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Apple’s (that’s Apple, not Apple Computer) abrupt announcement that Steve Jobs would not deliver the keynote for MacWorld 2009 in San Francisco and in fact, this would be Apple’s last year in attendance at MacWorld shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. It is just another step in its transformation towards being a completely self controlled ecology that began with the return of Steve Jobs. Here’s why it makes sense.

Let me preface by saying I wish this wasn’t happening. I am going to MacWorld 2009 myself this year after several years of not attending. There was a period where I attended all of the San Francisco and Tokyo (Mac Expo Tokyo) shows every year.

Consider the announcement – Apple considers its retail presence as a suitable replacement for reaching millions of customers – a replacement that is 100% under its control and increasingly a venue more for the iPhone and iPod than for the Mac.

Now consider the following:

• Apple placed retail outlets after leveraging the many years of data supplied by thousands of resellers about where their customers were, and their buying habits
• Apple’s Made for iPod logo system ensures that if its non-Apple hardware that attaches to iPod (or iPhone), those non-Apple makers are going to pay and submit to Apple’s review (hey, where’s my attachable full sized keyboard like I had for my Palm V?)
• How much of an Apple Store is devoted exclusively to the Mac? Apple has done a brilliant job in using the popularity of the iPhone and iPod to promote the Mac by placing an iPhone or iPod next to each computer – come on, isn’t the Mac now just a peripheral to the iPod?
• Apple has made it virtually impossible to sell any third party application for the iPhone except through the App Store; the iPhone itself is carefully distributed and only available unlocked in markets where its otherwise illegal not to provide an unlocked option
• In the last several years, how many new and innovative products appeared at MacWorld that were either 1) not from Apple itself, or 2) not something new for the iPhone or iPod?
• Of the products Apple does want you to buy for the Mac – well – it makes the only ones that really matter, except for a few applications that aren’t strategic for them. Ask yourself – how many Adobe or Microsoft Mac products do not have an Apple made equivalent now?

Back in the mid 1990′s, if you went to a MacWorld, you saw some large and impressive third party booths from both hardware and software makers. In San Francisco, they would fill two large halls to capacity.  Just filling one hall in the last few years has been a challenge. And this sums it up as to why -

Apple dropped the “Computer” from Apple Computer because they are a digital lifestyle company, not a computer company. The Mac is just another object in a chain of consumer electronic objects it wants to sell you. And end-to-end, it controls every aspect of its products: from manufacturing to end customer purchases.

All of Apple’s software development, business expansion and acquisitions since the return of Steve Jobs have been to remove the ability of third parties to influence the stock value of Apple, while at the same time expand into new and profitable markets.

Sadly, a third party run, Mac specific show is just another third party influencer outside its control. How much bad press gets generated when Apple doesn’t release – or even announce – something new at MacWorld? Why would a company allow itself to be influenced by a third party event in a way that could impact its valuation?

And that’s it, right there. I know when I go to a MacWorld Expo – dammit – I want something new and special to come out for the Mac. And if there’s nothing, I think bad thoughts about Apple. Why would Apple need that when they can reach me when they want to, through a local mall?