Edible Apple

Eddy Cue, Apple’s current Senior VP of Internet Software and Services, first became a household name following the debacle that was MobileMe. If you recall, the MobileMe launch was an utter disaster and public relations nightmare for Apple. The botched launch prompted Jobs to call a meeting with the entire MobileMe team where he said everyone “tarnished Apple’s reputation” and that everyone should hate each other “for having let each other down.”

Not one for apologies, Jobs named a new executive to hed up the MobileMe initiative right on the spot – Eddy Cue.

Now in a soon-to-be-released book by Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky titled Inside Apple, Cue is described as Apple’s “dealmaker” and the man responsible for hashing out and negotiating those ever so tricky and complex licensing deals with content owners.

MacNN reports:

Cue was the man responsible for finalizing negotiations with the record companies for iTunes as well as movie studios and TV producers for the iTunes Store. It was Cue who has remade the less-successful MobileMe service into iCloud, persuaded Steve Jobs to go with ARM and not Intel for the early iPhone, and who (according to the book) actually led the initial iPhone discussions with AT&T.

Apple has long been praised for having an exceptionally strong executive team, which is why investors were and remain confident that Apple can continue to lead the way in technological innovation even in the absence of co-founder Steve Jobs. So while executives like Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall are well known, it’s interesting to see the role some of Apple’s other executives play.

More recently, Cue was seen on stage during Apple’s textbook event last week and is rumored to be involved with the negotiations with TV networks surrounding Apple’s rumored HDTV.

Lastly, Apple this past September awarded Cue 100,000 shares of restricted stock which are now worth over $40 million. Half of the shares, however, vest in August 2013 while the other half vest in August of 2015.