John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Apple Says SVP Bob Mansfield “No Longer” on Executive Team, but Gives No Explanation as to Why

“Bob Mansfield will lead a new group, Technologies, which combines all of our wireless teams across the company in one organization, allowing us to innovate in this area at an even higher level. This organization will also include all of our semiconductor teams, who have some very ambitious plans. As part of this, I am thrilled to tell you that Bob will remain with Apple for an additional two years. Bob has led some of our most challenging engineering projects for many years.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook, October 2012

Early Sunday afternoon, Bob Mansfield, Apple’s senior vice president of technologies, disappeared from the company’s Web site, his biography removed from its executive profiles page without explanation.

Now, we know why. Sort of. Mansfield is no longer a member of Apple’s executive team.

“Bob is no longer going to be on Apple’s executive team, but will remain at Apple working on special projects reporting to [CEO] Tim [Cook],” company spokesman Steve Dowling told AllThingsD. He declined any further explanation, refusing to comment on the reasons behind Mansfield’s surprising move, whether he remains Apple’s SVP of Technologies or whether the company plans to appoint a new executive to that role.

The disappearance of Mansfield’s bio from Apple’s Web site was first reported by MacRumors.

Mansfield, a longtime Apple exec announced his retirement from the company in June of 2012 only to return to it a few months later in a new, larger role following a big executive shakeup. He agreed to stay at Apple for an additional two years, serving as SVP of Technologies, a position charged with overseeing Apple’s wireless and semiconductor teams. Recently, he has been rumored to be working on wearable computing devices like the company’s mythical iWatch.

Which makes his sudden removal from Apple’s executive team and abrupt disappearance from the company’s leadership page all the more curious. Mansfield’s departure from the company caused some organizational pain inside Apple and the company paid a lot of money to bring him back — a cash and stock package worth about $2 million a month. That it would now move him off the executive team — whether it be at Cook’s request or his own — not a year later is unusual indeed.

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There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

— Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google