Slashdot Mirror
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."
The newton was origionally going to be called the iPalm. However, when someone wrote that into a prototype iPalm, the thing read it as 'Newton'. And so it remained.
John, do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water? Or do you want to change the world?
That's what killed me in the mid 80s to the early 90s - the prices. I love Apple products, but at the time, I just couldn't afford them. Whereas PCs were becoming cheaper and cheaper.
There is no spoon or sig.
Both HyperCard and the Newton were innovative, influential, and as is often the case, poorly timed relative to technology trends.
HyperCard: here was a programming and publishing framework designed to be approachable and usable by every-day people, with the added bonus of "immediate gratification"- the act of writing code immediately produced a tangible artifact, much like writing HTML today immediately produces a web page that anybody can visit. But, HyperCard predated widespread Internet usage and the Web, and nobody could figure out what it was good for (except fancy slide shows and choose-your-own-adventure style storyboards).
Newton: to be sure, the Newton borrowed heavily from previous projects and products (including stuff from Xerox PARC and Marc Weiser's ubiquitous computing vision). But, once again, Apple innovated. The device was (almost) powerful enough to run useful software while disconnected, the UI was pen-driven, and the device was energy concious enough to be usable throughout the day without docking it for recharging. Here was a physical appliance targetted towards being a useful digital assistant, and here was a computing model radically different than desktop PCs that everybody was used to. Unfortunately, mobile processors weren't fast or energy-miserly enough yet, handwriting recognition was poor and graffiti-like techniques weren't there, the device was the wrong form factor, and a bunch of stuff was thrown in there that wasn't useful (like the "soup" programming paradigm).
Tons of innovation, tons of influence, but before their time and hence market failures.
HyperCard was an incredibly powerful and flexible tool for development. You just had to know how to code for it so you could extend its capabilities.
Any tool today that allows for drag-and-drop interface design is a descendent of HyperCard. Macromedia lives off it, by creating products like Flash, Director and Authorware. Even high end development tools, like Metrowerk's CodeWarrior borrows from it.
It's easy for people who only saw the technology later in the game to blow it off. But for those of us who have seen and worked with the technology since it was first released in 1987, it was a major deal. HyperCard showed us that Apple was already preparing for the multimedia-governed future we take for granted now.
This was later proven in 1993, when Cyan used HyperCard to create its smash hit game, Myst. The game showed us all the true power hidden inside the deceivingly simple-looking HyperCard, and ultimately shaped the multimedia industry we know today.
8==8 Bones 8==8
So the Newton I had with the PC serial cable and the PC syncing software ws what now? The Newton could sync with a PC just fine. Id say the failing of the Newton is due mainly to missinformation from people who never used the product.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
While I wouldn't call Sculley an asshole, Apple's boom years during Sculley's tenure as CEO were the result of projects conceived and decisions made before he became CEO. He got to enjoy the fruits of the Macintosh, the Laserwriter, PageMaker, etc. He milked these markets for what they were worth at the expense of moving Apple into new markets (like the doomed "Star Trek" project, MacOS on PCs). He was a mediocre leader at Apple. Michael Spindler, and to a lesser extent, Gil Amelio are the ones that killed Apple.