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The Forgotten Apple CEO
Sabah Arif writes "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. Just the same, at the end of the day Spindler couldn't handle the stress or control the Apple organization. Low End Mac has an extensive biography of this figure in Apple's History." From the article: "Apple Europe ran out of a cramped 100 ft. office in Brussels and had only a few employees. Spindler had never worked at the startup before, but he liked it a lot. He had freedom to try almost anything he wanted. There were problems with working for such a young company, though. Spindler went without payment for almost six months because Apple didn't know how to move funds from California to Belgium."
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YEAH!!!!!
I worked with him.
Why is it that some people are so devoid of a sense of humor? Naturally, I'm referring to Mr. Michael Spindler's latest effusions. Permit me this forum to rant. It is no news that Michael had previously claimed that he had no intention to kill the goose bearing the golden egg. Of course, shortly thereafter, that's exactly what he did. Next, he denied that he would sentence more and more people to poverty, prison, and early death. We all know what happened then. Now, Michael would have us believe he'd never ever prevent me from getting my work done. Will he? Go figure. My view is that Michael recently went through an alcoholism phase in which he tried repeatedly to usher in the beginning of a muzzy-headed new era of exclusionism. In fact, I'm not convinced that this phase of his has entirely passed. My evidence is that Michael doesn't care about freedom, as he can neither eat it nor put it in the bank. It's just a word to him. Here's a specific example of the way in which Michael once used his notoriety, name recognition, and national fund-raising base to inject his lethal poison into our children's minds and souls: He wants to conspire with evil. Is there, or is there not, a deceitful, gin-swilling plot to brandish the word "protobasidiomycetous" (as it is commonly spelled) to hoodwink people into believing that we have too much freedom, organized through the years by arrogant thugs? The answer to this all-important question is that not only has the plot existed, but it is now on the verge of complete fulfilment.
Ten years ago, it was insolent pip-squeaks. Today, it's the worst kinds of ruthless pickpockets there are who use every conceivable form of diplomacy, deception, pressure, coercion, bribery, treason, and terror to etiolate Michael's enemies. In the end, the most telling thing is that Michael has, at times, called me "snarky" or "capricious". Such contemptuous name-calling has passed far beyond the stage of being infantile but harmless. It has the capacity to suck up to malignant, witless nonentities. I have the following to say to the assertion that sin is good for the soul: Baloney! I am a law-and-order kind of person. I hate to see crimes go unpunished. That's why I decidedly hope that Michael serves a long prison term for his illegal attempts to break down the industrial-technological system.
Michael is not just neurotic; he's scurrilous, too. Those of you who thought that he was finally going to leave us alone are in for a big surprise, because he recently announced his plans to brand me as amateurish. Might I suggest that he search for a hobby? It seems Michael has entirely too much time on his hands, given how often he tries to capitalize on our needs and vulnerabilities. He accuses me of being hate-filled, yet it is he who is filled with hate. And he accuses me of being bigoted, while his cajoleries show nothing but bigotry. Why does Michael make those sorts of accusations, then? My answer is, as always, a model of clarity and the soul of wit: I don't know. However, I do know that Michael is firmly convinced that hanging out with foolish fiends is a wonderful, culturally enriching experience. His belief is controverted, however, by the weight of the evidence indicating that Michael should not let advanced weaponry fall into the hands of hidebound, drugged-out stirrers. Not now, not ever. I have now said everything there is to say. So, to summarize it all, a necessary first step towards recovery is to look at Mr. Michael Spindler with new eyes, unclouded by a lifetime of false information and deception propagated by sniffish lamebrains.
I said it once and I'll say it again Spindler was a man ahead of his time. His methods did not suit the old apple of the time 100% but I can see his sense of strategy working in the current climate at apple. Even the iPod would be better off if treated like the newtons, something the purists wouldn't like but would lead to better for the company
for what I see Jobs ideas is getting old and they wont keep apple up together. Watch what happens when in a year from now apple hand out press releases to another Special Event and nobody turns up. Spindler had this long term strategy and Jobs sadly lacking there.
It's still sad that the European headquarters moved from Brussels to Paris.
Now the (european) Apple expo is held in Paris and is therefor deeply french, which leads to the UK and the Netherlands (and maybe others, I don't know) having their own unofficial apple expo's. Having stayed in Brussels, maybe the expo could have been held there and be truly European.
Apple didn't know how to move funds from California to Belgium.
Their paypal account was closed?
How do you work out of a 100 ft office? That's one-dimensional, which gets uncomfortable quite quickly.
From the article: "Often times, he would hold an unintelligible meeting and walk out without taking questions, then allow his assistants to move in and explain what he had said."
Sounds to me like his assistants are the ones who deserve a lot of credit for his sucess- the guy would have been worthless without people to 'translate' for him.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
One dimensional offices are not for multi-dimensional people.
Where the heck does he get this stuff? If he gets it from other people's books or articles (my guess), he needs to credit them, if only so we can evaluate the quality of the information. But this history contains no cites of any kind.
If Hormby is actually gatherting the information himself, through interviews or a large cache of secondary sources, he needs to explain this now and again in the text. For example, instead of "It was at DEC where Spindler gained a reputation for his work ethic," he could state "It was at DEC where Spindler proved he could work hard, a friend said."
This is the kind of vague, uncited, unsourced "information" that gives the Web a bad name. If it is coming from an established brand like nytimes.com, maybe (_maybe_) we could take their word for certain details. But if our only basis for judging this guy is his gmail address, we need more specifics on his information gathering.
This reminds me...Just FYI as a sort of public announcement for slashdotters since I hear on a fairly regular basis from techies who don't get paid timely, especially with startups: there are a lot of laws people don't know about regarding payroll. For example, in Massachusetts (and probably a number of other states) is not just a civil matter, it's a -criminal- one as well!
If you work in MA:
IANAL, blah blah, might be wrong about some points, blah blah. Full details on the Massachusetts Unfair Wage Payment Act.
You also might be interested to know that quite a number of jobs are excluded from "independent contractor status", specifically because employers use them to get around having to pay social security taxes, benefits, etc. These MA laws are on top of the IRS rules limiting what employees can be considered independent contractors
Please help metamoderate.
What's a "Rheinische Sachochschule"? I guess the author means the "Rheinische Fachhochschule" in Cologne, I just googled. Haven't heard of it before, so I guess it's not that "prestigious" at all, since there is a quite known University of Cologne in town.
Instead of slobbering in history, why don't you post some news about
how Al-Qaeda is intercepting your communications?
Cheers.
Jean Louis Gassee sounds like a more interesting character in the Apple saga. An outrageous Frenchman who wore leather pants and was completely power mad. I love the stories of the infighting as well, as Gassee and others would rip Sculley behind his back and then deny it to his face.
Gassee really screwed up trying to develop his own RISC processor and his DRAM debacle showed him the door.
How come this type of biography seems only to be available for Apple? What about Cisco or Microsoft? Is anybody doing an inside blog of the cutthroat politics of Google? When they announced a Dutch Auction for their IPO, Wall Street practically launched a smear campaign against the company to protest their lack of first dibs. I bet that has some great stories behind it.
Michael Who?
Spindler was the man behind several Road Apples, crippled Apple models that the company isn't particularly proud of.
Basically, with the pressure to produce low-cost Apple models, Apple stripped high-end designs in retarded ways (such as the narrow data bus on the Classic II which made it 30% slower than the SE/30 released several years earlier) or designed new models by producing technically absurd add-ons to older models (like the Performa 5200 that was basically the motherboard from one of the last 32-bit 680x0 series with a 64-bit PowerPC 603 on top of it that ran at half the effective clock speed and all the multiplexing on the resulting two 32-bit system buses had to be done by the CPU in software). Definitely suboptimal, and Apple fans today aren't particularly fond either to remember these all-time lows in Apple product history.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Sculley may have had misplaced visions or pushed things before their time (Newton, Knowledge Navigator, etc), but Spindler was just asleep at the wheel running Apple. Under Spindler is when the Copland project went completely out of control, hardware focus vanished (there were some months when Apple would release over a dozen different Mac models, with no clear differentiation), and focus and strategy on the "classic" Mac OS was non-existant. There were all of six people writing the Mac OS when Gil Amelio came in - everyone else was assigned to Copland. There were over 20 separate marketing departments. OS releases were being shipped late and buggier than ever - they had to recall 7.5.4, and Open Transport shipped as a beta, and was horribly unstable for its first year of "production use".
No, Spindler was asleep while the company went truly to hell. Amelio then came in with some business discipline, and Jobs finished the job with both vision and excellent execution.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
The other day jobs sold 300,000,000 US worth of Apple stock. It was said that he did this to pay the taxes because they vested.
The question people should be asking is why didn't he sell his Disney stock instead? It looks like Jobs thinks Apple isn't as good a bet as Disney which isn't a good thing for the CEO to be thinking.
Spindler is not "forgotten". People who were Apple customers and employees at that time will never forget him, and still curse his name to this day. Spindler had no idea what he was doing, no sense of vision, and no understanding of what it was any of the departments under him were doing. Under his "leadership" Apple drifted around like an untillered ship. Fascinating and groundbreaking technologies were fumbled due to lack of marketing or lack of management and either disappeared, or were coopted by Microsoft, on a constant basis. Revise history all you like, but Spindler as CEO was the worst thing to ever happen to Apple and Apple is extremely fortunate to have survived his tenure at all.
There are so many things in there on the PowerPC development period that are just plain WRONG. There were two primary projects during this period - Jaguar and Cognac. Jaguar was a whole new platform, new OS, etc, that would have no backwards compatibility. Cognac was a classic Apple skunkworks, working on the dynamic 68K emulator that allowed a smooth transition. When Cognac succeeded and had a demo welcoming people to try and "break the emulator" (which succeeded extremely well), the Jaguar project was cancelled.
Meanwhile, the idea that "all we got from Copland was the nanokernal and text encoding" is just bullshit. Open Transport, Appearance Manager, HFS+, the nanokernal (which was only somewhat used), V-Twin (which became the early Sherlock) - hell, almost all of the API's we got from 7.6 through 8.6 were pulled from the Copland work.
(Of course, what does any of this have to do with Spindler? Not sure here either.)
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
There were problems with working for such a young company, though. Spindler went without payment for almost six months because Apple didn't know how to move funds from California to Belgium."
Give me a break. Ya go down to your bank and do a wire transfer. Was Apple so stupid that someone couldn't have done that? I'd guess that they *did* know how and the author didn't get his facts straight.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Yeah, and Spindler was the the one whose 'last straw' was:
1. Curving his hand like he was holding a can of Pepsi.
2. Putting his hand around his mouth.
3. Blushed, and went "Bzzzzzzzzzzh!"
And yes, folks, to add insult to injury, that was a coporate party!!! He embarassed the ENTIRE staff!!!
That was (or at least one of) the straws that resulted in him being replaced by Amelio.
How ironic, isn't it, then, that you had the cycle of:
1. Sculley (Coke)
2. Spindler (Pepsi)
3. Amelio (Coke)
Oh, and I bet they during each tenure, the soda machines were of the company of which the CEO had previously work for.
Dear sixteeninchdrilldo,
:)
You seem to have a lot of drive and enthusiasm, which is obviously not finding a productive outlet, have you thought about getting some part-time work in IT? Perhaps try doing some volunteer work!
Maybe you've not yet graduated and are going through that 'difficult' stage. Girls don't seem to like you, the sporty kids bully you. We've all been there, it'll pass. The simple fact that is girls mature faster than boys.
In a few years, you'll look back on these days and laugh!
Anyway, take care.
AC.
That would the end of Apple and the Macintosh all together. IBM drops non-profitable divisions like a dirty set of underwear. If anything, that was the highlight of Spindler's tenure.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
For SOME weird-assed ("Let's be different", maybe?) reason, real estate people -- at least the ones in in commercial real estate I've talked with -- don't want to use the term "square feet". They just say, "The space you're interested in measures 600 feet."
As someone who took geometry in high school, studied drafting, and watched home go from dirt lots to move-in, this bugs the shit out of me. It just isn't logical to the lay person who might wonder lineal feet, cubic feet, 4th dimension...
I suppose some realtors are in their own little world. But then, so are electrical engineers vs mechanical engineers vs architects of other professions using similar tools and methods but deliberately twisting the terminology to suit their cliquish needs...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Seriously, does /. have to have a fluff Apple piece every 5 hours now? For fucks sake, go blow Apple execs on your own time. This is not news for nerds, nor is it stuff that matters.
Exactly. During Spindler's tenure we got:
The years between 1995 and 1997 was the perfect storm for Apple. Lousy products, lousy leadership, and Microsoft's exploitation of Apple's failures almost killed Apple. You can thank Spindler for starting the mess. (A lot of people want to blame Gil Amelio for these problems, but Amelio did the best that he could to solve them and he did bring Jobs back). The best thing about Spindler is that he was kicked out and replaced with Amelio, who was then kicked out and replaced with Steve Jobs. Now the company is successful again and making great products.
hilarious
Why bi-weekly and bi-weekly alone?
You pay your bills once per month. So, why not get paid once per month?
I know some people in the US that were originally paid monthly and then shortly after having been put on the bi-weekly pay noticed that for some reason they were more prone to spend almost beyond their means on the bi-weekly pay instead of the monthly pay.
The part about getting paid any and all wages the day after you are no longer with the company for some reason sounds quite good though.
When I hear this crap from landlords, I tell them I need a 3d space and that I do not need to see their 50ft length of space.
I have nothing to say.
You just gave me five reasons never to start a business in Massachusetts :)
Anderson's job was first and foremost to validate the honesty of Enron's financial statements and was therefor afforded a priviledged position. That firm existed solely to protect American financial markets and it failed, utterly. So yes, the firm did have to be destroyed, because it did not do its job. Sucks for the people that work there, but, what was at stake was the stability of the entire US economic system. Were investors to decide that American stock markets were full of lies on financials and withdraw, the result would have been disasterous for the US economy. Thank god the triple combination of healthy dividend tax cuts, sarbanes oxely requirements, and vigorous action by the AG to actually seek real jail time for anyone guilty of financial fraud has restored our markets somewhat to the level they were at before this disaster. It could have been a lot worse, and, the Bush administration actually deserves some credit for handling this one fairly well.
This is my sig.
The article fails to mention a golden parachute - though I am sure he received one. Is he still around? Or is he living off his past?
No, you've got it wrong. The Peter Principle (as expounded by Laurence J. Peter in the book of the same name) is that:
In any hierarchy, an individual will rise to his level of \b{incompetence} and then remain there. \i{(emphasis mine)}
The rationale is that as long as you are competent, you will continue to be promoted. At some point you will reach your level of incompetence, where you will remain.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I think the IT industry must be unique in the way that they are always late paying their staff yet most companies have the know-how to knock-up and el-cheapo payroll system. All the IT jobs I've worked in are late payers and have to be frequently reminded that the money they are spending on luxeries and lunches is actually my salary. Is anyone here in the IT industry (particulary programming) and paid on-time?
Where I could be a bipolar fuckup and they pay me hundreds of millions of dollars to act in a soap opera. That would be awesome.
Sheesh... the "diesel" hiding under his desk and having panic attacks. STFU already.
Dude, Spindler was nowhere near as ineffectual or just plain bad for Apple as was Gil Amelio. Apple did great things (in spite of) Spindler's time as CEO; Apple just withered under Amelio's direction, and Jobs had to swoop in and fix everything.
Of course, had Amelio not been such a lousy CEO, Apple probably wouldn't be anything like it is today.
Or are you too young and innocent to have never worked for clinically insane toxic assholes yet? Yeah boo hoo, people are sick. Now take your leave of absence and stop fucking over all the people who's jobs depend on you.
And please please shut the white liberal guilt fuck up.
Um
"Jobs put a young British designer, Jonathan Ives, in charge of the Industrial Design Group at Apple. Both Jobs and Ives shared the same vision for Apple, that they shouldn't try and supply the market, but create it by designing innovative, lust-worthy products that sell for the same reason as BMWs and Mont Blanc pens -- not because people need them, but because they want them."
More pertinent information may be found here, http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9809/22/imacman
"One thing most people don't know is that Steve Jobs is an exceptional designer," he said. Jobs was involved throughout iMac's entire design life cycle, which Ives called "a vigorous intellectual process." A small team of designers worked like maniacs for several months to come up with the design, which was largely informed by what consumers wanted, he said."
I'd like to finish with this comment. I've read your posts. They are garbage. Your replies fall into one of two categories. One, your replies bend what the original poster wrote. Two, your replies declare facts as inconsequential next to your knowledge of the "real" facts.
I am now done wasting my time on you.
This article and a conversation I had today got me thinking: Are there Professors of Computer History? It's an awfully new thing, being less than 100 years old, but computers have had such a remarkable impact on society and the world, and it's not going to stop. It bears studying. I've been part of the making of this history for twenty years now, be it as a user, a reporter, or working with developers and trying to wear pants too big to fit. Is there a future job for me in this?
thinking different(ly) as always,
haaz.
-- haaz.
Woz designed the Apple I and the Apple II. He had nothing to do with the design of the Mac. He had been in an airplane crash by that time.
Woz basically *was* the engineering part of the Apple II division.
Yes, Jay Miner was great. He worked on the Atari 400/800 which were very nice computers and also the Amiga which was very nice. However, you are comparing work Miner did *much later*. Not only that, but it was his second time up to bat.
The Atari computers were very nice, but they were inspired by the Apple II.
So, have some respect for Woz. You want to pick on someone, pick on Burrell Smith. He was the hardware designer of the original Mac. And he actually did a very good job.
I met him once at an Apple party (I was working in the AppleLink group at the time in Cupertino). I went up to him and said hello in the German langauge (Hi, how are you? My name is Philip..."). His reply was "So?". It was the lack of small talk and knowing how Americans work (small talk doesn't work in German like it does in English) that left me with an impression of how cold he was. I hope he's 'warmer' now? I wasn't sorry though when he left - and I like Germans! You may have a great product but if people don't like you they won't do business with you. That's why meetings (face to face) will always win over the conference/video conference call. Even his suits were European in a jeans environment. Try and go to a bar/pub wearing a suit and talk with the locals. No way José...
"Procrastination is like masturbation...you're only screwing yourself."