Less than a week after Intuit Corp. said it would stop making its popular Quicken checkbook software for the Mac, Apple's Steve Jobs showed why the company is so keen on keeping him at the helm.
Jobs stood before a gathering of anxious Apple stockholders Wednesday, who feared that Intuit's decision would further erode confidence in Apple's ability to recover, and coolly explained how it was all a misunderstanding. They were cheering by the time he told them to expect a joint Apple-Intuit statement "next week," implying that Quicken was back on board with the Mac.
The misunderstanding, Jobs told them at the annual stockholders' meeting at the company's Cupertino, California, headquarters, arose because "We didn't get into Intuit's face and tell them how we plan to re-enter the consumer market." Quicken is marketed to the home user.
Jobs, who assumed the role of Apple's interim chief executive nine months ago, also touched on a number of other issues, including the company's unpopular decision to discontinue production and support of the Newton handheld computer.
An interesting sidelight to the Quicken furor is that Bill Campbell, Intuit's chief executive and a friend of Jobs, holds a seat on Apple's board of directors. Jobs said that personal intervention with Campbell paved the way for the apparent agreement to resume making Quicken for the Mac.
Jobs defended the company's recent moves, saying that he believes "viability has largely returned to Apple." Shareholders, buoyed by last week's cheery quarterly report -- a US$55 million profit -- cheered that, too.
With Apple in the black for the past two quarters, and a lot of the fat trimmed away, Jobs predicted that software developers will be encouraged to begin writing new programs for the Mac.
More cheers.
