In a weblog sponsored by the Apple Computer History website, a former Apple marketing director admits that he, assisted by everyone who worked at Apple with him, "killed" the company. He cites a culture of "individual brilliance and group stupidity."
But I think we should not lose sight of the fact that Apple Computer as a whole was a massive failure. Our fundamental goal, if you remember, was to transform the world by setting people free from bad computer design and stifling corporate dictates. "The Computer for the Rest of Us," we promised.What went wrong?Yet no one takes responsibility for what happened. In fact, most of the people who were at Apple claim passionately that the company's collapse wasn't their fault. Some have written whole books to prove that they had no blame for what happened.
Does this mean that Apple is dead and gone?? Far from it!!Those of us who were managers often failed to insist that our teams work together. Instead of integrating them to cooperate toward a goal, we settled into walled fortresses, protecting our projects and budgets from attack by others. Ideas and initiatives from the outside were rejected as vigorously as your body's immune system rejects a germ.
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,60407,00.htmlApple changed the world, and not in a little way," Armstrong writes. "In this sense, Apple hasn't failed."