In the Early 1990s, Dan Eilers Commented That Apple Was on a “glide Path to History”. What Underlay This Assessment?

In the early 1990s, Dan Eilers commented that Apple was on a “glide path to history”. What underlay this assessment?

In 1997, Apple Computer was in deep trouble. Apple pioneered the personal computer market with the release of the Apple I in 1976 and the Apple II in 1978. However, even with these advancements and the first graphical user interfaced (GUI), the Macintosh, in 1984, the company was continually losing money. Steve Jobs would push the Macintosh project on the employees forcing them to “do their best work” because they were “making history”. However, when Dan Eilers was the Vice President of Strategic Planning, he stated that the company was on a “glide path to history”, essentially contracting what Steve Jobs focused on and suggested that Apple was no longer making history. John Sculley, the then CEO also agreed with Dan.

The reasoning for this was because in 1990, Microsoft released Windows 3.1, i’s own GUI, that was eroding Apple’s differentiating factor. Windows 3.1 towered over Apple’s GUI and led to dramatic growth of the PC market, which pushed Apple into becoming a niche player. Microsoft became the dominant industry standard found in 90% of all personal computers. Due to this, developers began to quickly choose to write software for Microsoft, instead of Apple, which allowed Microsoft to further its place in the market and over Apple. Due to all of these outcomes, Apple had to cut costs in order to offer a less expensive version of the Macintosh as well as revitalize their strategy away from typical Apple standards. This was done in order to compete with Microsoft’s own business strategy. Apple held less than 10% of the PC market and was not making headway with their new business strategy. They were seen to be on their way out of the PC industry. This is what Dan Eiler’s implied with his comment. Apple was on a glide path to becoming history instead of making history as it had done in the past.

Today, Apple has managed to rebrand themselves and become a power giant. According to the 2017 10K report, Apple had a net income of $48.3 billion in net income at the end of the fiscal year. Apple has successfully managed to compete with Microsoft in the personal computer space as well as other avenues such as: “iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV”.

How did the company come to dominate desktop publishing?

Apple was able to climb its way out of the severe hole it was in the 1990s and become a dominate industry player. The first way it did this way by going back to its original roots and company values by looking to meet the needs of its consumers instead of just creating a mass-copy product as Microsoft had. The one big thing that still had Apple at severe disadvantage was the lack of access to services offered by many third parties as well as services offered by Microsoft,