Apple Messiah in finals for “person of the year”

FRUIT THEMED MESSIAH Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, is among seven finalists for Time magazine's prestigious "Person of the Year".

Other finalists include US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, US Army General Stanley McChrystal, President Barack Obama and the "increasingly influential" Chinese worker.

Obama got named last year so he is not likely to get it again.

However it is hard to see why Jobs was considered particularly influential this year.

Apple has done extraordinarily well this year, but one has to wonder how much of that was due to Jobs not being at his desk for half of it.

He took six months off to have a new liver installed and most of the decisions during that time were made by his number two, Tim Cook.

The only thing he was rumoured to have had hands on control of was the famed Apple tablet which, er, is reportedly delayed until next year, if it ever appears.

Jobs' success was very much in the years before this one.

We would think that if anyone was 'person of the year' at Apple in 2009 it would be Cook, who not only took over during a tricky time for Apple but set the outfit on a path to be profitable during a recession. µ