Transparency in Apple’s Corporate Statements - 3574 Words

Apple, Inc.: Transparency in Corporate Statements About the CEO On June 9, 2008, at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, numerous media outlets and a packed house waited to hear Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs’s keynote address introducing the new iPhone 3G. While the product’s debut drew raves worldwide, the real buzz was created by how gaunt and exhausted Steve Jobs appeared on stage. Rumors immediately began circulating on Internet forums on the apparent source of his condition – perhaps a reemergence of the pancreatic cancer he suffered in 2004 or some new unknown ailment plaguing the widely revered business icon? Six months after the WWDC, Apple announced that Jobs would not be delivering his customary†¦show more content†¦Since Jobs’s gaunt appearance at the WWDC in June 2008, Wall Street has been keeping a close eye on Apple. Its share price has been shifting with the different emerging announcements. While there is a segment of the public that feels that a person’s medic al condition is a matter of privacy and not under the realm of public disclosure, there is a segment that insists that, in this case, it is indeed within the purview of shareholders. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times emphatically stated that â€Å"Apple has allowed its institutional arrogance, its culture of secretiveness, and possibly its solicitude for and fear of Jobs to lead it down a path of rank corporate irresponsibility.†4 Apple is facing credibility issues with both its corporate communication and with concerns regarding the company’s success without Steve Jobs. As Dylan Ratigan stated on CNBC’s Fast Money, â€Å"†¦the quality of information we’re getting from Apple is inconsistent at best and misleading at worst.†5 Combined with post-Jobs jitters, it seems unlikely that such a highly praised, successful company with an extremely loyal customer base would invoke such backlash and concern about its future over any single employe e, but clearly Steve Jobs proves to be the exception. Early Days Apple Computer was established on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald