Apple has reorganized its sales and marketing groups aimed at education buyers, and brought back an exec from Apple’s early days to lead the effort, according to an eWeek article.
According to a companywide memo reportedly issued by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the company is combining its education sales and marketing teams into one education business unit that numbers over 750, according to eWEEK. Heading the new group as vice president, education, is John Couch.
Couch served as vice president and general manager of Apple’s Personal Office Sales division, which oversaw development of the Lisa, Apple’s short-lived GUI forerunner to the original Macintosh. He was most recently CEO of DoubleTwist, a company that developed software for the life sciences and ceased operations in March 2002.
eWeek reports that under the new organizational scheme, Couch will report to Timothy V. Cook, executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations, with both the education sales team (headed by Jim Marshall) and the education marketing team answering to Couch. Cheryl Vedoe, former head of the education marketing team, is assuming the title of president of Apple’s PowerSchool division. “The PowerSchool development, sales and marketing teams will now report to Cheryl, creating a ‘FileMaker Inc.’ style organization that has the single goal of making PowerSchool’s products successful in the education market,” according to the Apple memo.
“For over 25 years, Apple has led the way in applying technology to education,” Jobs is reported to have said in the memo. “The education market is part of our DNA. Like most markets, the education market has become very competitive. While we are continuing to innovate with new products, like the eMac, Xserve, Mac OS X and Remote Desktop, we also recognize the need to be more cohesive and responsive with our education sales and marketing efforts.”