Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, & Business Blunders

by Jim Carlton

Book Overview

Apple Computer was once a shining example of the American success story. Having launched the personal computer revolution in 1977 with the first all-purpose desktop PC, Apple became the darling of the national business press and Wall Street. Yet by 1995, the company's change-the-world idealism had all but disappeared in a bitter internal struggle between warring camps. Raging internal mistakes, petty infighting, and gross mismanagement became Apple's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0887309658
• ISBN13: 9780887309656
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 465 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Missed Opportunities

Carlton relates time after time after time (after time) how Apple rose to great heights of genius and creativity, and then threw opportunity away with both hands and ran the other direction. The title is descriptive of the downs (but the book also covers the ups) of this amazing company. One of the few critical and unbiased (mostly) looks at Apple. All Macintosh fans and Steve Jobsians should read this book to get the other side. I was actually going to interview with Apple until I read this story.

A 'mostly' well-read history of the management of Apple

This book focuses on the business side of Apple Computer, from the departure and return of Steve Jobs. Little is mentioned of the history before John Sculley took over as the 'sole' CEO of the company. The book starts off with a bang, but ultimately it gets tougher and tougher to digest the information; not because of the writer's ability, but because of the repeated failures of the company to recognize success. You are constantly dumbfounded by the repeated mistakes that are made over and over, which ultimately sealed Apple's fate and made Microsoft billions! I found the chapters on Spindler and Amelio to be particularly difficult to follow.I must admit that before reading this book I had a low opinion of Bill Gates, but the book has shed new light for me on the whole history of the GUI wars, and my opinion has certainly changed; Gates had no choice, but to create the Windows platform, since Apple was destroying itself internally and not advancing the Macintosh platform successfully.I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to understand why Apple did not succeed beyond it's wildest dreams.

What you never knew about Apple.

Jim Carlton writes masterfully the story of Apple Computer. In so doing he provides a comprehensive picture of the computer industry as a whole. Even the novice will be quickly absorbed by this intriguing account of a once innovative company, trashed by greed, arrogance and huge egos from within. Microsoft chose "evolution over revolution." The Apple passion was to "change the world." Carlton describes in unbiased detail how after years of mismanagement, the world would change around Apple.This book is recommended reading for Mac evangelists.

Unbiased Account of one of the Biggest Business Tragedies

I found Carlton's book to be well-written, stimulating and unbiased. It seems that other reviewers feel that Carlton was flat wrong in his prediction that Apple will ultimately not succeed (he devotes only a few pages at the end to this). To these individuals, I suggest that you reread the book. Carlton did not say that Apple has always been a complete failure. His book was about how the company, which was YEARS ahead of others in terms of technology and design, lost its market share. His prediction is simply that Apple will most likely not thrive in the LONG-term.To those who thought that Carlton's book was overly negative: What else could you call what happened to Apple? A success story? Of course not. Apple DID create an unbelievable company with brilliant design, technology and marketing. But the tragedy is that it chose to ride on its past successes without devising a strategic plan to maintain its lead in the ever-changing technology industry. I suggest that anyone interested in learning how to manage a company over the long-haul read this book.

This book gave me the answers I was looking for...and more.

Apple Computer, in its heyday, was one of the most respected growth companies of this century. As a devoted Mac user, it's always been hard for me to comprehend how Apple managed to take one of the most innovative products of our time, the user-friendly personal computer, and fail to compete effectively long-term in the mass market. This book gave me the answers I was looking for...and more. Not a dry corporate history book, Jim Carlton has gone to the heart of what went wrong in Apple by focusing on the personalities that shaped this company...and later led it to the brink of ruin. The leaders of Apple could have come out of a Shakespearean play. As Shakespeare knew, hubris, or excessive pride, is the undoing of man. In the swollen egos of Apple's leaders, we see evidence of hubris with a capital "H". Although we may fool ourselves into thinking that technological prowess and All-American competitiveness has lifted us above the men of Shakespeare's day, Jim Carlton's Apple brings us back to earth and reminds us that, above all else, it's the human element that makes or breaks a company.