John Sculley insightful interview about the mistakes he made at Apple and about Steve Jobs

I have almost finished reading Walter Isaacson revealing new Steve Jobs biography. But a long interview with John Sculley in 2010 provides additional details that allow us to understand the history of Apple and personal computers much better. Sculley fired Steve Jobs and in this candid interview says that it would have been better if Jobs had been made CEO in 1985.  Read the full interview here.

Posted on Nov 24, 11

Fundamental Objective for Founder of HTC is making unique products rather than margin

Chou [CEO of HTC] said he cares more about making unique products than making good profit margins. He listens and acts quickly. Often, when Beats co-founder and music producer Jimmy Iovine calls with an idea, Chou will have sent off an e-mail about it before the conversation is over, Iovine said. Chou said he tests the music himself. A $300 million controlling stake in Beats Electronics LLC, the headphones maker backed by rapper Dr. Dre, was part of a strategy to lure music enthusiasts with a marketing plan that included bringing singer Lady Gaga to an Oct. 6 audio party in London to release the HTC Sensation XL, its first handset featuring Beats audio technology and headphones.

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Posted on Nov 10, 11

Reinventing Post Offices in a Digital World

The American Postal Service is facing bankruptcy with $9 billion dollar negative cash flow. One way to come up with a new business model is to see what happens in other parts of the world. It turns out that European postal services have already spent to past 20 years trying to reinvent themselves, as detailed in this article in the NY Times.

Posted on Oct 31, 11

Why the CEO of HP was fired after only 10 months on the job

The proximate cause was the HP Stock price.

For more distant causes click on “more”.

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Posted on Sep 23, 11

The Reason why HP is divesting its PC Business

From the WSJ: H-P is the world’s largest marketer of PCs. Yet Mr. Apotheker said that it isn’t possible for the Palo Alto, Calif., company to continue to invest in that business and make required structural changes to the rest of H-P. Developing a steady stream of devices that consumers want requires a lot of money and new product-development cycles that are “much faster than a conglomerate can move in most circumstances,” he said. H-P’s PC unit produced $40.1 billion in revenue and $2 billion in operating profit in its most recent fiscal year, profit that was used to fund other operations. As a standalone company, the PC unit would be able to invest in its own future, he argued.

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Posted on Aug 24, 11