There's an old Saturday Night Live skit in which comedian Dana Carvey, playing Tom Brokaw, tapes a series of obituary segments for former president Gerald Ford before leaving for vacation. We laugh because (a) it's funny to think about all the ways that NBC News might prepare for the death of an icon, and (b) it's pretty close to the truth.
After market close on Wednesday, Bloomberg accidentally published to its network of terminals a prefabricated obituary for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, a cancer survivor who is rumored to once again be in poor health.
Amusingly enough, Jobs is arguably at the top of his game. The iPhone, even with connectivity problems, is competing well against peers from Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM), Nokia (NYSE:NOK), and Palm (NASDAQ:PALM). Mobile Telesystems (NYSE:MBT) could sell as many as 3.5 million iPhones in Russia over the next two years. HSBC Bank is thinking of replacing its legion of BlackBerry smartphones with iPhones.
And let's not forget the Mac. As important as the iPhone is, the Mac brings Apple most of its moola -- now more than ever, since it's once again winning share in a market that's been dominated by Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ).
Steve Jobs is no Mark Twain. But, like the author who first proffered the famous quote in an 1897 article in the New York Journal, reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.
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