The First (and maybe last) Thing I'll Say About Steve

...isn't even my own words.

I've been a big fan of Robert X. Cringely - not his real name, and a name used elsewhere in the IT industry by someone else. But this is the REAL Robert X. The one who used to write the back page of InfoWorld and gave us "Accidental Empires" (the book, the movie!).

Cringely is IT's answer to House. He's not always right, but he's always eventually right. And he's got the experience, insight, and tenacity to know when he's not right YET and to keep digging.

This morning his hastily scrawled blog post ("Cupertineo Two Step") beat out anything else I've seen in the news so far.

The key take-aways:

"he’s not going away, not signing-up for Apple COBRA benefits, just giving up to Cook his duties as CEO. Jobs will remain an Apple employee and chairman of the board.  That makes him what’s called an executive chairman — one who is on the job every day. And that job he’ll be doing every day is overseeing Tim Cook’s execution of the corporate strategy designed by Steve Jobs."

and

"For all his administrative skills, Cook can’t fill Jobs’ visionary shoes, so I’d look for another leadership change, maybe tied to the release of Isaacson’s book. [...] I believe Walter Isaacson’s book will also function as Steve’s technology manifesto, part of his legacy. Once we have the grand plan, then it may make more sense just who should lead that plan’s execution during what will clearly be Apple’s best quarter in its 34 year history.  Steve Jobs is setting-up this (and us) for another grand reveal… just one more thing."