John Martellaro, former Senior Market Manager at Apple, has insightful post at Mac Observer explaining why Apple will sometimes intentionally leak product information to the media.
As Martellaro explains, “Often Apple has a need to let information out, unofficially. The company has been doing that for years, and it helps preserve Apple’s consistent, official reputation for never talking about unreleased products.”
The method, which basically consists of giving a “wink-wink can you publish this” to a major outlet guarantees that no one can accuse Apple of trying to manipulate stock prices. These conversations happen exclusively by phone so that no paper trail is left behind.
Martellaro also points out: “Controlled leaks are almost always the solution to a problem. In [the case of the Wall Street Journal's article about the Apple tablet], it could have been that Apple needed to release the tablet information early because they wanted:
- to light a fire under a recalcitrant partner
- to float the idea of the US$1,000 price point and gauge reaction
- to panic/confuse a potential competitor about whom Apple had some knowledge
- to whet analyst and observer expectations to make sure the right kind and number of people show up at the (presumed) January 26 event. Apple hates empty seats and demands SRO at these events.”
This just goes to show that even though the Apple rumor mill likes to think they have the one-up on Cuppertino, it might just be the other way around.
