Which Apple CEO has been the WORST?

[WilsonTung]

Poll Says it all!
I think poor Mr. Sculley gets my vote. He did wonders with Pepsi (Pepsi was to AMD as Coke was to Intel), but Apple had very little innovation during his tenure, and the Newton PDA was an overhyped disaster.

 

[MustPost]

Poll: how many of these have you never heard of?

answer: 3

 

[damocles]

Jobs- I just hate the guy.

 

[JellyBaby]

Jobs is a weiner.

 

[dc]

i hate the one that introduced a fruitty system/idea.

oh wait... that's all of them.

 

[IndyJaws]

I'm reading an excellent book on the history of Apple. Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders by Jim Carlton. I would not say Sculley, although he certainly had his faults. I'm about 1/2 way through the book, so right now, I'm leaning toward Michael Spindler. However, the person who did the most damage to Apple, IMHO, would have been Jean-Louis Gassee (for reasons far too numerous to mention).

 

[ILikeSprite]

Who came up with the iMac? I vote for him! :disgust:

 

[wepopfresh]

I like Jobs, but jobs single-handedly ruined apple because of his deplorable personality, but he also made apple what it is because of the same personality. I don't feel scully helped apple al that much later on.

 

[TallBill]

haha, i've only heard of one, so obviously i didnt vote for him.. i dunno..

 

[heartsurgeon]

who cares.

 

[damocles]

Who had the idea not to license the OS?

 

[UltraQuiet]

<< Pepsi was to AMD as Coke was to Intel), >>



No wonder he failed.

What's "Apple"?

 

[IndyJaws]

<< Who had the idea not to license the OS? >>



Sculley was all in favor of doing it in the '80's, but Gassee talked him out of it. Believe it or not, they actually had a working version of the Mac OS running on an Intel processor in 1991! Spindler talked Sculley out of that. Damn, Sculley was weak! Can you imagine if that had been released before Win 95 came out? The computing world would be very different today.

 

[damocles]

<<

<< Who had the idea not to license the OS? >>



Sculley was all in favor of doing it in the '80's, but Gassee talked him out of it. Believe it or not, they actually had a working version of the Mac OS running on an Intel processor in 1991! Spindler talked Sculley out of that. Damn, Sculley was weak! Can you imagine if that had been released before Win 95 came out? The computing world would be very different today. >>



Thanks

Yes, the world would indeed be different

 

[PowerMac4Ever]

Jobs had a pretty big ego back in the '80s. For the most part, Sculley was right to fire him. I think the failure of NeXT made Jobs realize that he really didn't know everything about the computer industry.

Oh, and Sculley really screwed Apple over by giving MS a License to copy the Mac.

 

[IndyJaws]

<< Jobs had a pretty big ego back in the '80s. For the most part, Sculley was right to fire him. I think the failure of NeXT made Jobs realize that he really didn't know everything about the computer industry. Oh, and Sculley really screwed Apple over by giving MS a License to copy the Mac. >>



Jobs still has a huge ego. The iPod is a perfect example. If Apple was serious about selling product, they would make it PC compatible as well. The thought that people are going to go out and buy a Mac just so they can use the iPod is ridiculous. Sure, there will be a few, but can you imagine how many they would sell if they opened it up to the WinTel marketplace - especially considering how many million$ they are spending on the ad campaign. I mean, that damn commercial is on all the time!

Sculley did really fvck up when he agreed in the 1985 license agreement to permit "present and future software programs" from Microsoft to have the look and feel of the Mac OS. They never thought a DOS-based OS could accomplish what they were doing at Apple.

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm voting for Gil Amelio. He almost ran Apple into the ground with that whole Newton PDA fiasco. The next time that you release something with handwriting recognition, make sure that it WORKS!

 

[kgraeme]

Amelio had nothing to do with the introduction of the Newton. He was actually on the tail end of its existence. Jobs is the one that killed it after it was finally a decent OS that just needed a smaller form-factor.

 

[IndyJaws]

<< Amelio had nothing to do with the introduction of the Newton. He was actually on the tail end of its existence. Jobs is the one that killed it after it was finally a decent OS that just needed a smaller form-factor. >>



Exactly. The Newton was actually considered Sculley's "Waterloo". The original model was going to cost $7000-8000! However, we can't be too hard on the Newton...it was the grandaddy of PDA's as we know them today.

 

[BigNeko]

From what I understand, the Newton was a good product that had potential.
I vote for the guy that pulled the license on that other company (Power Computing) that was making Apple clones and they were selling like hotcakes.
Old article.

 

[kgraeme]

Lets see, off the top of my head...

• Apple (Steve Jobs) sees GUI concept at Xerox PARC and decides to create a GUI OS. Begins development of Lisa and Macintosh.
• Steve Jobs preferred the Lisa to the Macintosh. Look where the Lisa is today.
• When Steve Jobs got out of hand, the board fired him and put Spindler in charge.
• Spindler builds the Mac legacy.
• Steve started NeXT.
• MS introduces Windows.
• Sculley took over Apple and introduced the Newton, the PowerPC, and System 7. (The "Glory Years"). Apple begins development of their incredible next gen OS.
• NeXT floundered. A few develpers really like NeXT, but nobody else does.
• Apple floundered. The next-gen OS isn't going well at all.
• Windows 95.
• Apple hires Gil Amelio to be a hatchet man and get Apple into shape.
• Jean-Louise Gassee leaves Apple, founds Be and introduces BeOS on Apple hardware.
• Apple licenses Mac OS to clone vendors. Fixes Newton OS (spin off company now). Scraps new OS, and decides to look at buying something.
• Amelio at Apple flips a coin and chooses to buy NeXT instead of Be.
• Apple introduces G3, finally introduced IDE to replace SCSI. Standardizes on normal VGA connectors and generally starts making decent hardware again. Doesn't let Be develop for G3. Begins developing NeXT generation Macintosh OS.
• Steve Jobs (acquired with NeXT) makes a coup and kicks out Amelio. Kills clone vendors. Introduces iMac. Kills Newton.
• G4. Cube. iBook. Titanium G4 Powerbook. Kills standard VGA for proprietary connector.
• OS X released. The quality and finish is still that of a beta (Adobe won't even write Photoshop for it yet because of this.)

That's off the top of my head. I missed a lot, and may have mixed some stuff up. And I don't remember Mike Scott at all. (IIRC, I used to do some advertising work for Apple. Independent, not Apple employee.)