Submitted by Michael Spindler was supposed to be the savior of Apple. After four years at Apple, he was an executive vice president and had built Apple Europe to the point where it was providing 25% of Apple’s revenues. Unfortunately, Spindler could not deal with stress and could not exercise control of his organization. Read on for the whole story.
That’s an interesting take on the Sun/IBM decision there. Ah, if only Apple had bought Sun when they had the chance.
“Carl Sagan took exception to his name being used without his permission (Apple engineers speculated that he did not understand that the code name would not be used for the final product) and sued Apple. After a settlement, the engineers changed the name to BHA, which stood for Butt-head astronomer. Sagan threatened Apple again, and the product was renamed for the last time LAW, which stood for Lawyers Are Wimps.”
;-p
The familiar old story of people being promoted to a position one higher than they’re competent for. In the case of Spindler, it appears several positions higher.
Funny how lowend mac can keep retelling the same old story about Apple’s near downfall, but each time from a slightly different perspective, following another would be CEO
and they all end with the return of the one…
Interestingly Jean-Loius Gassée seems to be portrayed as a big force behind the “Mac as a luxury good” pricing.
“Windows was not as good as Macintosh, but it was good enough for the average user.”
I also found this part personally amusing, because as a PC user using Microsoft products at the time, I actually hated Windows 3.x and didn’t think that Windows had become “good-enough for the average user” until the release of Windows 95, and I probably had a somewhat sadistic concept of “good-enough.” [Someone will crack a joke about Windows still not being good-enough]
I think one of the most prominent themes in these Apple histories, is that the various executives at Apple never had any clear vision for what they wanted to do, and were preoccupied with running around in every direction, flirting with selling to this company or merging with that company, splitting and unifying Apple, developing entirely new architectures and devices and scrapping them, shooting for this or that sales margin, chasing this or that market segment. Apple wasted a lot of money and many years trying to decide what it wanted to be when it grew up.
I wish the article would cite sources for things, but one thing I really like is that it isn’t spread out over the 500 pages with 90000 ads certain other sites would use. I think they deserve credit and encouragement for that.
I also found this part personally amusing, because as a PC user using Microsoft products at the time, I actually hated Windows 3.x and didn’t think that Windows had become “good-enough for the average user” until the release of Windows 95, and I probably had a somewhat sadistic concept of “good-enough.” [Someone will crack a joke about Windows still not being good-enough]
If Microsofts software wasn’t ‘good enough’ then why did you by a PC? there was Atari, Amstrad and Amiga to name a few of the options that were out there, in 1988, an Amiga 500 with a screen would set you back AUS$1500 (1988 prices); I don’t know about you, but seems to be that you and the rest of the PC users declared through your decision to purchase a PC, that Microsofts operating system suite was ‘good enough’ for your neeeds.
As for the release of Windows 95 vs. Windows NT; the simple fact remains that software companies were not ready to make their software win32, and this even repeats itself today in the form of the number of software companies who right their software with the stupid assumption that the end user is running in Administrator mode all the time – the net result, when Microsoft introduces new security guidelines, everything goes tits up.
So like I said, people purchasing PC’s back in the early days obviously made the choice because of the software or otherwise they would have gone for an Amiga, Atari or Amstrad.
So like I said, people purchasing PC’s back in the early days obviously made the choice because of the software or otherwise they would have gone for an Amiga, Atari or Amstrad.
My first purchase of a PC for work back in 1986 was something of a comedy of errors. My plan was to get an Atari but I need Teckronix emulation, since I was planning to use it for a graphics terminal connected to a mini-computer running a mass-spectrometer. But the only Tektronix emulation software I found was being sold for an “IBM compatble” as we called them then.
So I purchase an Amstrad PC1512 “IBM compatble” (a PC complete with both MSDOS and DRDOS) as it was both cheap and I had an Amstrad PCW at home as a word processor for my wife and we were happy with it. Then I discovered that they had developed Tektronix emulation software for the Atari at the University of Sussex and I could have got it for free.
Then shortly after that I discovered that that one of the faculty in the Chemistry Dept. had bought a Mac (which I found out included Tek emulation) which with the academic discount made it nearly as cheap as the Amstrad. I could have fitted it in on my equipment budget. If I had known that first I would have bought the Mac.
Finally I had to spend almost a week with my head in the back of the mini-computer cabinet with a break-out box to get the thing connected. I discovered that the mass-spectrometry company had installed their own non RS-232 standard serial port in the back of the Data General mini-computer. After I got the pin assignments from them I was able to modify a cable.
Oh! those were the days
Edited 2006-04-07 12:11
I was a kid. I gleefully accepted the computers that I was given. My parents didn’t know a floppy drive from a box of magic underwear, I’m sure they bought them because they were inexpensive and readily available at local establishments (I’m going to assume you’ve presumed some entirely unrealistic market reality as to the local availability of the Amiga). I assure you that when I was sufficiently capable I ceased eschewing Windows 3.x for DOS and found my computing experience elsewhere.
As for Windows 95 vs. Windows NT, I have no idea what you’re responding to. It should be noted that Win32s was initially released before Windows 95, and that Win16 was considered a legacy API in both Windows 95 and Windows NT. Windows 95 required fewer resources than Windows NT, and much simpler backwards compatibility with DOS programs–especially in terms of providing audio support and other such things. RAM was actually still rather expensive in those days, and lots of people used their PCs for Nintendos even in the ancient years of the mid-’90s.
I was a kid. I gleefully accepted the computers that I was given. My parents didn’t know a floppy drive from a box of magic underwear, I’m sure they bought them because they were inexpensive and readily available at local establishments (I’m going to assume you’ve presumed some entirely unrealistic market reality as to the local availability of the Amiga). I assure you that when I was sufficiently capable I ceased eschewing Windows 3.x for DOS and found my computing experience elsewhere.
When I was a kid, back in 1980’s, I can assure you that in Australia, PC’s were seen as the domain for business – they were big, bulky, slow and unreliable, to purchase one you had to move heaven, earth and a few other locales just to get one ordered in, which problem was compounded by the fact that you had the likes of WordStar, Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and the likes wishing to bleed you dry in regards to software purchase.
The Amiga on the other hand was like purchasing a bottle of soft drink; went it, purchased it, and walked out with a couple of boxes; it was a computer for the masses that was cheap, fairly reliable, and loaded with more games and books than you could shake a stick at.
Having had a look at the situation back then, the Amiga had a better success in the UK, Europe and her former colonies (Australia, New Zealand etc.) for some reason – even still, there were alternatives to that; considering that a computer is a large purchase one wonders why individuals didn’t research it first before investing in a PC.
And where I lived PCs were the only thing locally available outside of school. It’s marvelous how the world works like that. Despite having purchased computers for me throughout my entire childhood my parents never actually used computers more than superficially prior to 1997 or so. Computer literacy being seen as a sound investment for one’s offspring, they did what any parent that couldn’t program a VCR did: buy whatever was available to them that they could reasonably afford. The idea that they would “research” it in any meaningful way is wholly idealistic. and not even representative of the casual computer shopper now.
And where I lived PCs were the only thing locally available outside of school. It’s marvelous how the world works like that. Despite having purchased computers for me throughout my entire childhood my parents never actually used computers more than superficially prior to 1997 or so. Computer literacy being seen as a sound investment for one’s offspring, they did what any parent that couldn’t program a VCR did: buy whatever was available to them that they could reasonably afford. The idea that they would “research” it in any meaningful way is wholly idealistic. and not even representative of the casual computer shopper now.
True, true, but I guess people approach purchasing things different; I tend to like researching things, looking at all the options before purchasing something.
When I purchased my iMac, I had a look at all the alternatives out there – Dell PC running Linux for instance; comparing their feature set, price and reliability information collected off the internet.
But like I said, I probably don’t prepresent the average person, as I tend to be rather overly cautious when it comes to purchasing things.
My lovely German bride points out you need to
s/Rheinische Sachochschule/Rheinische Fachhochschule/
Those Ffunky old German Ffonts’ll Ffool ya.
A little extra explenation:
“Hochschule” translates to university (hoch=high, schule=school, yeah we love to combine stuff).
“Fach” in this context means smth. close to specialisation. So a “Fachhochschule” (abbreviated FH) is a specialized university. However a FH-degree is usually considered less valuable than a universiy degree (one might argue about that), it would be comparable to college (“Fachhochschule”) vs. university (“Universität”).
“Sachochschule” is close to Sachhochschule (notice the extra h). And “Sache” simply means thing/entity. In combined words the e is usually stripped from “Sache”. An example would be “Sachbuch” (“buch” meaning book) wich is basically a book about things. Well all books are about things actually, but this is in distinction to novells. So “The C Programming language” would be a Sachbuch. However it might as well be called a “Fachbuch” because it’s a specialized book.
So I think the author might have done some lousy checking, because “Sachoschule” is at least not very far fetched if you don’t know much about German.
Edited 2006-04-07 13:33
“Fach” in this context means smth. close to specialisation. So a “Fachhochschule” (abbreviated FH) is a specialized university. However a FH-degree is usually considered less valuable than a universiy degree (one might argue about that), it would be comparable to college (“Fachhochschule”) vs. university (“Universität”).
So its a bit like a trade based training institution – or as us Pom’s/Kiwi’s call it, a Polytechnic, where people tend to learn trades and obtain diploma’s and certificates in specialised areas.
LowEndMac is well known for this kind of stuff as part of their “hooray for steve” series on mac history; every story is so full of errors that one has to assume Apple’s marketing people are behind it (remember the 1985 meeting where Jobs crowed about something “visionary” he had been reported to have done and those around the table had to remind him, “Hey Steve, look who your talking to — we were the one’s who made up that story for the computer press.”).
From the story: “One of his assistants once found him passed out on his couch in his office” — ok, spindler had a couch in his office, maybe he just took a nap instead of being “passed out” (drunk? on drugs? exhausted from trying to use a Steve Jobs designed 128K Mac?).
Read Orwell’s “1984” — it’s a lot closer to the true story of Jobs/Apple than anything you’ll read at LowEndMac.
“other operating systems are basically timesharing systems like Unix” — Apple Lisa project engineering staff, Byte, issue 2/1983, pp. 90-114.
….one has to assume Apple’s marketing people are behind it…Read Orwell’s “1984”…….
This endless retelling of the early days is characteristic of all political and religious cults. As in this case, truth is elastic, and the version of events that comes to be favoured is the one that casts the present leadership in the best light.
Obviously Cupertino is encouraging the cultish elements of the Mac phenomenon, as in their recent release about supporting Windows. The thing I’ve never really been able to see is whether it is because they believe it, or are just cynically exploiting it. The other thing I’ve often wondered is whether the shills, like those on Another Forum, are clandestinely paid, or really believe it.
The trouble is, that without sources you have to assume the version of events provided is probably wrong because it’s not even written by a primary source. There’s also a lot of obviously emotionally-charged invective inserted that also sets off warning bells. If it’s paid-for marketing, it seems like a waste of money, because it’s hard to imagine anyone except the faithful caring much about the subject two seconds after reading it, without a carefully-crafted network of supporting lies to reinforce the lessons. Maybe this is why I don’t have a future in marketing.
That story is in Infitie Loop and Apple by Jim Carlton.
Markkula became very wealthy and retired from Intel. In 1976, he became a cofounder of Apple Computer by bankrolling Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Isn’t that ironic? For years they touted the PPC as superior to Intel processors, and now I learn that money earned from Intel’s success bankrolled Apple to begin with. Apple didn’t just switch processors last year, they came home to papa.
You can’t always assume that someone has a computer because that is what they wanted. For instance, my parents (without asking me) decided that I would probably love to have a computer. They decided this when they saw some Texas Instruments Ti 99/4A computers on sell for $50. The brought it home to me extremely excited to give me a computer.
They didn’t know any better and they weren’t about to spend the money to buy me a Mac or Amiga. I’m actually surprised that my penny rubbing dad spent $50 on me.
When I had the money I bought a 286 computer with MS-DOS on it. Later I got Windows 3.1 but didn’t really enjoy PCs until I got the beta for OS/2 2.0. That was good for about 9 years (1992 – 2001). With IBM trying to kill off OS/2 I bought one of the series B blue iMacs with Mac OS 9.x. It was ok. About the same as Windows ’95 and NT. Nothing compared to my love for OS/2. Three years ago (2003) I got exposed to Mac OS X. It was better than Windows XP then (not really hard) and is much, much better now.
Note that I’ve programmed computer mainframes from 1980 through 85 and then started supports PCs and PC networks and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Just because I support it (Windows) doesn’t mean I like it. It pays my bills so I can buy my Macs and other (motorcycle) toys.
“Note that I’ve programmed computer mainframes from 1980 through 85 and then started supports PCs and PC networks and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Just because I support it (Windows) doesn’t mean I like it. It pays my bills so I can buy my Macs and other (motorcycle) toys.”
I hear you. From 1984-1996 I programmed on mainframes, then started developing on Windows (and briefly Mac OS 7/8). Today I only do personal programming on our Macs at home, the rest of my work is done on RedHat or XP.