Sculley's second biggest mistake was to authorize Microsoft to copy the Mac interface!
Sculley admitted that the license was a big mistake, but a few things have to be kept in mind. First, Gates was threatening to shut down development of applications for the Mac if they didn't get a license to use some Mac interface elements. That would have been a huge blow. Second, the assumption Apple made was that the license covered only Windows 2.0, then under development, which as we know was a total flop. It was only after a lawsuit that Microsoft won an extension of the agreement to later versions of Windows. Third, it was never clear that Apple's patents would have prevented Microsoft from doing much of anything they were planing. Fourth, it's also not clear that the license agreement led to the dismissal of the later "look and feel" lawsuit, which may well have failed on other grounds.
Sculley's second biggest mistake was to authorize Microsoft to copy the Mac interface!
Is that true? I thought it was Jobs that leant a few Macs to Gates and that's when they stole the GUI.
Apple sued and the Judge ruled in favor of MS saying, "Having a patent on a GUI is akin to have a patent on the way your living room is arranged!" What a buffoon!
Best
PS. I do remember Jobs canceling all the "clone" manufacturers when he came back. It also amazes me that Jobs spent 10 years in the wilderness. Those years must have been torture. To lose your own company and doing NeXT and Pixar which in the case of Pixar he had minimal input in other than funding and insisting on a large share price for their IPO. Which he got when he was advised it was too high.
... But that brings up an interesting conundrum. If you have a great idea ahead of its time, is it really such a good idea business-wise? I wonder too, what if Sculley had brought out a decently designed tablet computer based on the technology available at the time? Would it have been the kind of success the iPad is? One could ponder the Newton (I had one) the same way. Was it a good idea that was ahead of the development of some of the key technologies that made the iPhone such a hit?
What I am suggesting is that being a visionary involves more than just ideas, it also involves timing.
I think you're right.
The best overview I've ever read of what the Newton was and why it never took off IMO is here:
Perhaps so, but since Steve was slinging a phrase like "sugar water" in a sardonic statement, I think that the fact that fructose IS technically one of the "sugars" is reason enough to allow him that artistic license. In other words, his characterization of soda as "sugar water" seems remarkably appropriate to me.
It wasn't artistic license. Until 1984, both Coke and Pepsi were still using sugar in the US. Sugar water was dead on
Sculley didn't know much about making sugared water, either. He knows what you would learn in an MBA: how to position brands, how to sell something no matter what it is. His viewpoint is the one of financialism triumphant, which is putting capitalism in decline. It matters what you MAKE. You can't sell computers like you sell Pepsi. So the multiple models that were tried, the dozens of SKUs that popped up, were related to the "lots of shelf space" strategy in the soft drink business: Pepsi sugar, Pepsi O cal, Pepsi zero, Pepsi with lots of caffeine, etc. Corn syrup tastes lousy and makes you fatter than cane sugar, but so what? It's more shelf space in the grocery store, selling to a segmented demographic: women like "low cal," students like "Pepsi speed," etc. Same old crap with different containers. The biggest invention was the 20-oz container for the crap. (In the '50s, which I remember, Coke was 6 oz. Pepsi was 12 oz. Funny to think of that today. And they say we're an obese nation! Ha!)
All Steve was doing was based on the original model of the Mac: get the best engineers you can, kick their butts, and bring out the best damn thing you can. If you do, people will spend more for it.
Guess what? Apple and Jobs II proved that the original idea was good. Screw Wall Street, and screw Madison Avenue. Who said they know anything about reality?
Is that true? I thought it was Jobs that leant a few Macs to Gates and that's when they stole the GUI.
Apple sued and the Judge ruled in favor of MS saying, "Having a patent on a GUI is akin to have a patent on the way your living room is arranged!" What a buffoon!
Best
PS. I do remember Jobs canceling all the "clone" manufacturers when he came back. It also amazes me that Jobs spent 10 years in the wilderness. Those years must have been torture. To lose your own company and doing NeXT and Pixar which in the case of Pixar he had minimal input in other than funding and insisting on a large share price for their IPO. Which he got when he was advised it was too high.
Yeah. Licensing the OS was a dumb idea. The clones were walking away with all the profits, because with the OS uncoupled from the hardware, of course they could give cheaper hardware. Know-nothings say the coupling of the Mac and its OS is "monopolism," but I just say it's a natural business model that gives one company the most possibility of making one harmonious whole. Don't like that? Get Windows. They're the firm that still flirts with monopoly. Get linux. Or get a Mac.
Sculley, who is impressed with how Jobs "sticks to his same first principles years later," shared 11 of those principles: beautiful design; customer experience; no focus groups; perfectionism; vision; minimalism; hire the best; sweat the details; keep it small; reject bad work; perfection and systems thinker.
He may not have understood Apple, then, but he seems to now! Maybe he should be Apple?s next CEO
I think Sculley has been fairly candid about this for quite some time, actually. And more credit to him for that.
However, if Jobs really still does have an axe to grind about this business, he needs to take a deep breath and do some honest, detached introspection. Because if he had NOT been fired at Apple:
1) He never would have bought, and nurtured, Pixar. (Think about the vast ramifications of THAT!)
2) He would never have cranked up NeXt, which means he would not have had the freedom to start a whole new OS from the ground-up, with no concern for supporting legacy systems. (NeXt, of course, eventually morphed into OSX, which eventually evolved into iOS. What happens if THAT doesn't happen?)
3) Possibly most important of all: If Apple had not come within a hairsbreath of death, Jobs would never have had the freedom to radically restructure the company the way he did.
In other words, Stevearino... it's all part of the plan. So stop scheming, already. You can't control what's past, and it's a good thing, too. Let go, and be grateful things happened exactly the way they did!
++ Jobs mentioned this in his Stanford address. He even met his wife after getting fired.
At the same time, if Steve hadn't been pushed out maybe we wouldn't have had NeXT or Pixar. Sometimes being pushed out is good, since sometimes it leads to something better.
Steve was RIGHT. Fructose is one of the simple sugars. Whether it comes from processed corn syrup or sugar cane, it IS sugar.
Thompson
Oh come on! Don't ruin a hippy hyperventilation about fructose with facts. I suppose when the idiotic, simplistic claims of it's horrible detriment to society begin, that you'll start to debunk those too!
As soon as I saw the incorrect "fructose" comment, I knew it would "hijack" this thread!
I think Coke is trying to stay a step ahead of the corn syrup controversy. They just switched back to reg. sugar.
And the Corn Refiners Association are trying to improve the image of the much maligned sweetener with ad campaigns promoting it as a natural ingredient made from corn. Now, the group has petitioned the FDA to start calling the ingredient “corn sugar.”
Only in America! If you want to gain 10#'s a year, all you have to do is drink one Coke a day!
At the same time, if Steve hadn't been pushed out maybe we wouldn't have had NeXT or Pixar. Sometimes being pushed out is good, since sometimes it leads to something better.
Agreed, but could you imagine how bitter he must have felt. I agree, most people would pull the covers over their head and feel sorry for themselves...but not Steve. Amazing comeback.
take my hat off to you, you guys have done great jobs at the time! otherwise i won't be a mac user.
Quote:
Originally Posted by karmadave
Hindsight is 20/20. I worked at Apple from '87 to '92. John Scully was generally well liked for his marketing skills and calm temperament. He lacked technical vision, and relied on John Luis Gasse' who turned out to be quite an ego-maniac. As I recall, Scully left (was pushed out) around '90-'91 and Michael Spindler was elevated from COO to CEO. Spindler was a disaster! I can't really comment on whether hiring Scully or firing Jobs was the right thing to do. Things were much more fluid, in those days, and Apple was riding high until Microsoft launched Windows 3.x. It was pretty much downhill afterwords, until Apple acquired NeXT and Jobs returned to Apple. My own opinion is that things happen for a reason and Apple would not be the company it is today without the miscues...
I guess he's looking for a pat on the back or something for saying that.
He took the company from $800 million to $8 billion, then still has the humility to say he wasn't the best man for the job. Hell yes he deserves that pat on the back. We need to see this kind of accountability everywhere.
Comments
Sculley's second biggest mistake was to authorize Microsoft to copy the Mac interface!
Sculley admitted that the license was a big mistake, but a few things have to be kept in mind. First, Gates was threatening to shut down development of applications for the Mac if they didn't get a license to use some Mac interface elements. That would have been a huge blow. Second, the assumption Apple made was that the license covered only Windows 2.0, then under development, which as we know was a total flop. It was only after a lawsuit that Microsoft won an extension of the agreement to later versions of Windows. Third, it was never clear that Apple's patents would have prevented Microsoft from doing much of anything they were planing. Fourth, it's also not clear that the license agreement led to the dismissal of the later "look and feel" lawsuit, which may well have failed on other grounds.
Sculley's second biggest mistake was to authorize Microsoft to copy the Mac interface!
Is that true? I thought it was Jobs that leant a few Macs to Gates and that's when they stole the GUI.
Apple sued and the Judge ruled in favor of MS saying, "Having a patent on a GUI is akin to have a patent on the way your living room is arranged!" What a buffoon!
Best
PS. I do remember Jobs canceling all the "clone" manufacturers when he came back. It also amazes me that Jobs spent 10 years in the wilderness. Those years must have been torture. To lose your own company and doing NeXT and Pixar which in the case of Pixar he had minimal input in other than funding and insisting on a large share price for their IPO. Which he got when he was advised it was too high.
a patent on the way your living room is arranged!
patent pending..
... But that brings up an interesting conundrum. If you have a great idea ahead of its time, is it really such a good idea business-wise? I wonder too, what if Sculley had brought out a decently designed tablet computer based on the technology available at the time? Would it have been the kind of success the iPad is? One could ponder the Newton (I had one) the same way. Was it a good idea that was ahead of the development of some of the key technologies that made the iPhone such a hit?
What I am suggesting is that being a visionary involves more than just ideas, it also involves timing.
I think you're right.
The best overview I've ever read of what the Newton was and why it never took off IMO is here:
http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/the_original_tablet
and while he introduces some new points that I haven't heard elsewhere the majority of it mirrors what you are saying.
patent pending..
not sure I understand?
Perhaps so, but since Steve was slinging a phrase like "sugar water" in a sardonic statement, I think that the fact that fructose IS technically one of the "sugars" is reason enough to allow him that artistic license. In other words, his characterization of soda as "sugar water" seems remarkably appropriate to me.
It wasn't artistic license. Until 1984, both Coke and Pepsi were still using sugar in the US. Sugar water was dead on
All Steve was doing was based on the original model of the Mac: get the best engineers you can, kick their butts, and bring out the best damn thing you can. If you do, people will spend more for it.
Guess what? Apple and Jobs II proved that the original idea was good. Screw Wall Street, and screw Madison Avenue. Who said they know anything about reality?
Is that true? I thought it was Jobs that leant a few Macs to Gates and that's when they stole the GUI.
Apple sued and the Judge ruled in favor of MS saying, "Having a patent on a GUI is akin to have a patent on the way your living room is arranged!" What a buffoon!
Best
PS. I do remember Jobs canceling all the "clone" manufacturers when he came back. It also amazes me that Jobs spent 10 years in the wilderness. Those years must have been torture. To lose your own company and doing NeXT and Pixar which in the case of Pixar he had minimal input in other than funding and insisting on a large share price for their IPO. Which he got when he was advised it was too high.
Yeah. Licensing the OS was a dumb idea. The clones were walking away with all the profits, because with the OS uncoupled from the hardware, of course they could give cheaper hardware. Know-nothings say the coupling of the Mac and its OS is "monopolism," but I just say it's a natural business model that gives one company the most possibility of making one harmonious whole. Don't like that? Get Windows. They're the firm that still flirts with monopoly. Get linux. Or get a Mac.
Sculley, who is impressed with how Jobs "sticks to his same first principles years later," shared 11 of those principles: beautiful design; customer experience; no focus groups; perfectionism; vision; minimalism; hire the best; sweat the details; keep it small; reject bad work; perfection and systems thinker.
He may not have understood Apple, then, but he seems to now! Maybe he should be Apple?s next CEO
Is that true? I thought it was Jobs that leant a few Macs to Gates and that's when they stole the GUI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star
Steve was WRONG. Pepsi is made with high fructose corn syrup, not sugar.
Only in America
I think Sculley has been fairly candid about this for quite some time, actually. And more credit to him for that.
However, if Jobs really still does have an axe to grind about this business, he needs to take a deep breath and do some honest, detached introspection. Because if he had NOT been fired at Apple:
1) He never would have bought, and nurtured, Pixar. (Think about the vast ramifications of THAT!)
2) He would never have cranked up NeXt, which means he would not have had the freedom to start a whole new OS from the ground-up, with no concern for supporting legacy systems. (NeXt, of course, eventually morphed into OSX, which eventually evolved into iOS. What happens if THAT doesn't happen?)
3) Possibly most important of all: If Apple had not come within a hairsbreath of death, Jobs would never have had the freedom to radically restructure the company the way he did.
In other words, Stevearino... it's all part of the plan. So stop scheming, already. You can't control what's past, and it's a good thing, too. Let go, and be grateful things happened exactly the way they did!
++ Jobs mentioned this in his Stanford address. He even met his wife after getting fired.
Steve was RIGHT. Fructose is one of the simple sugars. Whether it comes from processed corn syrup or sugar cane, it IS sugar.
Thompson
Oh come on! Don't ruin a hippy hyperventilation about fructose with facts. I suppose when the idiotic, simplistic claims of it's horrible detriment to society begin, that you'll start to debunk those too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star
Yep, I do know that Stevo originally essentially took it from Xerox. According to Xerox the future was copier machines!
I think Coke is trying to stay a step ahead of the corn syrup controversy. They just switched back to reg. sugar.
And the Corn Refiners Association are trying to improve the image of the much maligned sweetener with ad campaigns promoting it as a natural ingredient made from corn. Now, the group has petitioned the FDA to start calling the ingredient “corn sugar.”
Only in America! If you want to gain 10#'s a year, all you have to do is drink one Coke a day!
At the same time, if Steve hadn't been pushed out maybe we wouldn't have had NeXT or Pixar. Sometimes being pushed out is good, since sometimes it leads to something better.
Agreed, but could you imagine how bitter he must have felt. I agree, most people would pull the covers over their head and feel sorry for themselves...but not Steve. Amazing comeback.
i don't know. what if they had won the lawsuit? then they would have had their asses handed to them by xerox.
Didn't Apple give shares to Xerox in exchange for usage of key Xerox patents?
Hindsight is 20/20. I worked at Apple from '87 to '92. John Scully was generally well liked for his marketing skills and calm temperament. He lacked technical vision, and relied on John Luis Gasse' who turned out to be quite an ego-maniac. As I recall, Scully left (was pushed out) around '90-'91 and Michael Spindler was elevated from COO to CEO. Spindler was a disaster! I can't really comment on whether hiring Scully or firing Jobs was the right thing to do. Things were much more fluid, in those days, and Apple was riding high until Microsoft launched Windows 3.x. It was pretty much downhill afterwords, until Apple acquired NeXT and Jobs returned to Apple. My own opinion is that things happen for a reason and Apple would not be the company it is today without the miscues...
I guess he's looking for a pat on the back or something for saying that.
He took the company from $800 million to $8 billion, then still has the humility to say he wasn't the best man for the job. Hell yes he deserves that pat on the back. We need to see this kind of accountability everywhere.