Apple CEO Steve Jobs Snubs France?

Digital Journal — The tech industry loves rumours, especially when it comes to Apple. Most recently, the planned absence of Steve Jobs from the upcoming Apple Expo in Paris next month has industry insiders suggesting he’s snubbing the French government for interfering with the company’s iTunes and iPod. Nice story, but I don’t buy it. Recently, France, Norway, Sweden and Denmark were working together to urge Europe to force Apple to drop the proprietary push and open its iTunes online store to work with other portable music players in addition to the iPod. On the heels of what has been a very contentious debate in France, Macworld UK is reporting that Steve Jobs will not do a keynote address at the Apple Expo — the largest Apple tradeshow in Europe. The event runs from September 12 to 16. Clémentine Tisserand, the Apple Expo Communications contact who represents the shows organizers (Reed Expositions France), confirmed the lack of a keynote address to Macworld UK. Very plainly, she said “There will be no keynote at this year's show,” adding that it was not her company’s decision to have Jobs skip the keynote. With Tisserand’s emphasis on the fact that it wasn’t her company’s decision to have Jobs absent, speculation and accusations have started flying because the decision must have been handed down by Apple or Jobs himself. But Jobs skipping the keynote is not that unusual. In fact, this will be the third year in a row where Jobs has been AWOL (in 2004 Phil Schiller gave the presentation while Jobs was recovering from cancer surgery, and last year Jobs flew in to talk about the nano but missed the keynote). In addition, Apple has just done the worldwide circuit; with many announcements and previews already made at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco earlier this month, Apple has already travelled all over to show off the upcoming Leopard and the new Intel Mac Pro. Based on the size of the Apple Expo and Apple’s strong position in Europe, it’s highly unlikely the company would want to draw so much negative attention to itself by not showing up simply to snub the French. As IT Wire columnists have already pointed out: There is so much new Apple news on the market that it’s quite possible Jobs just wants to give the world time to digest the new announcements the company has already made. But the event is still a few weeks away, leaving lots more time for more rumours.