The Lisa had a very bad start, but by the time it had become the Macintosh XL it was way more competitive. The fact that you needed one if you wanted to develop

The Lisa had a very bad start, but by the time it had become the Macintosh XL it was way more competitive. The fact that you needed one if you wanted to develop for the Macintosh initially made it sure it couldn't be a complete failure. But whenever Jobs is involved, you have to take into account personal motives as well as business and technical ones. He was still angry about having been kicked out of the Lisa project due to his age (the board decided that it was the most important Apple project and needed someone more experienced to run it). When a company reorganization brought the Lisa (now Macintosh XL) under his control, he used old sales numbers to stop the purchase of new parts and then when they ran out "unexpectedly" due to rising sales he simply cancelled the product, which was now possible as native development on the Macintosh had arrived. By the way, I have no idea how the story I just described fits in with a large number of Lisas being destroyed and buried. I think these were older models.