Apple should have used Intel chips, Sculley says

[Nomad559]

He says failure to do so was perhaps his biggest mistake.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/10/08/HNapplechips_1.html

In the late-1980s, when Apple was using Motorola Inc. 68000 series chips and considering its next step, Intel co-founder Andy Grove tried to convince the company to migrate to Intel chips, Sculley told a standing-room-only crowd at the Silicon Valley 4.0 conference, held at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, Calif.

An experienced team from Cupertino, California-based Apple studied the idea but turned it down. Apple concluded that Intel's CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) architecture ultimately would not be able to compete against RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processors, which had a more advanced instruction set, he said. Apple later adopted RISC

[greenwow]

1. How would have using a terrible processor...

help Apple? He doesn't explain that.

[ixion]

2. RISC beats the hell out of CISC...

Just because sleazy MS made the CISC popular doesn't mean it's better. Apple has always had a superior OS with superior hardware... people, under the impression that all computers are the same, went for the cheaper x86 boxes. Too bad for them, really.

[Rooktoven]

3. Correct me if i'm wrong, but

wasn't Sculley a head-up-his ass executive who was clueless about technology and drove Apple into the dirt?

[BigMcLargehuge]

4. that's the one!

intel schmintel

[Don_G]

5. Everyone Has An Opinion

Don't forget that Bill Gate$ was the son of an IBM lawyer and everyone else in the same inital group were engineers and innovators working in a parent's garage when they were in their Teens.

Personally, the next PC I'll ever get will be a G5 Powerbook. Dell and Micro$haft Customer "Support" sucks if, and for no other reason, than the good folks in Bombay or Dehli can't understand what I'm trying to communicate the problems I'm having with my Notebook AFTER I've dropped 4K into Dell on my second purchase.

On Edit: I'm seriously condsidering buying an Apple Notebook and converting my Inspiron 8500 to a Linux Portable Powerhouse.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Uh, yah, right

Sculley the non-computer guy who nearly killed off Apple with his clueless marketing campaigns (advertise mostly in computer magazines so you miss the first-time buyers?????) and confusing product lines, so that Steve Jobs had to rescue it?

I'm hanging on his every word--NOT.

[Awsi Dooger]

7. Sculley's expertise was limited to sugar water

Specifically Pepsi.

The only thing Sculley should mention regarding Apple is how stupid Steve Jobs was, in recruiting him from Pepsico in the first place.

[Don_G]

8. Screw Television

Any origonal or opinions to offer?

[Awsi Dooger]

9. Well, few realize Bill Clinton supposedly considered Sculley for VP in '92

I remember reading that in several Mac books years ago. Sculley was a Clinton supporter, and I think Clinton even asked him to be part of the cabinet but Sculley declined. Sculley's divorces were said to be a factor in Clinton rejecting him for VP. So it's not completely a stretch to envision political history completely changed if a former businessman like Sculley had topped our ticket in 2000.

You're right, I defaulted to the sugar water cliche because no one else had mentioned it, and I'm too busy inputting data in Microsoft (gad) Excel spreadsheets.