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."
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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."