My very first PC

[johnny333]

The mistake Steve Jobs made was to bring in John Scully from Pepsi to be the CEO of Apple, which eventually led to the ouster of Steve Jobs himself.

From what I read the decision to bring in Scully was the decision of the board & not SJ. The board thought that SJ was too young to be CEO.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...g_mistake_i_was_ever_hired_as_apples_ceo.html

Sculley: It was a "big mistake" I was ever hired as Apple's CEO

By Josh Ong
Published: 12:20 PM EST

Former Apple CEO John Sculley, famous for helping force Steve Jobs from the company he co-founded in 1985, admitted in an interview that his hiring as CEO was a "big mistake" and that Jobs should have been given the job instead.

Sculley was recruited from his role as President of Pepsi to join Apple as CEO in 1983. During his tenure, he grew Apple's sales from $800 million to $8 billion, but also garnered criticism for his role in several controversial decisions, including the ousting of Jobs in 1985 and the transition of the Mac to the PowerPC platform. Sculley was himself forced out in 1993 after Apple's stock and profits suffered a sharp decline.

In an unprecedented interview with Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac, the former Apple executive frankly pointed out that he "came in not knowing anything about computers." At the time, the board felt Jobs was too young to be CEO and decided to use a head hunter, said Sculley. Apple's board hoped Sculley, who was well-known for his marketing success at Pepsi, would help mass market the Mac to consumers.

Jobs and Sculley were meant to "work as partners," with Jobs dealing with the technical side of the company and Sculley focusing on marketing. From the outset, though, the situation seemed destined for a power struggle. "[Jobs] was chairman of the board, the largest shareholder, and he ran the Macintosh division, so he was above me and below me," said Sculley.

"It was a little bit of a façade," the former CEO continued. "My guess is that we never would have had the breakup if the board had done a better job of thinking through not just how do we get a CEO to come and join the company that Steve will approve of, but how do we make sure that we create a situation where this thing is going to be successful over time?"

Sculley also admitted that he "still didn't know very much about computers" when Jobs left Apple in 1986. He first focused on fixing the company, but "didn't know how," deciding to continue on with Jobs' methodology and philosophy.

All of Sculley's successes during that time were Jobs' ideas before leaving the company, Sculley admitted. "All the design ideas were clearly Steve's. The one who should really be given credit for all that stuff while I was there is really Steve."

During the interview, Kahney asked Sculley, who no longer has any contact with Jobs, what the secrets to Jobs' success have been. 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.

Jobs is apparently "still mad he got pushed out," according to an email Sculley sent Kahney prior to the interview, but Sculley has moved on. "My Apple experience is now ancient history and I have gone on with my life and I’m not looking for any publicity or have any ax to grind,” he said.

 

[UpYoz_olo]

U using window with the mouse.
The dinosaur using only keyboard, monitor with one color screen.

Ya lor, this si kow kia thot he know a lot about computer. That includes a certain GMS.

A type writer puts out a letter faster n better than the 1st generation of super exp PCs. Dot matrix printers etc. But, very fun to do programing. MSDOS, Basic etc... If you give the 1st gen PC to Windows/Mac users now, I bet none will know how to use it.

:oIo::oIo::oIo::oIo:

 

[singveld]

From what I read the decision to bring in Scully was the decision of the board & not SJ. The board thought that SJ was too young to be CEO.

yeah apple is biggest baddest computer company now.
but once steve is gone, there will be an empty slot to be world number 1 computer company.

 

[Ramseth]

Ya lor, this si kow kia thot he know a lot about computer. That includes a certain GMS.

A type writer puts out a letter faster n better than the 1st generation of super exp PCs. Dot matrix printers etc. But, very fun to do programing. MSDOS, Basic etc... If you give the 1st gen PC to Windows/Mac users now, I bet none will know how to use it.

:oIo::oIo::oIo::oIo:

GMS knows nuts about DOS and BASIC. He began his computer education at Windows 95.

 

[johnny333]

When did he make this mistake?

This was before Windows was released on the PC. Apple had a monpoly on the only Windows interface

Many say that Apple could have dominated the PC world instead of Microsoft if SJ had introduced cheaper mass produced Macs. The trouble was SJ was a perfectionist, back then Apple would only come out with a new Mac every 2 to 3 years, The Mac Plus didn't have a fan because SJ didn't want a noisy fan in an Apple product


Some even claim that Bill Gates approached Steve Jobs to port the interface to the PC

 

[NoNewsGood]

From what I read the decision to bring in Scully was the decision of the board & not SJ. The board thought that SJ was too young to be CEO.

It was Steve Jobs decision. This is told in John Sculley's own book "Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple" published in 1987.

 

[wahlaneh]

wahlaneh...
my 1st time ever typed on a computer the cursor was very slow and square square one.

 

[Ramseth]

wahlaneh...
my 1st time ever typed on a computer the cursor was very slow and square square one.

The first gen. square blinking cursor didn't even have lower case, it was all caps.

 

[johnny333]

It was Steve Jobs decision. This is told in John Sculley's own book "Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple" published in 1987.

Haven't read the book

Sj may have decided to bring Scully into Apple as a marketing, salesman, etc but don't think he intended Sculley to be CEO, his boss

 

[Ramseth]

This was before Windows was released on the PC. Apple had a monpoly on the only Windows interface

The interface we're using now is neither called an Apple interface nor a Windows interface. It's called GUI, graphic user interface. Yes, Apple MacIntosh had it first in the mid 80s. Microsoft and IBM were reluctant to move cause of resistance from dinosaur hobbyists (many of us here) who were hooked to command line direct control and sense of superiority over point-and-click dummie users. The IBM and DOS open architecture for software support also meant it harder to migrate and upgrade. Apple with proprietary software architecture had it easier.

By early 90s, the trend to GUI was irreversible and Windows 3 was the MS/IBM-compatible standard. By the mid 90s, the fledgeling of the internet was timelily met by Windows 95 and Netscape 3.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

GMS knows nuts about DOS and BASIC. He began his computer education at Windows 95.

Wasn't that the same year he claimed to have begun trolling the soc.newsgroups.singapore bulletin?

 

[Leongsam]

Some even claim that Bill Gates approached Steve Jobs to port the interface to the PC

I see no evidence of a "mistake". In fact, one of the first decisions that Jobs made when he returned to Apple was to kill the Mac clones. He hasn't looked back.

 

[johnny333]

The interface we're using now is neither called an Apple interface nor a Windows interface. It's called GUI, graphic user interface. Yes, Apple MacIntosh had it first in the mid 80s. Microsoft and IBM were reluctant to move cause of resistance from dinosaur hobbyists (many of us here) who were hooked to command line direct control and sense of superiority over point-and-click dummie users. The IBM and DOS open architecture for software support also meant it harder to migrate and upgrade. Apple with proprietary software architecture had it easier.

By early 90s, the trend to GUI was irreversible and Windows 3 was the MS/IBM-compatible standard. By the mid 90s, the fledgeling of the internet was timelily met by Windows 95 and Netscape 3.

Not many people remember that Microsoft developed Word & Exccel first for the Mac. At that time there was no PC version because there was no windows for the PC

Microsoft was eager to jump onto the GUI interface as Bill Gates saw it's potential.

Don't know about you but when I first saw Macwrite the wordprocessor SW running on a Mac I was blown away

Prior to that I had only used command line OSes running on a mainframe. The only wordprocessor I was familiar with was something called Textform. You had to embed formatting commands such as <nl>new line, <np>new paragraoph, etc Would only see the final output when you sent the output to a laser printer, actually it was a very expensive chain printer

There might have been some dinosaurs but the majority of users were happy with the GUI interface. Back then I was a univeristy student & the computer labs that were equipped with Macs was always filled with students who were doing their reports. On the other hand the labs with PCs,Apple IIs & commodores PETs were empty

Even those who were doing programing on the mainframe, did so using "the Visual editing" mode. It's a pain to navigate using command line interface. The mainframe OS had macros to make it easier such as "rer" to reun programs & "visual mode" to edit programs.

FYI the Macs were internet ready way before the PCs. That's why the Mac's were so popular in the university environment. From the very 1st Mac it had the necessary networking hardware & software. The 2 most popular platforms at university was the Sun and Mac

 

[johnny333]

I see no evidence of a "mistake". In fact, one of the first decisions that Jobs made when he returned to Apple was to kill the Mac clones. He hasn't looked back.

Apple lost it's dominance to the PC . After Jobs left Apple's, Apple market share steadily declined & they were on the verge of bankruptcy when SJ returned to Apple. Apple was fighting for survival, they cut the Newton, the Mac clones, etc

I remember that AAPL shares fell to about $14 ($7 post split price) share split Creative shares were then higher than Apple share

 

[Leongsam]

Apple lost it's dominance to the PC .

At it's lowest point, Apple was still number 3 in terms of computers shipped. It had 9 billion in the bank at the time. "On the verge of bankruptcy" is really stretching things.

Apple was never an "OS". It was a complete package.

 

[aurvandil]

Not many people remember that Microsoft developed Word & Exccel first for the Mac. At that time there was no PC version because there was no windows for the PC

The PC World was actually quite happy with Lotus 123 and Word Perfect.

 

[Char_Azn]

This was before Windows was released on the PC. Apple had a monpoly on the only Windows interface

Many say that Apple could have dominated the PC world instead of Microsoft if SJ had introduced cheaper mass produced Macs. The trouble was SJ was a perfectionist, back then Apple would only come out with a new Mac every 2 to 3 years, The Mac Plus didn't have a fan because SJ didn't want a noisy fan in an Apple product


Some even claim that Bill Gates approached Steve Jobs to port the interface to the PC

Pple still don't understand this. Apple is a Hardware company. There's a good reason why they do not want the Mac OS on other platforms

The Mac OS itself is a feature of Apple's hardware we know as the Mac. Which is the reason why Apple constantly go all around the place to sue any hardware company which installs the Mac on their computer. Mac OS will never have the market dominance of Windows if Apple stick to that model.

MS on the other hand is a software company, they do not care what kind of hardware you install it on as long as you pay for their licenses. It is why Windows is more widely used then the Mac OS.

It is also the reason why for all of IPhone's market dominance, the Google Android will more likely have a bigger market share then Apple in the long run

 

[Leongsam]

Pple still don't understand this. Apple is a Hardware company. There's a good reason why they do not want the Mac OS on other platforms

In the early 2000s while the rest of the world talked about Mac vs PC, Steve Jobs actually listed Sony as the main competitor.

 

[johnny333]

At it's lowest point, Apple was still number 3 in terms of computers shipped. It had 9 billion in the bank at the time. "On the verge of bankruptcy" is really stretching things.

Apple was never an "OS". It was a complete package.

Apple was in a bad condition :(

Appleinsider reported SJ admitting that when he re-joined the company they were burning through it's cash reserves & had only weeks to months left.

Of course a company like Apple would have found new owners. There were lots of rumours of the company being sold to interested parties: Motorola, IBM,..... buying the company Someone even created an IBM logo with the Apple colors

Still remember Microsoft investing $150 million in Apple in 1997.
That investmented was an attempt to boost confidence in the company. MS needed Apple, other than the $$$ they make from selling Mac SW there was also the anti-trust issues they would have faced without any competition.

 

[Leongsam]

Apple was in a bad condition :(

It's interesting to read the old stuff.....

http://scripting.com/davenet/1997/07/08/thesureroadtobankruptcy.html