Steve Jobs' demise greatly exaggerated
Posted
Aug 28 2008, 02:52 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
It's a well-known secret that news organizations write obituaries of famous people before they're dead. Better to have a well-written and thorough obituary ready to go instead of rushing something together at the last moment.
But every so often, someone along the chain screws up and hits the "publish" button early. It happened with writeups about Mark Twain, Bob Hope and Pope John Paul II. And Wednesday, it happened to Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Jobs "helped make personal computers as easy to use as telephones, changed the way animated films are made, persuaded consumers to tune into digital music and refashioned the mobile phone," according to a premature obituary published by Bloomberg News.
Bloomberg deleted the article, saying that it was accidentally published after a reporter had made a routine update. A little embarrassing for Bloomberg, but really no big deal. And it should have blown over quickly.
But for some reason, the-obit-that-wasn't has become a hot topic of conversation in the tech world today. Perhaps that's because of recent concerns over Jobs' health, which erupted after he appeared publicly looking quite thin, on the verge of looking gaunt. Or Apple's history of secrecy, even over the performance of the new version of the iPhone.
Maybe seeing the obituary is reviving an Apple investor's worst fear: That this man, one of the most famous and most valuable CEOs in history, is not going to be around forever.
Luckily, Apple shares seemed unaffected Thursday. The stock closed down 0.5% to $173.74.
Steve Jobs is alive. Now can we all move on?
