Apple Falling

苹果坠落

For a few years after Jobs was ousted, Apple was able to coast comfortably with a high profit margin based on its temporary dominance in desktop publishing. Feeling like a genius back in 1987, John Sculley had made a series of proclamations that nowadays sound embarrassing. Jobs wanted Apple “to become a wonderful consumer products company,” Sculley wrote. “This was a lunatic plan. . . . Apple would never be a consumer products company. . . . We couldn’t bend reality to all our dreams of changing the world. . . . High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.”

在乔布斯出局后的几年，苹果公司由于暂时统领桌面排版系统，还可以舒服地享受很髙的利润率。当时自我感觉有如天才的约翰·斯卡利，于1987年发表了一系列今天看起来颇为尷尬的宣言。乔布斯希望苹果“成为一家出色的消费品公司”，斯卡利写道，“这是个愚蠢的计划……苹果永远不会是一家消费品公司……我们不能因为我们改变世界的梦想就扭曲现实……高科技不能作为消费品去设计和销售”。

　　Jobs was appalled, and he became angry and contemptuous as Sculley presided over a steady decline in market share for Apple in the early 1990s. “Sculley destroyed Apple by bringing in corrupt people and corrupt values,” Jobs later lamented. “They cared about

　　 乔布斯格外震惊。20世纪90年代初，苹果在斯卡利的领导下市场份额和收入持续下降，他对斯卡利的愤怒和蔑视也与日俱增。“斯卡利引进下三滥的人和下三滥的价值观，把苹果给毁了。”乔布斯后来悲叹，“他们只在乎如何赚钱——主要为他们自己，同时也为苹果——而不在乎如何制造出色的产品。”乔布斯感觉斯卡利对利润的追逐是以牺性市场份额为代价的。“麦金塔之所以输给微软，是因为斯卡利坚持榨取每一分利润，而不是努力改进产品和降低价格。”making money—for themselves mainly, and also for Apple—rather than making great products.” He felt that Sculley’s drive for profits came at the expense of gai

ning market share. “Macintosh lost to Microsoft because Sculley insisted on milking all the profits he could get rather than improving the product and making it affordable.” As a result, the profits eventually disappeared.

　　It had taken Microsoft a few years to replicate Macintosh’s graphical user interface, but by 1990 it had come out with Windows 3.0, which began the company’s march to dominance in the desktop market. Windows 95, which was released in 1995, became the most successful operating system ever, and Macintosh sales began to collapse. “Microsoft simply ripped off what other people did,” Jobs later said. “Apple deserved it. After I left, it didn’t invent anything new. The Mac hardly improved. It was a sitting duck for Microsoft.”