Almost since the first Mac, an all-in-one personal computer, appeared in 1984, the critics and competitors were fervently wishing Apple would just go away. It’s fair to say that bad marketing decisions, and a procession of mediocre CEOs that were clueless about advancing the platform, almost made those wishes come true. By the time 1996 arrived, […]

When Michael Dell, in one of the major bone-headed statements of the last century, suggested that Apple should close down and return all the money to their investors, he was only echoing the conventional wisdom of the time. Apple was in trouble, losing sales and hemorrhaging cash, so it couldn’t possibly be saved. History shows […]

In the days when Apple was really down in the dumps, facing near-immediate doom, Michael Dell, CEO of the company he founded, suggested that Apple’s stockholders should get their money back. The company should then be shut down. Of course, that was before Dell ran into its own problems with service and sales. And it […]

From Day One of the arrival of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, many insisted Apple was missing the boat by not licensing its crown jewels, the Mac OS, to other companies. This theory had it that Apple would benefit big time as more and more computers bearing their operating system became available. As some of […]