iTunes chief Eddy Cue promoted to Apple senior VP, will oversee iAds
The change in leadership was revealed by Apple on Thursday in an update to its executive biographies website. The new profile of Cue notes that as senior vice president, he reports directly to Chief Executive Tim Cook.
"Eddy oversees Apple's industry-leading content stores including the iTunes Store, the revolutionary App Store and the iBookstore, as well as iAd and Apple's innovative iCloud services," the bio reads.
The promotion fills a vacancy left in August, when Andy Miller, formerly vice president of mobile advertising at Apple, left the company to join a venture capital firm. In his new position, Cue will oversee Apple's iAd mobile advertising network, found in native applications for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
As the head of Apple's iTunes division, Cue's previous title at the company was vice president of Internet Services. His new, expanded role brings Apple's other online services under his control.
Cue has worked at Apple for 22 years and helped to create the first version of the company's online store back in 1998. He also had a hand in building the iTunes Music Store, which launched in 2003, and the App Store, which debuted on the iPhone in 2008.
"He also played a key role in developing Apple's award-winning iLife suite of applications," Apple's description notes. "In his years at Apple, he was a successful manager of software engineering and customer support teams."
Cue had already taken a more visible role for Apple earlier this year, when he was on hand with News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch to unveil The Daily, a tablet-only digital newspaper that debuted on the iPad. He was also said to be personally involved in negotiations for licensing agreements for iCloud music services, flying to New York to finalize deals with record labels.
14 Comments
The way the headline reads it sounds as if iAd is the only thing on his plate. If that were the case then I'd say he's on his way out... but iAds is only a small part of his portfolio.
Bad hairpiece!
Congrats Eddie!
I hope he can turn iAd around. iAd and Ping need to either improve drastically or just go away. As I said many times before I only see test ads in iAd boxes.
What's more interesting to me is the position rather than the person (not that he's an uninteresting person -- he might be super-awesome, I just don't know much about him). The fact that they are creating this position at the SVP level means that they see iCloud and related stuff as being on the same level of importance to the firm as the other things that are at the SVP level.
In other words, iCloud is not going to be another mobileMe in terms of the attention it receives from senior management. Apple now sees this as something that is of vital strategic importance, not a sideshow hobby (which is what mobileMe always felt like).