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Yes, Even Apple Screws Up Sometimes
You might think everything Steve Jobs touches turns to gold. But even mighty Apple makes mistakes -- and one of its biggest provides some valuable lessons for entrepreneurs.
Posted 3/ 30 11 at 7:30 PM | Business Trends, Technology, Leadership, International Business, Inventions & Innovations
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When you are in business, mistakes will happen. Given that, one of your jobs is to make sure that you don't get burned by a really bad one, that you limit your risk and the downside potential in your various ventures. After that, you can only pray that what mistakes you do make are not crippling.But mistakes do happen, even to the best of companies. Coca-Cola bet big on New Coke and we all know how that turned out. Ford famously flubbed the Edsel. But even so, it is hard to imagine that Apple has ever had anything but the golden touch. Today, between the iPad, iPod, and iPhone, you might forget that Apple was once just another computer maker (albeit one that has always had some cachet) but indeed it was. And it was when the company first swung for the fences that it struck out.
Apple was three years old back in 1979, and had shot out of the gate with the Apple II, one of the first computers built for the home. But like all computers at the time, even the Apple II was cumbersome -- you used it by inputting arcane computer code. But that was to change after Steve Jobs visited the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC.
At PARC, Jobs was amazed by a prototype computer called the Alto. On the Alto, instead of typing boring code into a dull black screen, users manipulated a "mouse" that allowed users to point and click on things called "icons." Incredible. Soon Apple jumped head first into developing its own version of this revolutionary product, a computer it dubbed Lisa. The Lisa was to have, for its time, a large 12-inch screen, two floppy drives, plenty of memory and most amazingly, a mouse and icons.
Lisa was to become the first commercially available computer to use this new sort of interface and that is what made it an incredibly unique piece of technology. There was also a word processor and spreadsheet program, a "wastebasket," as well as pull-down menus. Icons could be moved by pointing and "dragging."
Lisa was the first modern computer.
One would think that it would be a winner. One would be wrong. All these bells and whistles came at a price. In 1983, the year of its debut, a Lisa cost a staggering $9,995. The computer also weighed 48 lbs. There were a couple of major obstacles to overcome.
The reason you probably have never heard of this amazing computer is that the Lisa was the opposite of a hit. It was a total flop -- too big, too heavy, too slow, too expensive. Compare the sales of the iPad (over 5 million sold) to the Lisa (about 10,000 sold) and you get the idea.
So Steve Jobs soon began a new secret project: A smaller, far less expensive version of the Lisa. That computer would not be a flop. It debuted in 1984 and you know its name. It was why 1984 wasn't going to be like 1984: That computer was the Macintosh.
And the Lisa? In 1989, the last few remaining ones were buried in a landfill.
The Lisa was one of the very few times that Apple bet big but bet wrong. The moral of the story for entrepreneurs is that even the best of products and plans can be bad if they don't serve the market for which they are intended. Some $10,000 for a home computer? That's a big mistake by any standards. Fortunately, it was not a fatal one.
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Comments (Page 1 of 4)
A nice and tidy alternate history but has very little in common with actual events. The truth is that Macintosh was on a parallel development track with Lisa and was released one year later. It's clear that Mac wasn't a "response" to Lisa's failure in the market because there simply wasn't enough time between the two launches for that to be true. And while Lisa was a commercial failure, it was (mostly) a technical success that, years later, was relaunced and rechristened as a Mac.
If you want to talk real failure, though, take a look at the history of the Apple ///.
Rick is correct. This revised history doesn't square with any of the published history about Apple nor any of the stories I've been told directly by friends who are early Apple employees. Poorly researched.
It just must be nice to screw up and still have the money and backing of major companies to help you back on your feet again. Us consumers don't always have that. Especially if we unknowingly buy the screwed up product, then what? I know if you search online for: con-economics key to free articles
you can find some helpful suggestions for just such an occasion. As well as smart spending tips and lots of awesome cou-pons and fre-ebies!
The funny thing is that the "Genius" Steve Jobs didn't learn any lessons from the Lisa. He went on to form his own company Next and proceeded to produce another $10k computer that he actually though that university students would buy. It had some cutting edge tech like a Unix based OS and a new removable media drive called the Twiggy. While the OS worked well the drives were tempermental. Also, nearly noone bought the overpriced Next Cube.
I worked for an Apple Dealer at the time. The Lisa and the MAC were engineered by competing teams at Apple, not consecutively. The Lisa, among other things, had a terribly unstable operating system. Apple was so concerned about parking the heads of the hard drive before powering down (in the primitive days) that the power switch was designed to turn control, once the unit was on, over to the operating system in order to include a parking utility as part of the power-off process. Unfortunately, it would frequently lock up, and the only way to get it to turn off was to pull the plug from the wall!
After a year or so, the original Macintosh (with 128K RAM) was updated to the "Fat MAC" which had a whopping 512K RAM. I joked one day that the next thing Apple would introduce would be a downgrade kit to convert a Lisa into a Macintosh, and they'd call it the "Obese MAC". Darned if that isn't exactly what they did a week or so later!
Rick, reported your ad to AOL. I do it to every post I see used for free advertising. Hopefully AOL will sue you and the others for using thier web site for free advertising!!
@Pks29733steel You're not commenting from work, are you?
I agree with Rick. Lisa was not a fully commercialized product intoduced like the MAC or any other subsequent Apple product. It clearly was an implementation or proof of concept for a "friendly" computer. To imply that the general public was going to rush out to purchase it for home use is incorrect. -T
Because the serial number on the iPad's exterior is just a backup in case your iPad won't power up at all.
Look in Setting -> General -> About. The serial number is below the model number and above the WiFi hardware address.
HERE IS ONE FOR YOU STEVE, SINCE YOU MADE THE GREAT I-PAD WHICH I HAVE (2) WHY IN THE HELL DIDN'T YOU MAKE THE SERIAL NUMBER LARGER THAN 1\16 OF AN INCH, SO WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR WIZARDS ON THE PHONE TO SEE WHY IT IS NOT WORKING YOU DON'T HAVE TO FIND A MICROSCOPE. YOU HAVE THE ENTIRE BACK AND MAKE THIS MICROSCOPIC.
Because a big serial number sticker would be ugly, and Apple is all about aesthetics.
I used an Apple Lisa, and I was a great fan. Then again, I didn't have to pay for it or carry it. The exposure to Lisa's functionality changed the way I worked forever.
Hey Brainiac;
Apple's demand of software compliance has completly avoided the crap and bloatware that appears on EVERY Windows based machine out there. Or do you REALLY believe that Microsoft vendors have the best software?
Apple has made a LOT of mistakes. In the early 80's, they were often sold in retail computer stores that sold PC's as well. Apple got on their high-horse and demanded the retailers dump PC's and sell only their product. Well, since PC's were the bulk of the sales and had better margins and more software available for them, they dumped Apple instead. Bad move, Arrogant Apple. Apple's insistence on proprietary software has always been it's weakness. They've taken big nose dives before and they'll do it again, as long as they let the arrogance of Jobs overrule good business decisions. He hits a home run occasionally, and lately he's been on a streak, but as we've seen, he's prone to long, brutal slumps.
Susan:
You are way off, apple computers are in fact the most powerful and everything works seamlessly. The real power that Apple provides is that they control both the operating system and the hardware.
Don
Actually your wrong. Look at how much a Imac is today, the cheapest is at least $1200. And guess what hardware it uses? Intel, the same a windows computer uses. All your doing when you buy apple computer is paying for the software. at least before they had their own custom hardware. My computer is fast than the Mac pro for $2500 and guess how much i paid $1000. Most people buy a mac because they look nice and think they're bette rthan people. All you did was ovepay for computer worth $600 if anything
Apple computer users are much the same. Their machines cost far, far more and have far, far less power, resources, memory etc. for the cost. It's just those who are (1) computer illiterate who don't know how to actually operate on a real computer and/or (2) those who think it's chic who buy Apple computers.
As for the Newton, it was so far ahead of it's time in concept people did not understand how to use it. I have been using a Newton for 20 years and yes it is very outdated by today's products. One has to understand that John Scully had the idea for PDA/Computer(before Palm) and brought it to market after overseeing a coup to throw Steve Jobs out of his own company. He pumped large anounts of R&D into the Newton and never recouped his investment. Only sold around 250,000 over ten years(vs 15,000,000 I Pad 1's in a little over one year). Another exec took control of Apple after Scully left and all but bankrupted the firm. The Board brought Steve back. When he returned he found this Newton Division had all the brain children in it. Needless to say he was not pleased to see Newton created by the man that threw him out of his own company was loosing big money. He put the Newton Division on the block but shortly realized that Division had most of the brain power within the company. So he took the Division off the block and dissolved it into Apple and put the brain children on two new projects: I Book and Macintosh -- both winners when they came to market.
Newton was a market failure but only because it was so far ahead of its time that people did not know how to use it or see the potential of a device that could deliver you mail in the palm of your hand in the middle of a desert or the middle of the ocean.
About the Newton. The version that Scully saw and loved had a much better processor, had better memory, more expansion etc. Apple's board of Directors decided that it would be way too expensive, and had the dev team create the stripped down version that shipped. Of course it was slow and had issues with handwriting recognition. Had they shipped one with the faster processor and larger RAM we would probably be talking about how wonder the Newton is, and how iPad's handwriting recognition owes a huge debt to the Newton. Of course, Apple is afraid to include Handwring recog, because it would cause people to compare it to Newton (and prob require a stylus).
Apple, makes decent hardware. Where they really shine is their Software and the integration of it's various pieces. Even 3rd Party software gains elegance when properly ported to MacOS. Software is what makes a Mac, hardware is secondary.
As far as Apple mistakes are concerned it doesn't get any worse than the Newton....