afvoeg of de bedragen die Apple rekent voor het aanbieden van apps in de App Store wel houdbaar was. Hieronder bijvoorbeeld een mail van hem over dit onderwerp:

From: Philip Schiller
Subject: HTML5 Poses Threat to Flash and the App Store
To: Eddy Cue, Steve Jobs
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 09:27:10-0700

Food for thought:

Do we think our 70/30 split will last forever? While I am a staunch supporter of the 70/30 split and keeping it simple and consistent across our stores, I don’t think that 70/30 will last that unchanged forever. I think someday we will see enough challenge from another platform or web based solutions to want to adjust our model (already Google has rolled out a web in app purchase model at 95/5).

If someday down the road we will be changing 70/30, then I think the question moves from “if” to “when” and “how”. I’m not suggesting we do anything differently today, only that whenever we make a change we do it from a position of strength rather than weakness. That we use any such change to our advantage if possible. And thinking about this long in advance can only help to look at an eventual change as an opportunity (with developers, press, customers, etc).

Just as one thought, once we are making over $1B a year in profit from the App Store, is that enough to then think about a model where we ratchet down from 70/30 to 75/25 or even 80/20 if we can maintain a $1B a year run rate? I know that is controversial, I just tee it up as another way to look at the size of the business, what we want to achieve, and how we stay competitive. Again, just food for thought.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-TEB-2920

De hoofdboodschap van de Mark Gurman post: "Tim Cook gaat helemaal niet met pensioen."

The pay of top Apple executives is split between a salary, cash bonus and stock units that vest over time. For next year, Cook will get a base salary of $2 million. That’s down from the $3 million he had as CEO — a salary that Ternus now receives. But the $2 million is still twice the typical base salary of senior vice presidents and members of the C-suite.

In terms of restricted stock units for 2027, Ternus was given a target of $55 million — on top of the salary and unspecified bonus — while Cook gets $45 million. Those numbers will fluctuate based on how Apple’s share price performs, but Ternus’ compensation likely won’t be far off from Cook’s pay in recent years as CEO. Cook’s new package, though, is highly unusual for a chairman.