Dear Colleagues:
As you may already know, Apple made an announcement today regarding its
restructuring plans. While the full details are available in the press
release, I wanted to make sure that you were aware of the changes and how
they will impact Developer Relations.
Earlier this year, Gil Amelio promised to simplify Apple’s product lines
and to resolve some of Apple’s fragmentation issues. As part of the
restructuring, Apple’s once-scattered marketing organizations have been
united into a single organization under the leadership of Guerrino De
Luca. Developer Relations, as a part of this organization, will
participate in efforts to make Apple successful and to help developers be
even more successful. We realize that the single most important way we
can help developers is to dramatically increase the number of satisfied
Macintosh customers who will purchase your software and hardware
products. We’re working hard to make that happen!
To simplify our product lines, we are evaluating the products, projects
and technologies that are under development. This is a response to both
fiscal challenges and to developers’ requests that we narrow our
technology focus and support more industry standards. While some of the
simplification will take place in unannounced projects, we will also cut
back in some previously announced areas. The press release has more
details on these plans, and it is my sincere hope that for most of you,
this will be a welcome change.
Like many other departments at Apple, Developer Relations will also have
resource reductions. In order to improve efficiency, some of ADR’s
previous responsibilities, such as advertising and platform marketing,
will be integrated into the new marketing organization. Most of the
information and services we deliver will remain the same but will be more
efficiently produced and delivered by a centralized team. This past year,
Apple has turned its Developer Relations organization into a world class
service provider and the lessons we have learned from you will remain a
priority.
Evangelism will continue to be a focal point of Developer Relations.
While some areas of evangelism will be cut back, our overall focus on
evangelism will be increased. Technology evangelism will be driven
specifically by the Mac OS and Rhapsody, with particular focus on
industry standards such as Sun’s Java language and Apple’s QuickTime
Media Layer.
Apple’s No. 1 priority is to regain profitability and sell high quality
Macintosh products to our customers. Under the new marketing structure,
Developer Relations will be better able to concentrate on nurturing
relationships and evangelizing fewer core technologies, while making it
simpler for you to support our platform and qualify your products. We
realize that our success depends on your support and success, and we look
forward to working together!
Sincerely,
David Krathwohl
Vice President
Apple Developer Relations