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Dissent Among the Stars (4/7/98)
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While Steve Jobs continues his one-man power trip and holy crusade to restore Apple to its former glory, his Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak quietly remarks to the press that Apple got taken when Gil Amelio agreed to pay Jobs over $400 million for NeXT in an attempt to buy a basis for its future operating system. Jobs and the Woz are still friends, but that's not stopping Woz from publicly stating that Jobs may well have taken financial advantage of Apple in the NeXT deal. Details are in a Cox News Service report.
The article also flashes back to a soap opera moment that allegedly occurred in Apple's prehistory, but has since achieved legendary status: Wozniak confirms the veracity of the story in which Jobs cheated him out of some money in a deal with Atari by claiming that the price of the deal had been dropped, and then hoarding the extra cut for himself. (Bad Steve! No vegan doughnut!) Woz, however, denies that the incident ended the friendship between the Apple cofounders, as reported in Gil Amelio's recent tell-all, On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple.
The $430 million figure seemed large to many of us at the time, given the rumors that Apple was considering buying Be for maybe $200 million, tops. And while Apple execs justified the higher price for NeXT based on such factors as longer experience, a more mature operating system, and other non-OS technologies such as WebObjects, the rest of us know what the extra cash really bought Apple: Steve Jobs, and all Reality Distortion technologies included within. In AtAT's book, it's still a good investment; after all, that one deal engendered more entertainment material than any other possible. As the article states, "maybe the real solution to Apple's troubles is for the company to sell its story to network television as the plot line for a daytime soap opera." Sorry, guys, get in line-- we were here first.
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SceneLink (606)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 4/7/98 episode: April 7, 1998: Some people are already dressing in black for the AMP's funeral, despite the fact that it hasn't even seen the light of day yet. Meanwhile, the Woz disses Jobs for taking advantage of Apple with the $430 million NeXT sale, and ladders continue to block access to Mac hardware and software in CompUSA stores across the country...
Other scenes from that episode: 605: Endangered Species (4/7/98) The confusing media hoopla surrounding Apple's top-secret "Columbus" project continues in a diminished capacity. As there's a limit to how much the mainstream media will talk about a project about which there are no solid facts (yes, that fact surprised the bejeezus out of us, too), the continuing buzz tends to surface primarily in the Mac-specific news and rumors sites... 607: Ladders Amuck (4/7/98) The Ladder Conspiracy continues! After we told you about the Thinking Different article which reported that CompUSA Apple sections routinely had huge stocking ladders blocking access to Macintosh hardware and software for no good reason, we received a barrage of feedback from faithful viewers who observed the same phenomenon in their local stores...
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