CEO likely courting partners for Apple devices

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will make an appearance at this year's Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, says Bloomberg. Held for a week each July, the event is a retreat for media executives, with recreational activities like golf, yoga, barbecues and skeet shooting. Attendees also give morning presentations on their companies, however, and can end up sealing important deals. Disney, for example, once used it as a launching point for buying ABC.

Jobs has only been to the retreat twice in the past, in 1999 and 2005. Why the CEO would decide to go again in 2010 has not been made public, but it's speculated that he may trying to court partners for content related to the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and iPod touch. The iPad may be a particular focus, as it is more explicitly designed for media consumption, and was only launched in its first-ever form in April.

Some other important CEOs expected to attend the conference include Disney's Bob Iger, Google's Eric Schmidt, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett and former Microsoft head Bill Gates. Jobs could potentially be interested in attending simply for his connections to Disney, since he sits on the company's board and is the largest individual shareholder.

by MacNN Staff