Apple PR
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July 17, 2011: 7:04 PM ETHint: See the head shot, center row left, in the current "Apple Leadership" page
Source: Apple press info
Jean-Louis Gassée, who worked for Apple from 1981 to 1990 and once held Steve Jobs' job as head of Mac development, was planning to use the Apple Store's 10th anniversary last May as the theme for one of his always insightful Monday Note columns. But when the day came and went without an Apple-sized splash, he sensed something was wrong and held off.
What was wrong, Gassée now suggests, was the news that broke in the Wall Street Journal one month later: Ron Johnson, Apple's (AAPL) senior vice president, retail, was leaving to become CEO of J.C. Penney (JCP).
Why would the man who created the 325-store empire that was, according to a USA Today report last week, single-handedly responsible for 20% of U.S. retail growth in the first quarter of 2011, leave Apple?
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Video: Apple's PR machinery caught on tape (updated)
Managing public opinion is an important factor in the success of any big consumer electronics enterprise, and Apple (AAPL) does it better than most -- largely by staying out of the picture and letting Steve Jobs speak for the company.
But every once and a while the machinery with which Apple keeps a firm grip on the media shows through, and this is one of those occasions.
Under the heading Great Moments MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 17, 2007 11:26 AM ET
