Macworld Without Steve? That's Like "Baywatch" Without Hasselhoff

Disappointing news for the Mac faithful and anyone who’s ever seen Apple CEO Steve Jobs masterfully deliver his annual Macworld keynote address. Jobs will not do so this year. Instead, the keynote will be given by Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. And Macworld Expo 2009 will be the last such event Apple attends (full statement below).

The unexpected announcement is already playing hell with Apple’s share price, no doubt fueled by further morbid speculation about Jobs’s health. AAPL slipped more that five percent to $90.44 in after-hours trading.

Wow. End of an era. Is this the set-up for Schiller as new iCEO? After all, he’ll be delivering the keynote address at Apple’s marquee event. Or is it simply an acknowledgment that Apple prefers to handle its own events on its own schedule?

Either way it’s a nasty blow to IDG, the publishing company that runs Macworld. Right now they’ve got to be chugging Mylanta by the gallon at IDG corporate.

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Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld

CUPERTINO, California—December 16, 2008—Apple® today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.