From Kirkus Reviews
A disappointing book about a lovable company. Carlton, a West Coast technology reporter for the Wall Street Journal, here provides an in-depth look at Apple's woes through the years. There are no easy answers to its failures, though it's tempting to blame former CEOs like Michael Spindler, the German- born leader so rattled by his job that he left, literally, on life support; Gil Amelio, a techie who didn't understand how to market a brand-name; and even Steve Jobs, a larger-than-life presence ousted by John Sculley, who was later ousted himself. Apple's real downfall may have been how loyal its users became--Sculley, who had been a fantastic marketer at Pepsi, refused to license Macintosh applications and even the Mac ``box,'' a decision that pared down Apple's users to a tiny band of fanatics. Companies were attracted to the elegant Macintosh but were dissuaded when they couldn't buy inexpensive knock-offs, as they could with so many other brands, and the inefficient Microsoft system became the industry standard. Time and again, Apple misunderstood the demands of the market; for example, when the company introduced the PowerBook, it overstocked the cheap model and understocked the top-of-the-line models, ignoring the obvious fact that computer fans are willing to spend money in order to get the latest tech toy. Thousands of orders for the expensive PowerBook went unfilled, and Apple suffered a blow to its ego and its bottom line. But while its problems are fairly evident, Carlton fails to get at the heart of Apple, to what inspired such devotion from users and employees. And like so many products in the high-tech industry, this book is already somewhat obsolete, with the recent resignation of Mike Markkula and the return of Steve Jobs. Apple fans are a die-hard bunch, and this dry corporate history simply lacks the passion that Mac users feel about their product. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Apple Computer Inc.'s roller-coaster ride has kept it in the public eye for a long time. Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania and Business Blunders is the latest book about the once high-flying company. Written by Jim Carlton, West Coast technology reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Apple is a dense, 352-page attempt to dissect the decline of an American icon, the free fall of the computer maker's last decade. Carlton's focus is on the foibles of the past decade, and he has gone to great lengths to interview current and past Apple executives and major industry players. Carlton is at his best reporting straight news and documenting the numerous attempts to save Apple. The reporter, however, sometimes gets lost in the details, his story skipping around in time and place. He's itching to hammer home what a disaster Apple became, and in his eagerness he destroys the romance and tragedy of the tale. What is missing from the book is narrative, atmosphere and analysis. Reading these dry pages you'd think Apple shipped toasters, not the only computer that has ever stirred emotional loyalty in millions of people. -- Upside, Jonathan Littman
In imparting this useful, occasionally mind-boggling tale about how not to run a business ... Carlton requires too much work on the part of readers. Apple is filled with interesting information, some of it revealed here for the first time. But Carlton buries his punch lines in a thicket of details, apparently losing his way on occasion. -- The New York Times Book Review, Katie Hafner From the Publisher
"I think this is a very important story that had to be told, and Jim Carlton did a fine job pulling it all together."
--Bill Gates"This is the story of a true American tragedy, and Carlton's telling makes it impossible to put down. There are lessons here for everyone."
--Jim Bezos, founder and CEO, Amazon.com
"If you want the full story of what happened, its hard to imagine anyone improving on Apple."
--Mark Williams, The Red Herring
"Carlton has done Apple and its customers a big favor. This is not to say that only Apple and computer-industry aficionados should read this book--that would selling the book far too short. Anyone in a high-growth industry can reap vast benefits by observing what Apple did right and did wrong. You can pay $27.50 for this book now or millions later in golden parachutes."
--Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist, Apple Computer, Inc.
"Delicious reading for dedicated Apple-watchers...."
-- Peter Burrows, Business Week
"Given such dramatic elements as betrayal, loyalty, downfall, comeback, rivalry, intrigue, and hubris, and a notable cast of heroes and villains, the story of Apple Computer begs to be told, and ... Carlton does a remarkable job of telling it."
-- Booklist
"A richly reported account of Apple's two decades of mismanagement and missed opportunities....the author is such a skilled reporter that he gives the impression of having worked at Apple, rather than the Journal's San Francisco Bureau."
-- Scott Kirsner, Boston Book Review
From the Inside Flap
ritten by a Wall Street Journal technology reporter, is the most detailed study to date of the past decade of Apple's turbulent history. Jim Carlton walks us down company corridors, into the boardroom, and through barriers to research laboratories, and reveals a seething cauldron of petty infighting and buried secrets.
Through exhaustive interviews with more than 160 former Apple employees, industry experts, and competitors--including Bill Gates, Scully, and Amelio--Carlton discovers confidential memos, late night rendezvous, and fateful decisions that forever changed the company's path. He portrays a company very different from the glamorous technology leader that designed computers for "the rest of us" and illuminates what might have been and what really happened to this once-great icon of American business.
About the Author
Jim Carlton covers West Coast technology issues for the Wall Street Journal. For the past twenty years, he has worked as a journalist for a variety of newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, The Orange County Register, and the Los Angeles Times.
His numerous articles have included investigative exposes of questionable practices in the airline, chemical, and computer industries. He was named finalist for the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for a series on toxic dumping in Texas, and he has won investigative and feature-writing awards for articles written in California.
He lives in San Francisco.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
In the Beginning
By the afternoon of June 17, 1993, the temperature in the asphalt flatlands that sprawl across California's Silicon Valley had climbed to a sizzling ninety-six degrees. This was nearly twenty degrees higher than normal, since the Valley, near San Francisco, lies on the ocean side of a towering mountain range that holds in moist, cool Pacific air.
Infrequently, a heat wave such as this bakes the entire San Francisco Bay area, when the high-pressure system that is usually parked over the Pacific and is responsible for generating those delicious marine breezes shifts over to nearby Nevada and funnels hot, dry air down that same mountain range in a reverse flow. The effect is known locally as a "Diablo wind," because the range those winds pour down is called the Diablo. "Diablo" is a Spanish word meaning "devil," so these are devil winds and appropriately named because they can spark wicked firestorms that wreak destruction and havoc across the region. That same afternoon, a devil's wind of another sort was whipping through the air-conditioned corridors of the worldwide headquarters of Apple Computer Inc. in the Silicon Valley community of Cupertino. The 1980s had recently drawn to a close, capping a decade of dizzying growth for a company that had rocketed out of a garage to become the symbol of America's economic renaissance, a swashbuckling pioneer at the vanguard of the new Information Age. This shining star was the progeny of Steve Jobs, the long-haired whiz kid who had teamed up with fellow college dropout Steve Wozniak to create the first computer "for the rest of us," taking the power of computing out of the stuffy corporate realm and putting it into the hands of the average person for the first time.
By now, though, Jobs was long gone, having succumbed to a coup that had left his onetime friend and mentor, John Sculley, alone at the helm. And on this day, Sculley felt more alone than ever as he sat in the office of his friend and chief financial officer, Joe Graziano, atop a gleaming four-story building called De Anza 7, wondering aloud why his own board of directors was meeting in secret in a nearby conference room. The 1990s had gotten off to a rocky start. Apple's profits were falling under fierce competition. Its outlandish research projects were not panning out. And the bottom had just fallen out of the current quarter, triggering this special board meeting.
"Joe, what do you think they're doing in there?" Sculley asked Graziano in a voice that betrayed growing unease. This from the chairman and chief executive officer of Apple Computer, a man who had become a global celebrity and confidant to presidents and movie stars. As the most visible spokesman for the world's most exciting industry, his face was on the cover of business magazines and crowds wanting to hear his speeches had to be turned away. At age fifty-three, John Sculley was still a young-thinking man, but the toll of running Apple Computer during a decade of rocketing growth and change was evident. He still retained a sleek, well-proportioned physique from a regimen of jogging for miles each day before dawn, but his hair was grayer and his face was creased with lines. Reclining in the chair in his office, which commanded a view of the coastal Santa Cruz Mountains to the west, Graziano, a tall, dark-complected man who loved to race hot rods in his spare time, looked back at his boss and replied, "There's no way they're going to get rid of you, John. That would be really stupid."
The board's meeting, which had started that morning, had dragged on for excruciatingly long hours. Finally, a board member named A. C. "Mike" Markkula Jr., a chain-smoking millionaire who had cofounded Apple with Jobs and Wozniak by backing them with money, notified a Sculley assistant to send in the CEO. Sculley walked into the conference room, called "Synergy," noticing as he closed the door behind him that nary one of the four directors present would look up to make eye contact. Aides outside strained to hear but could make out only muffled voices from the room. After only a few moments, the door reopened and Sculley shuffled out, white as a sheet. Collapsing into the chair of his own office, which like all others on the executive floor was glass-walled, Sculley broke the news to his staff: after ten years on the job, he had been summarily fired as CEO.
And that was not the only indignity. The board told Sculley he could continue to serve as Apple's chairman, but in a powerless, figurehead role in which he would have to report to, of all people, his former subordinate: Michael Spindler. A German national, Spindler before that board meeting had been Sculley's trusted lieutenant overseeing the grind of Apple's daily operations. At least, Sculley had thought he could trust Spindler, a large, gruff man known for such intensity that he was nicknamed "the Diesel." The Diesel occasionally ran out of gas, folding under apparent stress attacks that left him incapacitated on a couch or under his desk. This was the man that Apple's board named to replace Sculley as CEO, entrusting to his meaty hands the future of Apple Computer It was a crossroads for both Apple and a computer industry that had exploded into the world's foremost catalyst for change.
The events culminating in the ouster of John Sculley involved the kind of boardroom drama and intrigue rarely displayed in a more conventional company. But Apple had never pretended to be like any other company, and in fact it went out of its way to thumb its nose at the conventional way of doing things. This was just another day at the office, another poignant moment in a tumultuous history that had unfolded like the story line of a soap opera. Apple had never been like any other company because its leaders and employees had always believed they were working for a cause, a mission to spread the wonders of computer technology to all the corners of the globe. Apple had in fact done just that, to a degree not even Steve Jobs could have envisioned when he almost single-handedly founded the personal computer industry during America's era of disco and Jimmy Carter.
Two decades later, the world is indeed filled with personal computers that look very much like the ones Jobs helped create at Apple. Someone in San Francisco can sit down at a computer in the comfort of home and trade e-mail or even play video games with, at the same time, complete strangers in, say, Brazil, Afghanistan, and China. Office workers the world over have been liberated from the tyranny of pencils and typewriters. With a keyboard and mouse, they now use their computers to write reports, prepare presentations, access library files--and even goof off now and then with a discreet game of solitaire. And learning the "three Rs" is no longer the drudgery it used to be: children are learning how to read, write, and perform mathematical calculations by playing computer games that teach while offering fun.
The world, in short, is a much smaller and more understandable place because of the computer. It is just too bad that Apple, which started it all, did not change as it was changing the world.
