AccueilGroupesDiscussionsPlusTendances
Site de recherche
Ce site utilise des cookies pour fournir nos services, optimiser les performances, pour les analyses, et (si vous n'êtes pas connecté) pour les publicités. En utilisant Librarything, vous reconnaissez avoir lu et compris nos conditions générales d'utilisation et de services. Votre utilisation du site et de ses services vaut acceptation de ces conditions et termes.

Résultats trouvés sur Google Books

Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.

Chargement...

Infinite Loop

par Michael Malone

MembresCritiquesPopularitéÉvaluation moyenneDiscussions
1323205,619 (3.75)Aucun
The inside story of how one of America's most beloved companies--Apple Computer--took off like a high-tech rocket--only to come crashing to Earth twenty years later. No company in modern times has been as successful at capturing the public's imagination as Apple Computer. From its humble beginnings in a suburban garage, Apple sparked the personal computer revolution, and its products and founders--Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak--quickly became part of the American myth. But something happened to Apple as it stumbled toward a premature middle age. For ten years, it lived off its past glory and its extraordinary products. Then, almost overnight, it collapsed in a two-year free fall. How did Apple lose its way? Why did the world still care so deeply about a company that had lost its leadership position? Michael S. Malone, from the unique vantage point of having grown up with the company's founders, and having covered Apple and Silicon Valley for years, sets out to tell the gripping behind-the-scenes story--a story that is even zanier than the business world thought. In essence, Malone claims, with only a couple of incredible inventions (the Apple II and Macintosh), and backed by an arrogance matched only by its corporate ineptitude, Apple managed to create a multibillion-dollar house of cards. And, like a faulty program repeating itself in an infinite loop, Apple could never learn from its mistakes. The miracle was not that Apple went into free fall, but that it held up for so long. Within the pages ofInfinite Loop, we discover a bruising portrait of the megalomaniacal Steve Jobs and an incompetent John Sculley, as well as the kind of political backstabbings, stupid mistakes, and overweening egos more typical of a soap opera than a corporate history.Infinite Loopis almost as wild and unpredictable, as exhilarating and gut-wrenching, as the story of Apple itself.… (plus d'informations)
Aucun
Chargement...

Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre

Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre.

3 sur 3
The real hero of the PC revolution is Stephen Wozniak. Jobs just came along for the ride — sort of. Wozniak was a brilliant engineer who was able to design and build radically new concepts almost on the spur of the moment. His memory of code could be prodigious, and numerous stories are recounted in this book of Wozniak designing something new — and better — at seemingly the last minute to save Apple’s bacon. His most telling breakthrough was to put multiple functions on a single processor. Another breakthrough was completely redesigning the floppy disk controller that recognized the superfluity of the contemporary design and produced something far more reliable and efficient. This changed the game. No longer would large computer companies spend time trying to dumb down the computer for personal use, but rather to increase the power of the desktop PC.

The miniframe companies soon lost the battle they had won over the mainframes. In just two years, in a feat of extraordinary creative bursts, Woz had “designed one of the world’s first personal computers, then built the first practical home computer complete with color display; he had also written the programming language for those computers, and now had brought mass memory to the average computer user. Hardware, software, display, and storage: Wozniak had pulled off an engineering hat trick that has not been matched.”

Many could have predicted success for the shy “Woz.” At thirteen, on his own, he designed a computer that was as powerful as any in the world just a few years before. What was even more incredible was that his design was elegant. It used less board space and fewer parts. Elegance was to be characteristic of many of his future designs. Typically engineers had created a more complex solution as the problem became more complex. Woz possessed a supernatural talent to simplify (Bill Gates should hire this guy).

Ironically, Woz was forced to build the first Apple around the Motorola 6502 because he didn’t have the money to buy the Intel 8080, a far superior chip. The reason he didn’t have the money was because Steven Jobs wouldn’t pay him back some $3,000 Jobs owed Woz. If the Apple had been designed by Woz around the 8080, it might very well have blown all the competition away. Jobs’ role in all this was an entrepreneur, convincing those with money of the value of their product, building coalitions, and persuading the skeptical.

It wasn’t long before Apple had become fat and arrogant, going out of its way to kill off thirdparty vendors. They even insisted on building their own keyboards. Soon Apples became more expensive than anyone else’s brand. Another error was the way they abandoned Apple III owners. After its initial flop, it was redesigned and was actually a very good machine, but the decision was made to abandon it in favor of the Mac, leaving all those who owned the Apple III high and dry. Many of these people would never again trust the company that claimed to be different. In the meantime, design genius Wozniak had, thanks to the hugely successful IPO, discovered the wonderful world of material goods and was abandoning computer design for fast cars and airplanes.

The myth that Steve Jobs created the ideas for the Mac after a visit to Xerox’s famous research facility is punctured. The LISA and Mac that used the mouse and bitmapped screens were already on the Apple drawing boards before his visit. In fact, the Mac was the brainchild of John Raskins, who had been inspired by his visit to Xerox several years earlier. Jobs had even tried to sabotage the Mac concept within the company until he realized how successful it had become. Jobs’s decision to hire John Scully was a huge mistake. Scully had made his name marketing Pepsi, but the industry selling sugared water was so venerable that a huge market shift might represent a mere point in market share. Scully failed to recognize that making a mistake in the bitterly competitive computer world would mean the death of the company.

Atari, three years before, had been at the pinnacle of success; now Silicon Valley was littered with its parts. Even though he understood some of the IBM culture, Scully failed to recognize that corporate purchasers were looking for stability, not a company that celebrated its counterculture. “No one ever lost his job by buying IBM,” was the favorite saying of purchasing agents, and IBM was just about to announce the IBM XT. After being turned down by many others Jobs personally lured Scully. It was a strange relationship: Jobs looking for a mentor, and Scully, the frustrated art major, succumbing to the father-image Jobs sought. “He [Scully:] confessed that if he hadn’t been a businessman he probably would have become an artist. Jobs, in a remarkable coincidence, said that if he hadn’t become a technologist, he would have been a poet in Paris. The birds twittered in the trees.”

Scully was the ultimate marketing person, and decisions he made during the first six months spelled doom for the company in its race to dominate the market. Neither he nor Jobs understood that the business world would decide the fate of the personal computer. It was not yet an appliance like the telephone, where styling might make the difference between a purchase or not. Ironically, Jobs’ return to Apple has resulted in the cute little Apples now selling reasonably well. Scully’s pay compensation was so huge that, in typical fashion, it pissed off the insiders who had been working hundreds of hours on salary. He and Jobs had failed to recognize the dispiriting impact of a CEO who accrues bonuses and perks to him/herself at the perceived expense of the workers in the company.

The company never could decide what it wanted to become: supplier to the business world or to the consumer market, with its vastly differing needs for open architecture and price sensitivity. The LISA, Apple III, and Mac were each developed by different teams without any cross-platform compatibility. They never figured out who their customers were until it was already too late. Eventually, the company and the employees lost sight of where they were headed and this “drains energy. It tires out people who are working hard.”

Of course, this book was written before the iPod changed everything. ( )
  ecw0647 | Sep 30, 2013 |
Ever seen the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley"? This book is essentially it, except with one major advantage: you understand the events of this monumental era from different perspectives.

There are things that can be had from watching a movie (LOTR comes to mind), and there are moments when reading a book helps you understand the drama and triumphs of certain events. Infinite Loop by Michael S. Malone is exactly that kind of book.

Full of anecdotes and written in a chronological manner yet referencing past events relevant to the subject matter being discussed for that chapter, this book is a wonderful addition to the library of any computer enthusiast. It tells the history of one of the most important and influential computer compaines in the world and how it was formed and what effect these events might still have to this very day.

Highly recommended. ( )
  joel1217 | Nov 12, 2006 |
Apple (Subject)
  LOM-Lausanne | May 1, 2020 |
3 sur 3
aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Vous devez vous identifier pour modifier le Partage des connaissances.
Pour plus d'aide, voir la page Aide sur le Partage des connaissances [en anglais].
Titre canonique
Titre original
Titres alternatifs
Date de première publication
Personnes ou personnages
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais. Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Lieux importants
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais. Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Évènements importants
Films connexes
Épigraphe
Dédicace
Premiers mots
Citations
Derniers mots
Notice de désambigüisation
Directeur de publication
Courtes éloges de critiques
Langue d'origine
DDC/MDS canonique
LCC canonique
The inside story of how one of America's most beloved companies--Apple Computer--took off like a high-tech rocket--only to come crashing to Earth twenty years later. No company in modern times has been as successful at capturing the public's imagination as Apple Computer. From its humble beginnings in a suburban garage, Apple sparked the personal computer revolution, and its products and founders--Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak--quickly became part of the American myth. But something happened to Apple as it stumbled toward a premature middle age. For ten years, it lived off its past glory and its extraordinary products. Then, almost overnight, it collapsed in a two-year free fall. How did Apple lose its way? Why did the world still care so deeply about a company that had lost its leadership position? Michael S. Malone, from the unique vantage point of having grown up with the company's founders, and having covered Apple and Silicon Valley for years, sets out to tell the gripping behind-the-scenes story--a story that is even zanier than the business world thought. In essence, Malone claims, with only a couple of incredible inventions (the Apple II and Macintosh), and backed by an arrogance matched only by its corporate ineptitude, Apple managed to create a multibillion-dollar house of cards. And, like a faulty program repeating itself in an infinite loop, Apple could never learn from its mistakes. The miracle was not that Apple went into free fall, but that it held up for so long. Within the pages ofInfinite Loop, we discover a bruising portrait of the megalomaniacal Steve Jobs and an incompetent John Sculley, as well as the kind of political backstabbings, stupid mistakes, and overweening egos more typical of a soap opera than a corporate history.Infinite Loopis almost as wild and unpredictable, as exhilarating and gut-wrenching, as the story of Apple itself.

Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque

Description du livre
Résumé sous forme de haïku

Discussion en cours

Aucun

Couvertures populaires

Vos raccourcis

Évaluation

Moyenne: (3.75)
0.5
1
1.5
2 2
2.5
3 6
3.5
4 7
4.5
5 5

Est-ce vous ?

Devenez un(e) auteur LibraryThing.

 

À propos | Contact | LibraryThing.com | Respect de la vie privée et règles d'utilisation | Aide/FAQ | Blog | Boutique | APIs | TinyCat | Bibliothèques historiques | Critiques en avant-première | Partage des connaissances | 203,192,582 livres! | Barre supérieure: Toujours visible