Amaya Toman "The next generation of interesting software will be built on the Macintosh, not the IBM PC". Would you attribute these confident words to Steve Jobs? They were actually uttered by rival Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and the statement, which was quite controversial at the time, found its way onto the front page of BusinessWeek magazine.
It was 1984 when Gates spoke those words. An article that appeared in BusinessWeek magazine at the time told, in accordance with the events of the time, how Apple was ready to dethrone IBM, which at the time clearly ruled the computer market. At that time, a very interesting period was beginning for Apple. In August 1981, IBM came up with its IBM Personal Computer. IBM has managed to build a reputation as a giant in the business computing market.
Only a few years after the release of the IBM Personal Computer, however, Apple began to make a name for itself with its first-generation Macintosh. The computer met with a fairly favorable response from experts, and initial sales were very decent. A large part of the work was also done by the now cult advertisement "1984", directed by Ridley Scott and broadcast during the then Super Bowl. "Big Brother" in the Orwellian spot was supposed to represent the rival company IBM.
Unfortunately, the promising start did not guarantee stable success for Apple and its Macintosh. Macintosh sales gradually began to stagnate, even the Apple III computer was not very successful, and the decision to start focusing more on business customers slowly matured inside the company. Under the leadership of then Apple CEO John Sculley, an advertising campaign called "Test Drive a Macintosh" was created to encourage ordinary customers to give Apple's revolutionary new computer a try.
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While IBM was Apple's competitor in 1984, Microsoft was a Mac software developer - i.e. its partner. After Steve Jobs left Apple, then-Apple CEO John Sculley struck a deal with Gates that allowed Microsoft to use elements of the Mac operating system in the Windows operating system "worldwide, free of charge, and in perpetuity." Things soon took a completely different turn. Microsoft and Apple became rivals, while the strained relationship between Apple and IBM slowly fizzled out, and in 1991—ten years after the release of the IBM Personal Computer—the two companies even entered into a partnership.
Source: Cult of Mac
