Chapter 19 Section 3 From Lisa to Macintosh

When Sculley came to Apple, Apple was divided into four main teams by product: Apple II team, Apple III team, Lisa team and Macintosh team. Except for the Apple II, which was aimed at the home and education markets and was Apple's main source of profit at the time, the other three products were all aimed at the business market.As I said before, the Apple III was a complete failure in the market.So, what about the Lisa and the Macintosh?What kind of product structure did Sculley face when he came to Apple?It all started when Jobs visited Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1979. In the summer of 1979, Markkula and Jobs began to raise external investment for the fast-growing Apple, which was the first round of external financing before Apple went public.Through the relationship between Markkula and Valentine, a total of 16 well-known American venture capital firms bought Apple shares at $10.50 per share.On this list, there is one shareholder that is particularly special, and it is the well-known Xerox Corporation.

In order to discuss investment, Jobs made a special trip to Xerox's venture capital department XDC to visit.For venture capital, Xerox has a different idea from other venture capital firms.Xerox hopes that XDC can not only help startups grow and obtain investment returns, but also become a "window" for Xerox to help the parent company better understand the industrial environment, market demand, and technology applications.Moreover, Xerox pays more attention to this "window" role. On the day Jobs came to Xerox, a middle-aged Chinese man named Li Zongnan had just joined Xerox XDC, and that was Li Zongnan's first day to work at Xerox.Li Zongnan is the earliest Chinese in Silicon Valley to enter the venture capital industry, and he can be called the "Godfather of Venture Capital" among the Chinese.When the author of this book interviewed Li Zongnan, he happily recalled the scene of meeting Jobs that day.

That day, Jobs was wearing a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, his hair was neatly combed and shiny, and he was handsome from head to toe. Talking about Apple's financing plan, Li Zongnan asked Jobs: "What do you want to do?" Jobs replied without thinking, "I want to change the world." The Xerox investment managers at the meeting were very surprised. They asked Jobs suspiciously: "So, how do you plan to change the world?" Jobs said: "Do you know that when I was in India and Asia, I saw so many poor people still working hard with primitive tools from centuries ago, I told myself that people need efficient tools." Jobs said while Turning to Li Zongnan, "You are from Asia, you must understand how I felt at the time. Tool innovation is the most important means of changing people's lives. In the United States, everyone needs a computer, whether it is in the home or the office. But the previous computer was either too big or too big. Expensive, or too difficult to use. Apple can help people realize this dream, so that everyone can have a good computer."

Li Zongnan was deeply impressed by Jobs' words.After Jobs and his party left, Li Zongnan strongly suggested that Xerox invest in Apple.In the end, Xerox bought 100,000 shares of Apple for a total of about $1 million.This financing gave Xerox an opportunity to invest in Apple, and it also gave Xerox the opportunity to use Apple as a "window" to observe the development of the personal computer industry.In exchange, Xerox allowed Apple technicians to visit the most mysterious and fantastical place in Xerox-Palo Alto Research Center. Palo Alto Research Center is nothing short of a tech mecca.The level of researchers in the center even exceeds that of AT&T's famous Bell Labs.The number of patents owned by the research center is innumerable.Many new technologies that changed the world, such as laser printers, Ethernet, object-oriented programming languages, etc., were born here.But it is interesting to say that Xerox, which has a top research center, does not know how to turn these top patented technologies into products that can be sold.

At the end of 1979, Jobs walked into the Palo Alto Research Center with Apple's technical staff.In the research center, Jobs looked around like a child, looking at all kinds of novel technologies, ecstatic. What attracted Jobs the most was a personal computer called the Alto.Compared to the Apple II, this computer was a whole new dream. The Alto used a graphical user interface (GUI) technology invented by Xerox that was largely unknown to the outside world.Windows, menus and buttons are displayed on the computer screen. When users operate the computer, in addition to the keyboard, they also need to use a mouse-like gadget with a long tail——Larry Tess, Xerox engineer in charge of the demonstration Le (Larry Tesler) told Jobs that this gadget is called a "mouse."

Jobs was stunned all of a sudden, this computer is completely alien technology!Computers can do this!Moreover, this computer actually came out in 1973, three years earlier than the Apple I.Jobs and Woz's continuous innovation in man-machine interface design, compared with this little guy raised in a boudoir whom no one knew, is like a master who has ruled the roost for many years in the martial arts and suddenly meets a sweeping monk in Shaolin Temple. Like being subdued. Tesler recalled: "Jobs was very excited at the time. When he saw me operating on the screen, he only watched it for about a minute, and he jumped around the room and shouted: 'Why don't you do something with such a cool technology? What? It's the best stuff, it's a revolution!'”

It's no wonder that such a good technology and idea are hidden in the laboratory for life, and Xerox doesn't know how to turn it into a product that can be sold! On the Alto computer, Jobs saw not only the amazing human-computer interaction technology, but also a design concept that always pursues user-friendliness.Since then, this idea has been deeply imprinted in the depths of Jobs' mind.Back at Apple, Jobs determined that the next generation of personal computers must be based on a graphical user interface, and that the character-based interface represented by the Apple II would eventually become obsolete.

At that time, in addition to the Apple III, Apple had already started another Lisa computer project for high-end business users. Lisa was originally Jobs' idea.Jobs even named the computer after his illegitimate daughter, Lisa, whom he denied at the time. On the one hand, Jobs tried his best to promote the use of the graphical user interface technology invented by Xerox in the Lisa computer; on the other hand, Jobs also wanted to control the entire Lisa department in his own hands, and personally directed the engineers to build a shocking computer.But Markkula and Scott felt that Jobs was not yet suitable for managing a large development team.They carefully rein in Jobs' power so that he doesn't meddle too much in Lisa's affairs. The Lisa project was initially run by Ken Rothmuller and was soon handed over to John Koch.

Jobs, who was unwilling to be reconciled, gave instructions on the Lisa project from time to time, and often bypassed Keqi and directly made requests to engineers.It didn't take long for John Koch, who couldn't bear it, to tell Jobs clearly that he didn't want Jobs to interfere with Lisa anymore.Markkula and Scott steadfastly sided with Koch, and together they "kicked out" Jobs from the Lisa team. Although the Lisa, which drove Jobs away, used a graphical user interface, it tragically became the second failed product after the Apple III. On January 19, 1983, Lisa was officially released, which is the world's first commercial product using graphical user interface technology.But Lisa is too expensive, selling for around $10,000!Such a price was not competitive with the IBM PC at that time.Moreover, the software available on Lisa is very limited, only a few poor office software. The Lisa was also incompatible with the Apple II and later the Macintosh.What's more terrible is that Lisa positions itself as a pure office computer. Apart from providing a few office software developed by itself, Lisa completely ignores the requirements of third-party developers.In the end, Lisa was a complete failure in the market. In February 1984, the Lisa team, whose performance continued to be sluggish, was partially laid off and merged into the Macintosh team. In September 1989, Apple destroyed the last backlog of approximately 2,700 Lisa computers in inventory, marking the final end of the Lisa project.

Jobs, who was kicked out of the Lisa team, was full of resentment. He wanted to find a project as soon as possible to prove his leadership ability.In a few days, Jobs, who was wandering around, discovered that computer scientist Jeff Raskin (Jeff Raskin) was secretly developing a new computer.It was a computer with a GUI similar to the Lisa, but much cheaper and priced enough to impress the average person.Ruskin found several engineers and designed a prototype computer before Christmas 1979.Ruskin named the computer Macintosh, or Mac for short, after the name of an apple he liked to eat. The popular theory is that Ruskin misspelled the word at the time, and Apple's name should have been McIntosh, but it was misspelled as Macintosh.But Ruskin himself said that he spelled his name that way on purpose so as not to duplicate the name of McIntosh Laboratories, a company that made audio equipment at the time.Even so, when Apple registered the Macintosh trademark in 1982, it still caused some trouble because it sounded like the name of the audio equipment company, and it was not approved until 1983.

Ruskin's Macintosh was a small project. In early 1981, Jobs easily snatched the project from Ruskin and became general manager of the Macintosh team himself.Jobs quickly pulled in other teams, including the Apple II team, to build an unprecedentedly strong team. At the beginning, Raskin also cooperated with Jobs like walking on eggshells, but he did not approve of Jobs' behavior of stealing the Macintosh project.There was a constant battle between the two for control of the Macintosh project.At one point, Jobs went out of his way to sabotage an internal lecture Ruskin had prepared, telling attendees that the lecture had been cancelled.Ruskin went to Scott to sue Jobs, listing more than a dozen reasons why Jobs was not suitable for managing the Macintosh department.Markkula attempted to mediate, but was unsuccessful.Ultimately, a disappointed Ruskin left Apple in 1982. In order to demonstrate their management skills, Jobs and Koch bet $5,000 that the Macintosh would be released earlier than the Lisa.Unfortunately, Jobs lost the bet. The progress of the Macintosh was delayed again and again, and the final release time was more than a year later than originally planned, and it was not officially unveiled until January 1984. There is no doubt that the Macintosh is an outstanding computer.Good looks, low prices, a graphical user interface for the first time on an affordable computer, and a strong advertising campaign drove Apple's loyal users into a frenzy.Despite the serious threat of IBM PC, Macintosh still achieved good sales performance in the initial stage of listing. In addition to the success of the product and initial sales, the Macintosh has another meaning for Apple. The development, release and sales of the Macintosh are almost the whole process of Sculley and Jobs from close cooperation to disagreement and breakup.Jobs' monopolistic and willful management style in the Macintosh team laid the groundwork for him to lose the trust of many employees, and it became the key to the conflict of management concepts between him and Sculley. More importantly, when Macintosh sales were smooth sailing, the cooperation between Sculley and Jobs was close; once Macintosh sales went downhill, the various contradictions between the CEO and the founder were highlighted and magnified.It is no exaggeration to say that the Macintosh was the catalyst for the break between Sculley and Jobs, and it was also the witness of Jobs being squeezed out and expelled.