Gentlemen, all I can say is Jobs was growing with the company and learning from his mistakes. I seriously doubt he would have killed something that was bringing in money for the company, i.e. the Apple II. I also seriously doubt he would have towed the anti-expansion line much longer either. On the other hand, he was on the forefront of where computers needed to be: UNIX and portability. What is a PowerBook but an expansion-less Mac? Without Jobs anywhere near it, Apple clobbered itself with the most expandable portable ever made. Give me Jobs' vision any day over Gassee's. Without Jobs pushing for UNIX, and Gassee milking the Mac OS for everything he could, he gave Microsoft the edge to take over the world and truly stagnate operating systems with shell after shell over an aging DOS base. Imagine Sun & Apple working together in those days.
The reality is you guys take the sensationalized headlines we all know about Jobs to be the literal truth. It's a shame that East Coast Old School Sculley couldn't control Jobs, or try. He strikes me as a button-downed guy who wasn't used to anyone behaving like Jobs did and didn't have a clue what to do about it other than get rid of him. People with MBAs just didn't behave like that. Now they all behave like Jobs. We'll never know for sure what would have happened, but I'm 100% certain Jobs would not have destroyed the company. I seriously doubt he would have done any more damage than Sculley & Gassee did, or the lame ducks which followed.
And JDW, Jobs did take a year away from the company. I doubt he was nearly as in control as we were led to believe after his liver surgery. He had basically been handed a death sentence prior to that. And I'm not sure exactly what you think would happen to Apple if he stepped away now.
I don't particularly love Jobs, but I do think Apple would have been much better off had they pushed the envelope 25 years ago instead of resting on their laurels, letting Microsoft dominate the market with poor copies of the Mac. Innovation is the key to survival in the micro-computing business. Microsoft has show us what happens to a company that fails to do it, with stale imitative flop after flop. What Jobs would have brought to the table then as now is fire. The guy will do what it takes to get what he wants, he doesn't seem to care about the money as much as the triumph.And that's where everybody else underestimates Apple.
The reality is you guys take the sensationalized headlines we all know about Jobs to be the literal truth. It's a shame that East Coast Old School Sculley couldn't control Jobs, or try. He strikes me as a button-downed guy who wasn't used to anyone behaving like Jobs did and didn't have a clue what to do about it other than get rid of him. People with MBAs just didn't behave like that. Now they all behave like Jobs. We'll never know for sure what would have happened, but I'm 100% certain Jobs would not have destroyed the company. I seriously doubt he would have done any more damage than Sculley & Gassee did, or the lame ducks which followed.
And JDW, Jobs did take a year away from the company. I doubt he was nearly as in control as we were led to believe after his liver surgery. He had basically been handed a death sentence prior to that. And I'm not sure exactly what you think would happen to Apple if he stepped away now.
I don't particularly love Jobs, but I do think Apple would have been much better off had they pushed the envelope 25 years ago instead of resting on their laurels, letting Microsoft dominate the market with poor copies of the Mac. Innovation is the key to survival in the micro-computing business. Microsoft has show us what happens to a company that fails to do it, with stale imitative flop after flop. What Jobs would have brought to the table then as now is fire. The guy will do what it takes to get what he wants, he doesn't seem to care about the money as much as the triumph.And that's where everybody else underestimates Apple.