Interview with John Scully

worm eater writes "CNet news has an interesting interview with John Scully, CEO of Apple back in the day. He talks about problems and potential in the computer industry, and expresses regret over the opportunities Apple missed with some key technologies -- such as HyperCard and the Newton."

Comments

Sculley had some big shoes to fill

[Orion Blastar]

he was hired away from Pepsi to work at Apple. I think Jobs gave him that old "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to change the world?" speech.

The Newton was fine, except that it cost more than the average person was able to pay, and the handwriting recognition needed work. They fixed it later.

Sculley brought about the Color Macs, under Jobs it was still greyscale and B&W. I have a Mac IIcx under my desk which I don't use. One day I may hook it back up. Maybe run Linux on it or System 7?

Microsoft beat down Apple, Windows kept taking marketshare, and Apple did the best it could to compete. The Creative Content market was the bulk of Apple's marketshare. This helped to cotribute to Apple's Dark Ages and loss of revenue. Microsoft was to blame there, even if it did make software for the Mac, it favored Windows first.

Sculley tried to fill Jobs' shoes, but couldn't. He didn't have the reality distortion field or the creative marketing genius that Jobs had. Meanwhile Next wasn't doing so well and could barely hold it's own. Unix was the future, few people saw that at the time. Jobs knew it because he invested in Unix technology for Next. Meanwhile Linux was getting started and slowly started to gain marketshare. Apple's A/UX needed work, but was put on the back burner to favor MacOS.