Apple Cloud Services Chief Michael Abbott to Step Down Next Month: Report

Apple's top executive Michael Abbott, who is in charge of cloud services, is leaving the company in April, Bloomberg News reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.

The iPhone maker did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Abbott, who joined Apple in 2018, heads the iCloud service and is in charge of the platform that powers features such as Emergency SOS and Find My on iPhones as well as new features including iCloud data encryption.

He previously held top roles at Twitter and Palm, and was a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.

Jeff Robbin, long-time Apple engineer, will take on Abbott's responsibilities, Bloomberg News reported.

Earlier this year, Insider reported that vice president of services Peter Stern, who oversaw an expansion of Apple's paid subscription businesses, particularly its television offering Apple TV+, would be leaving the company.

Shares in Apple were up about 3.4 percent in afternoon trading.

Last November, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Britain's competition regulator, launched a full investigation into cloud gaming and mobile browsers on concerns about restrictions by iPhone-maker Apple and Google. Apple, in January 2023, filed an appeal against an investigation by Britain's competition watchdog into the dominance of its mobile browsers in the cloud gaming market.

Lawyers representing Apple said in a notice filed with the Competition Appeal Tribunal on Friday that the CMA's investigation should be reviewed. In its argument, lawyers said that the CMA had missed timing requirements linked to the launch of an investigation.

© Thomson Reuters 2023