FJ de Kermadec posted on the Oreilly Digital Media blog about Apple’s pullout from Macworld 2010 and more importantly, what message Apple is sending out by having Phill Schiller doing the keynote instead of Jobs.

Slowly, progressively, Apple is laying the ground for the future. Saying that Apple has no “succession plan” appears to be very much a mistake. The first step in preparing Steve’s succession is to dissociate the presence of Steve on stage with the release of new products. Only then will Apple be able to successfully articulate anything about the future because only then will the public be prepared to take any replacement, no matter how brilliant, seriously.

In a word, yes, I believe this cancellation is the first major step in planning Steve’s retirement from a PR standpoint. It does not, however, mean that Steve is retiring. It merely means the company, and probably Steve himself, are thinking about the future. Any CEO should do that, and Steve’s unusual personnality should not let us forget that he is a very serious, dedicated CEO in many ways.

Perhaps we are looking at the next stage of the Apple evolution, right from the top.

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