Post-Jobs Cook drives Eddy Cue to lead the iCloud future

Apple's [AAPL] recently-promoted Eddy Cue will lead what could be the company's biggest battle of this decade -- guiding the fruit-flavored firm as it cloud surfs into a brave new world of connected, location-sensitive, personalized devices for the ultimate in always-on computing, a service Apple calls, simply, iCloud.

It would be unwise to underestimate new CEO, Tim Cook's move to promote Cue to Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services yesterday. Cue carries the mantle of the departed leader and has been instrumental in developing the company's cloud solutions, by which I mean iTunes, the App Store and what was good about MobileMe. He as well put at the same time the first online Apple product store.

It is my pleasure to announce the promotion of Eddy Cue to Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services. Eddy will report to me and will serve on Apple's executive management team.

The iTunes Store

Eddy oversees Apple's industry-leading content stores including the iTunes Store, the revolutionary App Store and the iBookstore, as then as iAd and Apple's innovative iCloud services. He is a 22-year Apple veteran and leads a large organization of amazing people. He played a major role in creating the Apple online store in 1998, the iTunes Music Store in 2003 and the App Store in 2008.

Apple is a company and culture unlike any other in the world and leaders like Eddy get that. Apple is in their blood. Eddy and the entire executive management team are dedicated to making the best products in the world that delight our clients and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.

The company has been working toward for years

This is something the company has been working toward for years. iCloud services will become an integral -- I believe essential -- to the company's success or failure. iCloud will link all your Apple devices, connect you to all your media and other content and will in the end enable a thin client computer vision that comes straight out of science fiction.

This is important, and already we see first signs that Google, among others, will need to stand up and fight Apple in this ring. Google chairman, Eric Schmidt yesterday explained:

This is where it gets interesting. Schmidt seemingly admits that Google's focus on the nerd ranch isn't always appropriate for a mass market computing age. "Engineers trying to solve technical problems have little experience of what consumer wants," he said.

The consumer

"Apple proves that if you organize around the consumer, the rest of it will follow. Try and figure out how to solve the consumer problem and at that time the revenue will show up. What [CEO] Steve [Jobs] has done in Apple is truly the best CEO performance in the world in 50 years and like as not 100 yeas, because not only did he do this once, he did it twice."

Cue is no stranger to developing consumer-focused systems. Take a look at iTunes -- during derided by many, it has become the leading global music store and media service, partially on strength of the massive success of Apple's product design strategy.

The company's product range

That consumer-focused simplicity extends across the company's product range, including its own Internet services. It's central to any understanding of the work of Steve Jobs and the question, "what would Steve do?"

This is the challenge Cue is taking on as he joins Apple's senior executive team: He has to take on Google, Facebook, Amazon -- all the social networks, all the music-based services, the broadcast and TV industries.

While none of these campaigns should be seen as all-or-nothing, Apple does need to be a credible player. The newly-promoted exec sure carries a lot of weight on his shoulders.

The fact that iTunes is the leading store

Advantages to his new role include the fact that iTunes is the leading store, Apple's huge big massive population of iPods and iOS devices and the growing marketshare of the Mac itself, even within a slowly shrinking PC market.

Cue will have to parlay these advantages to deliver an incredibly powerful even so simple during also sophisticated suite of online services. Apple's focus is not just on providing the best products it can, nevertheless category-defining solutions on which it can pretty much set its price, so he must as well ensure iCloud and future Internet software and services are world class, secure and uniquely satisfying experiences.

To help him, Cue has built a reputation as having an eye for detail, in other words like his old boss. He's as well described as being "warm," "unpretentious," and "quick to tell a joke". Nevertheless he's as well a devil at the negotiating table, as Hollywood, Tin Pan Alley and the publishing industry have reportedly found out. A keen eye for business and detail along with a proven innovation track record will be the strengths Cue brings to Apple's battle for the clouds.

Apple's Tim Cook will shore up this strength with his own operational excellence, with executives across the hardware, mobile and software teams all working to ensure that Apple's cloud isn't like any other cloud. What the history of the then decade or so of research will show us is if Apple's efforts are enough. Undoubtedly, once the iCloud is switched-on, Apple cannot afford the kind of fracas that greeted the original launch of MobileMe.