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Gassée's problem is that he sees everything through an Apple-tinted lens. There's almost no subject that he can't turn back to his comfort zone of talking about

Gassée's problem is that he sees everything through an Apple-tinted lens. There's almost no subject that he can't turn back to his comfort zone of talking about Apple. Here we're promised an alternative account of why the conventional story of HP mismanagement is false, and end up with a lot of handwaving and 'Apple starting' as an inevitable explanation for HP's decline, despite Apple nearly going bankrupt in the intervening period.

specialist 8y ago
Gassée acknowledged the conventional wisdom, but says the problem started even earlier. Seems uncontroversial.
Isamu 8y ago
>he sees everything through an Apple-tinted lens In this case he is bring his experience having worked at HP, knowing and talking with people from there over the years. He talks about Apple a lot because people want to hear about Apple a lot.
tabtab 8y ago
Re: despite Apple nearly going bankrupt in the intervening period. Indeed. Apple got lucky 3 times: the first was that the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was written for Apple II first, out of sheer happenstance. It was a blockbuster that propelled hardware sales. Apple II's were otherwise considered too expensive. Second was a boom in "desktop publishing" which saved the Mac. Macs were far more expensive than CPM & PC's per processing power, and the nice GUI alone wasn't enough to justify the price for most consumers in the early years. However, desktop publishing, a field that didn't really exist when the Mac was built, took advantage of the graphical nature of the Mac and jolted its sales. (If Amiga had better coddled desktop publishing software co's, Commodore may have also survived.) The 3rd was the return of Steve Jobs. Apple would probably have sank without him.
astrodust 8y ago
If Apple had never gotten out of the embarrassment that was the Performa Era with a multitude of largely similar but wildly different priced computers, Apple would have gone the way of HP and divested itself of different business units until nothing of value was left. Instead Apple focused, got its shit together, and did something important. HP could have done the same, knuckled down and fixed the fundamental problems with their company, but instead they decided to throw away all their babies and drink the bathwater. The problem is not that Gassee sees everything through the Apple lens, but that very few companies have been like Apple and maintained focus. Tech companies, ironically, often fail from their wild success: MySpace and Yahoo! being two notable examples. Once they have all this money they start to do lots of stupid shit and ultimately lose their way. Microsoft was on track to do this, but they seem to have sobered up. Facebook, on the other hand, will probably fail if they can't regroup and rethink their purpose. One day some telecom will buy Facebook with pocket change and we'll all go "Yeah, well, saw that coming."
- vxNsr 8y ago
  with a multitude of largely similar but wildly different priced computers As an aside, they seem to be headed back in this direction once again, with what appears to be 5 different-but-essentially-the-same phones coming out on the market this september. And a whole bunch of wildly priced desktops and laptops that don't seem to consider anything but the bottom line.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    That's the trap. If they want to succeed they have to accommodate a wider range of use-cases but not without complicating the product line-up. The problem is that phones are a way bigger deal than computers. If they made but one laptop model it'd be ridiculous. Having one or two phones isn't a big deal. Twenty or, like Samsung in its heyday, two hundred is a problem.
- nineteen999 8y ago
  > Instead Apple focused, got its shit together, and did something important. Don't forget that Apple would never have got there without making a deal with Microsoft for cash in exchange for support for MS Office on Mac for 5 years. Also Microsoft got a bargain, since for $150M they were able to point to a competitor in the face of accusations of being a monopoly. https://www.wired.com/2009/08/dayintech-0806/ https://www.wired.com/2009/08/dayintech-0806/ https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh... Hard to think now that Apple came so close to complete and utter failure that $150M was enough to get them back on track. By launching new Macs they were able to generate enough cash to eventually get them into the iPod, iPhone etc. which turned their fortunes around completely.

specialist 8y ago

Gassée acknowledged the conventional wisdom, but says the problem started even earlier. Seems uncontroversial.

Isamu 8y ago

>he sees everything through an Apple-tinted lens In this case he is bring his experience having worked at HP, knowing and talking with people from there over the years. He talks about Apple a lot because people want to hear about Apple a lot.

tabtab 8y ago

Re: despite Apple nearly going bankrupt in the intervening period. Indeed. Apple got lucky 3 times: the first was that the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was written for Apple II first, out of sheer happenstance. It was a blockbuster that propelled hardware sales. Apple II's were otherwise considered too expensive. Second was a boom in "desktop publishing" which saved the Mac. Macs were far more expensive than CPM & PC's per processing power, and the nice GUI alone wasn't enough to justify the price for most consumers in the early years. However, desktop publishing, a field that didn't really exist when the Mac was built, took advantage of the graphical nature of the Mac and jolted its sales. (If Amiga had better coddled desktop publishing software co's, Commodore may have also survived.) The 3rd was the return of Steve Jobs. Apple would probably have sank without him.

astrodust 8y ago

If Apple had never gotten out of the embarrassment that was the Performa Era with a multitude of largely similar but wildly different priced computers, Apple would have gone the way of HP and divested itself of different business units until nothing of value was left. Instead Apple focused, got its shit together, and did something important. HP could have done the same, knuckled down and fixed the fundamental problems with their company, but instead they decided to throw away all their babies and drink the bathwater. The problem is not that Gassee sees everything through the Apple lens, but that very few companies have been like Apple and maintained focus. Tech companies, ironically, often fail from their wild success: MySpace and Yahoo! being two notable examples. Once they have all this money they start to do lots of stupid shit and ultimately lose their way. Microsoft was on track to do this, but they seem to have sobered up. Facebook, on the other hand, will probably fail if they can't regroup and rethink their purpose. One day some telecom will buy Facebook with pocket change and we'll all go "Yeah, well, saw that coming."

vxNsr 8y ago
with a multitude of largely similar but wildly different priced computers As an aside, they seem to be headed back in this direction once again, with what appears to be 5 different-but-essentially-the-same phones coming out on the market this september. And a whole bunch of wildly priced desktops and laptops that don't seem to consider anything but the bottom line.
- astrodust 8y ago
  That's the trap. If they want to succeed they have to accommodate a wider range of use-cases but not without complicating the product line-up. The problem is that phones are a way bigger deal than computers. If they made but one laptop model it'd be ridiculous. Having one or two phones isn't a big deal. Twenty or, like Samsung in its heyday, two hundred is a problem.
nineteen999 8y ago
> Instead Apple focused, got its shit together, and did something important. Don't forget that Apple would never have got there without making a deal with Microsoft for cash in exchange for support for MS Office on Mac for 5 years. Also Microsoft got a bargain, since for $150M they were able to point to a competitor in the face of accusations of being a monopoly. https://www.wired.com/2009/08/dayintech-0806/ https://www.wired.com/2009/08/dayintech-0806/ https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh... Hard to think now that Apple came so close to complete and utter failure that $150M was enough to get them back on track. By launching new Macs they were able to generate enough cash to eventually get them into the iPod, iPhone etc. which turned their fortunes around completely.