De Luca quits amid Mac clone dispute

Guerrina De Luca, executive vice president of marketing at Apple, has resigned just days after the company?s new-look board of directors held its first meeting.

The news coincided with a rise in Apple?s share price to $22.31.

Sources blamed De Luca?s resignation on a split with interim CEO Steve Jobs over licensing to clonemakers.

The Italian was previously president of Apple?s software subsidiary, Claris, for two years and worked at Olivetti for over 10 years in a variety of roles. He had been at the main Apple company for just seven months.

De Luca claimed he had made the decision to leave for ?personal reasons?. He was the only recognised senior marketer at the company, according to analysts, and was brought in to turn around a function that came under months of heavy criticism as Apple?s sales fell.

?This is a personal decision which does not reflect my assessment of the company?s prospects. We are seeing a lot of changes at Apple and I?m confident that Apple will shine again,? said De Luca.

But sources have suggested that De Luca was unhappy with Jobs? decision to terminate agreements with cloners.

At the Mac OS 8 launch in July, De Luca refused to say when Apple would agree terms to license the updated operating system to clonemakers, but seemed keen that it should do so.

A few weeks later, Jobs described cloners as ?leeches? and began trying to dismantle agreements with them, although some won short-term rights to sell OS 8. He has already admitted that the reason Apple acquired leading clone manufacturer Power Computing two weeks ago was to close down its clone making operation.