He has run his course and served his company well, but now Apple is not the underdog anymore, they are a corporate giant, and they better start acting like it sharpish.
As far the "person who is close to the issue", obviously they recognize this and see Jobs and his choices for what he/they are...
Or, WSJ reported irresponsibly, and acted on rumor; for a story like this it's quite possible. However, more likely, there is a legitimate source, and WSJ ran the story...surely they've been around the block enough not to do otherwise.
And, of course, unless WSJ reveals the source, Apple claims it nothing but a rumor...read: until WSJ tells Apple who they need to fire, Apple is going to deny, deny, deny! Lest we remind you sheep, the problem is still with AT&T!!!
If you can imagine Apple over the past decade without Steve Jobs, they still would have had the products (Jonathan Ive), just not the attitude. Was bringing back Steve Jobs years ago that good of an idea? With the arrogance; elitist attitude; discrimination against partnering companies; control over company, customer base, developers? (And please don't attribute Apple's coming back to life years ago to Steve Jobs, it was due to the products Ive designed).
And Apple without the attitude, could have weathered this storm or any other...they wouldn't have released this iPhone 4 to market, they wouldn't have aired ads for years claiming how perfect their products are ("just works" and "virus free", when obviously, no tech product is flaw-free and the Mac is this years highest in terms of exploits), they wouldn't have positioned themselves as a company where, quite frankly, alot of people were just waiting for them to screw up. Apple is no different than any other company, all products will have flaws, exploits, or problems...but having some A$$hole in a turtleneck constantly touting self-righteousness only prohibits the company from fixing those issues when they do happen, and they will happen.
I say it's time to give Lord Jobs an "honorable retirement" and give the helm to the guy who's earned it: Jonathan Ive. Or, steal an exec from Cisco, Google, or MSFT, who will be more open to ideas for legitimate enterprise solutions for their consumer devices, and Apple very well could take over the world! Steve Jobs has become that executive that you don't want making business decisions, but you want to keep around for sentiment and brand recognition.
Let's not forget, this isn't Steve Jobs company, this is the shareholder's company...name one other CEO who has told their customers "you're doing it wrong...the problem isn't our product, it's you - and the network provider we forced you to sign a contract with" or "we won't work with a particular global company (adobe) and we're not interested in entering that particular market (enterprise)." If Steve Ballmer or any other CEO had acted the same way, they would have been gone long ago.
(and before any apologists start talking about stock prices over the last five years and does any other company compare with Aapl...don't forget there were hundreds of companies 12 years ago that experienced better stock price growth than Aapl has seen the last few years, and where are they now? Does the Tech Bubble ring a bell? Chart Aapl, Oracle, IBM, Yahoo, MSFT from '95 to '05...Apple was dead at the height of it all, they only caught wind in 2005 after 2 generations of iPods.)
Which brings me to my last point... yes, the iPod was/is a great product, and paved the way for the iPhone, but it's 2010 now, and car audio has caught up with the rest of the world. My Alpine stereo sees and plays my iPod, Sansa, and even a USB flash drive the same way...it even pulls and displays song, artist info - my iPod touch may as well be a $20 thumb drive, the only difference is the iPod costs 10x as much and is more restrictive to manage...Sony proved long ago that portable music players weren't a long term growth market.
