In 1984, Apple
launched the Macintosh, the first personal computer to be sold without a programming
language. Its debut was signified by "1984", a $1.5 million television commercial directed by Ridley
Scott that aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on
January 22, 1984. The commercial is now hailed as a watershed event for
Apple's success and was called a "masterpiece" by CNN[36] and
one of the greatest commercials of all time by TV Guide.
The Macintosh initially sold well, but
follow-up sales were not strong[39] due to its high price and limited range of
software titles. The machine's fortunes changed with the introduction of
the LaserWriter, the first PostScript laser printer to be
sold at a reasonable price, and PageMaker, an early desktop
publishing package. It has been suggested that the combination of these
three products were responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market. The
Macintosh was particularly powerful in the desktop publishing market due to its
advanced graphics capabilities, which had necessarily been built in to create
the intuitive Macintosh GUI.
In 1985, a power struggle developed
between Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired two years earlier. The
Apple board of directors instructed Sculley to "contain" Jobs and
limit his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products. Rather
than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from his
leadership role at Apple. Sculley found out that Jobs had been attempting to
organize a coup and called a board meeting at which Apple's board of
directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties. Jobs
resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc. the same year.
After Jobs'
departure, the Macintosh product line underwent a steady change of focus to
higher price points, the so-called "high-right policy" named for the
position on a chart of price vs. profits. Jobs had argued the company should
produce products aimed at the consumer market and aimed for a $1000 price for
the Macintosh, which they were unable to meet. Newer models selling at higher
price points offered higher profit margin, and appeared to have no effect
on total sales as power userssnapped up every increase in power. Although
some worried about pricing themselves out of the market, the high-right policy
was in full force by the mid-1980s, notably due to Jean-Louis Gassée's
mantra of "fifty-five or die", referring to the 55% profit
margins of the Macintosh II.
This policy began to backfire in the
last years of the decade as new desktop publishing programs appeared on PC
clones that offered some or much of the same functionality of the
Macintosh but at far lower price points. The company lost its monopoly in this
market, and had already estranged many of its original consumer customer base
who could no longer afford their high-priced products. The Christmas season of
1989 was the first in the company's history that saw declining sales, and led
to a 20% drop in Apple's stock price. Gassée's objections were overruled,
and he was forced from the company in 1990. Later that year, Apple introduced
three lower cost models, the Macintosh Classic, Macintosh LC and Macintosh
IIsi, all of which saw significant sales due to pent up demand.
In 1991, Apple introduced the PowerBook,
replacing the "luggable" Macintosh Portable with a design
that set the current shape for almost all modern laptops. The same year, Apple
introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the operating system which added
color to the interface and introduced new networking capabilities. It remained
the architectural basis for the Classic Mac OS. The success of the
PowerBook and other products brought increasing revenue. For some time, Apple
was doing incredibly well, introducing fresh new products and generating
increasing profits in the process. The magazine MacAddict named
the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the
Macintosh.
Apple believed the Apple II series was
too expensive to produce and took away sales from the low-end Macintosh. In
the 1990s, Apple released the Macintosh LC, and began efforts to promote
that computer by advising developer technical support staff to recommend
developing applications for Macintosh rather than Apple II, and authorizing
salespersons to direct consumers towards Macintosh and away from Apple II. The Apple
IIe was discontinued in 1993.
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