Showdown in Silicon Valley (1985) | Hacker News Reader

Showdown in Silicon Valley (1985)

newsweek.com

36 pointsigriot12 comments

FTA: From the comfortable distance of Wall Street, the bloody battle looked like a healthy jog around the park: the news of Jobs's resignation sent Apple stock up. "Most professional investors are happy to see Jobs out of Apple," said Don Sinsabaugh, a partner in Swergold Chefitz & Sinsabaugh. "He ruffled a lot of feathers on Wall Street with his brashness and self-confidence." More importantly, CEO John Sculley will now be able to run the company with a free hand.

I just can't get enough of the stories from the early days of the PC industry or the internet. It was really special times. The struggle between new and old. The rivalry between the new champions. The battle over who has the brightest people. Huge wealths being built (and torn down) over night.

Man, I love this industry.

"Fire in the Valley" is probably one of the better books to actual talk about the people building these things in the 70's.

This paragraph from near the end, is extremely interesting in today's context:

"As McKenna sees it, the rift between Jobs and Sculley ultimately stems from the sudden, dramatic change in the marketplace in the last two years. No longer can a company simply hope to dazzle customers with gee-whiz gadgetry or innovations. Companies must go to the customers first, finding out what their needs are and what kinds of computers can solve their problems. "Apple designed and built computers like a consumer-products company," says McKenna. "But there's been a very rapid change. The (personal computer)market is more like the traditional computer marketplace." "

given how everyone is discussing how Apple is becoming more like a consumer-products market, and less like a computer company, with iPads replacing Macs as the main part of their computer sales.

Great line from the article: "Sculley came to the conclusion that "we could run a lot better with Steve out of operations," he says. Jobs tended to value technological "elegance" over customer needs—a costly luxury at a time of slowing sales."

And you know, in some ways he still does. A belief in technological elegance created the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Customers weren't demanding that technology, mostly they only realized they wanted it after it existed.

A belief in technological elegance created the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Customers weren't demanding that technology, mostly they only realized they wanted it after it existed.

Really? The MP3 market was niche, but growing when the iPod came out. The same for the iPhone market when it came out. And the iPad came out at a time when everyone was talking about tablets (remember Courier predates the iPad announcement).

If anything Jobs understood what customers needed, but often what others thought wasn't possible.

The Courier predated the announcement, but did not predate the rumors. Other than verticals, tablets were a joke. For how the iPhone changed things, just look at the Android phones pre and post iPhone. Apple dragged each of these markets in a different direction.

But people clearly wanted Courier prior to the announcement of the iPad. No one knew what the iPad looked like, yet people were drooling over the Courier. My point isn't that the iPad wasn't a great machine, but rather that the demand was there. Everyone knew that it was time for a tablet -- someone just needed to build a decent one.

The same is true for the iPhone. Everyone knew that modern smartphone OSes were duds, but wanted a smartphone. The big thing I recall was people wanted a decent mobile browsing experience. Apple finally provided it. It wasn't that people didn't know they wanted what Apple would provide... people didn't think it could be done.

IMO the only big thing with the iPhone that defied common belief at the time was a software keyboard. And even to this day, it's not universally loved. But literally everything else in the iPhone could be found on wishlists at the time of launch.

I might question Microsoft's biz decisions, but "But people clearly wanted Courier prior to the announcement of the iPad" was probably not clear to them.

Everything is obvious in hindsight, and given a great chunk of comments prior and analysis sales estimates, not many had faith in the iPhone or iPad (or iPod for that matter).

Re Courier... if MS read Gizmodo or Engadget or the web in general, they would have seen the excitement around the Courier. And it was cut after the iPad was released and selling well. They cut it not because of the concept,but for some other reasons that we may never know.

I would note that sales estimates and wanting the technology are two different things. I long wanted a larger screen on phones and a good web browser. iPhone delivered that. But they also delivered it on ATT with no 3G support. Sales estimates are trying to weigh demand against a various pros/cons and price points, but don't directly speak to if people wanted specific technologies.

Sales are the only way to truly prove if people actually want the technology. Everything else is hand waving. The people doing the estimating on Wall-Street are paid big bucks to forecast sales.

Gizmodo and Engadget appeal to a market segment, and not the one Courier was focused on. They are not accurate predictors of the consumer market as a whole.

"Jobs resignation sent Apple stock up"

Times, they are changing...

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