|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
   |
View items related to this story
JUICY TALES FROM A BRUISED APPLE
APPLE Concern over the outcome has digerati the world over avidly reading the trade rags. Now comes Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders, in which Wall Street Journal West Coast technology reporter Jim Carlton gives us some glimpses of Jobs's modus operandi. In one passage, Carlton describes a meeting during Apple's early days at which Jobs, clad only in shorts and running shoes, decided to show an Apple employee what he thought of him. ''He's disagreeing with [the] guy, so he kicks off his shoes and puts his bare feet on the table,'' a former Apple manager tells the author. ''He framed the guy's face with his feet.'' And it wasn't just underlings who got such treatment. In the mid-1980s, we see William H. Gates III at a loss for how to deal with Jobs, who was making life difficult as Microsoft Corp. struggled to create a Macintosh version of its Excel spreadsheet. ''Steve keeps yelling at us,'' Gates tells a friend at Apple. ''I don't know whether to work on the Mac or not.'' Such stories hint at the highly charged atmosphere that must exist inside Apple's Cupertino (Calif.) headquarters today. But unfortunately, such gems about the new top man are rare in the book, a 463-page effort that focuses on the period from 1985 to early 1997--before Jobs took the helm again this past July. With its torrent of names, details about clandestine meetings from unnamed sources, and arcane descriptions of failed technology projects, Apple tells more than most readers will want to know. It can be delicious reading for dedicated Apple-watchers, but the book is bound to leave general readers hungry for more up-to-date analysis. Not all of this is Carlton's fault. The story is simply moving too fast for any book to keep up. He manages to stuff into a 12-page epilogue the firing of CEO Gilbert F. Amelio in July, Jobs's subsequent overhaul of Apple's board, and the headline-grabbing partnership with Microsoft. But even that doesn't get to Jobs's more recent decision to kill Apple's clone strategy or Apple's recent announcement of a 30% drop in quarterly sales from the previous year. Carlton's exhaustive reporting does bring some crucial moments in Apple's past to life. Carlton describes how, in 1985, young marketing whiz Daniel L. Eilers got roared out of the room by then-chief technologist Jean-Louis Gassee for suggesting that Apple should sign up Mac cloners--an attempt that Eilers was to make four more times before Apple finally listened 10 years later. And Carlton manages to confirm rumors of the bizarre behavior of CEO John Sculley's tension-racked successor, Michael H. Spindler, who on repeated occasions was found hiding under his desk as Apple's problems got the best of him. There are also enough tales of botched merger efforts to boil the blood of Apple's suffering shareholders. We see Spindler botch a round of talks with IBM in 1994. Then there's the case of Philips Electronics, which came within one vote of approving a buyout of Apple, and a brief 1995 flirtation with rival Compaq Computer Corp. Carlton captures some of the ghosts of Apple's recent past as well. For example, there's longtime human relations chief Kevin Sullivan, portrayed as a pandering, mean-spirited man who hitched his fortunes to Spindler. When he tries to give Sculley a condolence hug just days after plotting the CEO's ouster, Sculley coldly pulls away. If mismanagement at Apple isn't news, some of Carlton's insights about Microsoft may be. While Gates is considered evil incarnate in Mac circles, this book shows him to be far more a patient friend than a vicious foe. True, Gates has long made a killing by selling Mac programs, but he once tried to steer Apple toward a strategy that would have made the Mac, not Windows, the software standard in the PC industry. The book not only includes the full text of a 1985 memo that lays out that plan but also reveals that Gates actually called executives at Hewlett-Packard Co. and AT&T to make sure there was real interest from possible cloners before sending the note. Gates repeatedly leaves the door open to tighter links, despite shoddy treatment from mistrustful Apple executives. Take Apple's 1995 sneak-attack lawsuit against Microsoft over a tiff that Gates thought he had straightened out. Lambasting Spindler for Apple's ''lack of candor and honesty,'' he nonetheless reaches out a hand to an already-weakening Apple. ''I still feel that a constructive dialog between you and me would be helpful.... I think the Macintosh has a bright future,'' says Gates. It's a much kinder and gentler Gates than we usually hear about now. Still, readers who want to stay abreast of the Apple story will need to look elsewhere. The saga is far from over--and Carlton's book repeats the mistake made by two decades of Apple managers: It gets caught up in the turbulent, self-involved scene in Cupertino and fails to analyze Apple's place in the larger world.
BY PETER BURROWS RELATED ITEMS
|
Updated Oct. 30, 1997 by bwwebmaster
Copyright 1997, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Terms of Use