With no personal attachment to the brand, Jobs saw no reason to expend staff on supporting a product that sold only 150,000 to 300,000 units during its 4.5 years on shelves. The plot to make the Newton its own startup was hatched under Amelio, and new CEO Jobs didn’t agree with it. Some 130 Apple employees made the transition to the new company. When everyone declined, Apple made the decision to spin off Newton as its own business. Former Apple CEO Gil Amelio tried to sell off the technology cheaply to everyone from Samsung to Sony during his tenure with the company. While the Newton seemed poised to cease losing money for Apple, nobody viewed the PDA as a long-term prospect. That picture wasn’t exactly accurate, unfortunately. Coming during the pre-2000 tech bubble, a big Newton IPO sounded like a massive positive - especially separated from the still-unprofitable Apple. Many hoped the spinoff would attract funding and go public within a couple years. ![]() The remit of this new company was to sell the MessagePad 2000 PDA, as well as develop new technologies. was “completely autonomous from Apple.” With its own separate board of directors and corporate logo, all it needed to take the final step was to find a CEO and move to new offices in Santa Clara, California. Sandy Benett, former vice president of the Newton Systems Group, would lead it. In its wake, Apple laid out plans to make the Newton division its own company. March 1997’s MessagePad 2000 was the best Newton yet, and became a commercial and critical success. Devices like the Newton MessagePad 120 ran on the superior NewtonOS 2.0, an operating system upgrade that fixed many handwriting-recognition problems that plagued earlier models. Unfortunately, early versions of the Newton failed to deliver the kind of results Apple hoped for - tarnishing the company’s brand in the process.īy the mid-1990s, though, Cupertino fixed many of the product line’s early teething problems. Keep in mind that at this time, even regular laptops remained relatively uncommon. A device ahead of its time, the Newton offered handwriting recognition and AI technology in a mobile form factor. ![]() Apple launched the Newton personal digital assistant in 1993, during Jobs’ years outside the company after he lost a boardroom battle with Apple CEO John Sculley.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |