Stefan Mileschin

A top bean counter at Forrester Research has warned that Apple is going to suffer in the long term now that Steve Jobs has croaked.

Writing in his bog, George Colony said Apple will decline in the post-Steve Jobs era although it will probably coast for another two to four years before it starts to rot from the inside.

He said that Apple CEO Tim "nice but dull" Cook doesn't possess Jobs' star power and without the arrival of a new charismatic leader it will move from being a great company to being a good company.

He is predicting that there will be a step down in revenue growth and product innovation.

Of course the tame Apple press, which itself has been less tame lately, pointed out that the fade Colony describes doesn't appear to be on the immediate horizon.

Apple recently reported doubling its profits in the first three months of the year.

But Colony predicted that Apple's long-term fate will mirror Sony and Kodak when they lost enigmatic leaders, or Disney in the 20 years after Walt Disney's death. Christianity, we guess, would have been stuffed if it had not been for the more charismatic mysoginst Paul of Tarsus taking over from the somewhat dull Simon Peter.

Colony described Apple as running like a religion. He said that charismatic organisations work with the gift of grace. But once the leader has gone it becomes more bureaucratic.

He added that in charismatic organisations, the magical leader must be succeeded by another charismatic leader because the employees and customers demand it.

While Tim Cook is a proven and competent executive to succeed Jobs, his legal and bureaucratic approach will prove to be a mismatch for an organisation that feeds off the gift of grace.

He thinks Apple would have been better off with Jon Ive and Scott Forstall in charge.

http://news.techeye.net/business/app...-a-new-messiah