Salutations,
Remembering things from the top of my head, the only profit Apple ever
made while Gil was in charge was when they sold that manufacturing plant.
And unfortunately you can't sell a plant every quarter.
And the first profit Apple made when Steve was in charge was announced
when they released the iMac. And I think it was 54 or 34 million.
The bottom line is that while the Newton is a technological marvel that
still has no peers, it was a business failure.
And Steve WAS NOT the reason for that failure. Steve came along in the
end. If you want to blame someone for the Newton's failures blame Scully.
Or Spindler. Or Gil. The Newton had plenty of time to gain a foothold or
become profitable during their watches.
If the Newton sold enough, it would never have been killed. Products are
dropped because not enough people buy them.
Sure, some companies will keep a product around to build a market. But if
that company hits survival mode, which Apple was in for years, then they
need to think about the company first.
Cheers,
David
on 7/28/02 7:29 PM, John Gardner - GTS DBA APAC at John.Gardner_at_Sun.COM
wrote:
>
>
>>>
>>> WOW! You have the 'profit/loss balance sheet??? You said 'basic fact', =
>>> doesn't this require proof?
>>
>>
>> Nope, I don't have the balance sheet. But I don't need it. Simple logic
>> is all that is needed. ONCE AGAIN, Apple was losing hundreds of millions of
>> dollars a quarter. Steve came in and cut every project except for the 10%
>> gems he saw. He kept the projects that had an instant future. And I don't
>> care how much Steve hated the Newton, IF IT WAS MAKING APPLE MONEY HE WOULD
>> HAVE KEPT IT! If if would of been profitable in the near future, HE WOULD
>> HAVE KEPT IT!
>>
>
> Not really. Newton Inc was spun off and not part of Apple's balance sheet
> anyway. It no longer had anything to do with whether Apple was making
> money or not.
>
> Steve spun it back into Apple and then killed it as it was capitalised to the
> tune of 100 million dollars, and remember how much profit did Apple make that
> quarter ? yes 100 million and everyone hailed as the genious that returned
> Apple to profitability as soon as he returned. It was a cynical publicity
> stunt (as Apple still had so much money in the bank at that stage it didn't
> need the 100 million back.)
>
> Now Apple is paying for this decision as it has no hand held market even
> though it's trying to break into consumer electronics. It also pissed off
> all the PC users who had purchased an Apple product for the first time in
> their lives.
>
> Regards
> John G
>
>
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