Bona fide question: if this is some manager "taking the fall" for Maps, why would it just now be happening? Tim Cook is said to be one of the best operational managers in the world; surely it's obvious to everyone there that collecting a scalp over Maps in December 2012 just puts Maps back in the news cycle during Xmas shopping season?
Personal belief: no discretionary high-level firings of any sort are going to happen during Xmas shopping season; Xmas is to consumer electronics what benefits enrollment is to health insurance companies: total operational lockdown.
Apple staffing decisions at the level of individual projects are pretty deep "inside baseball" for us technology-folk.
The average Xmas shopper isn't going to notice this; on the off chance they do notice it won't figure into their iOS6-device purchasing decisions; on the tiny chance it would affect their decision it might be a positive -- "Apple is actively cleaning up the mess!".
No shopper cares who Apple fires, but the trade press runs stories about the firings, and those stories include how the Maps app isn't great, and consumers do notice that.
Maybe it sounds like I'm doubting the veracity of the story. I'm not. Credit to Bloomberg! What I'm skeptical of is the interpretation on HN, that this guy is a sacrificial lamb. If they were sacrificing him, they'd have done it months ago, or they'd do it after the holidays. November-December is bad time for human sacrifice.
Because most of these sensational breaking stories reflect negatively on the company these bloggers have built their identity out of...and thus themselves.
Richard Williamson, who oversaw the mapping team, was pushed out by Senior Vice President Eddy Cue, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information wasn’t yet public. Cue, who took over last month as part of a management shakeup...
It hardly seems to have affected investors either: Apple shares slipped less than 1 percent to $586.81 at 2:01 p.m. in New York. The stock has gained 45 percent so far this year.
As part of the management overhaul, Cue -- who oversees Apple’s iTunes, App Store and iCloud services -- was also put in charge of maps and the Siri voice-recognition tool, bringing all of the company’s online services under one group.
I think it's unrealistic to think that Apple-internal project/product management staff changes will be put on hold for months simply due to the shopping season. The executives probably feel this "overhaul" is quite urgent and is holding up deadlines.
I totally agree. I'm making a more subtle point, one that's about this thread, not about the news story. People are suggesting that this person is being fired to take the fall for the maps app; that he's a kind of sacrificial lamb. Companies like Apple don't sacrifice their lambs during the holiday season, is what I'm saying.
No, I'm suggesting the opposite; that there's no HR decision they can make vis a vis maps, hire or fire, that would be sound to announce during Xmas shopping season. Therefore, if someone at Apple involved in maps was just fired, it probably wasn't discretionary.
Personal belief: no discretionary high-level firings of any sort are going to happen during Xmas shopping season; Xmas is to consumer electronics what benefits enrollment is to health insurance companies: total operational lockdown.