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John Sculley gives an epic interview, says he was the wrong choice for Apple CEO
Comfy? Good. John Sculley has given one beast of an interview to Cult of Mac, and it's all about Steve Jobs. It's a follow-up of a sort to the candid words Sculley gave The Daily Beast in June, where he talked about how he wished things had worked out differently between him and Steve. In this new interview Sculley takes it all a step (and several thousand words) further, talking about the genius of Steve Jobs with obvious admiration. In fact, Sculley says that after Steve was ousted he basically attempted to run the company within the template for design and innovation that Steve had set down, and that Steve merely returned the company to his own original model when he came back in 1997. Outside of the very interesting examination of Steve's methods and talent, Sculley offers a multitude of tidbits. One particularly interesting story is of the Newton, which Sculley says actually saved the company from going bankrupt. Apple owned a 47 percent stake in the fledgling company that build the ARM processor for the first Newton, and when finances got tough Apple got $800 million out of selling its stake -- which easily offset the $100 million Apple "burned" on building the Newton. Of course that stake would be worth billions today, but let's not dwell on the past. We won't spoil any more of the interview for you, just hit up the source link and enjoy!
Continuity: Executive succession plans in history
We all know that Steve Jobs will eventually leave Apple, and Apple's executive team has a responsibility to draft a succession plan to help minimize the turmoil when that day comes. To figure out what Apple might do, we can look to the past for other examples. Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 by Henry Ford. In 1918, at the age of 55, Henry handed the presidency of the company to his son Edsel. When Edsel died in 1943, Henry came back to Ford Motor Company ill, "mentally inconsistent, suspicious, and generally no longer fit" for the job. Most of the board didn't want him to be president. Even with no official title, he'd been in de facto control of the company since Edsel took over. Nevertheless, the board elected him (rather than cross him), and he served until the end of the second World War. Gravely ill, he turned control of the company over to his grandson, Henry Ford II, in 1945. Henry Ford died two years later. Steve Jobs has four children, the oldest of whom is Lisa Brennan-Jobs, a 30-year-old journalist. None have publicly expressed any desire to run Apple.
Ballmer channels 1985, suggests Apple split iPhone hardware and OS
Steve Ballmer is imitating his CEO predecessor by suggesting that Apple separate its iPhone hardware from OS X, according to Ars Technica. Nokia leads the smartphone market today with about a 30 percent share, he said. "If you want to reach more than that, you have to separate the hardware and software in the platform," he said in an discussion forum with the Churchill Club, a Silicon Valley business and technology group. In 1985, Bill Gates approached Apple (and its then-CEO, John Sculley) with prospects in hand to convince it to license Mac OS to third-party vendors. As we all know, that didn't happen (at least not with Microsoft as a partner), keeping the bond tight between Apple hardware and software. Microsoft wound up doing it themselves with Windows. The idea that Ballmer thinks other companies should be more like Microsoft isn't shocking at all; in fact, what else was the man supposed to say? Like Jobs with Apple, Ballmer's talks and interviews wield a great deal of influence on Microsoft's stock price. If he said anything other than what he did, MSFT would have taken a hit. As CEO, that's unconscionable.
Today's a big day for Steve
Fun fact: September 16 is the day in 1985 that Steve Jobs left Apple, and also the same day in 1997 that he returned to Apple as then-iCEO. Jobs first left after CEO John Sculley ousted him from Apple's board of directors after both had tried to be "co-CEOs." Jobs also filed papers that same day in 1985 founding NeXT, the company that he intended to use as a weapon against Apple. Instead, Apple wound up acquiring NeXT for $400 million in 1996. Parts of the NeXT operating system, NeXTStep, eventually became the underpinnings of Mac OS X. [Via Wired.]
