April 4, 1990: Sculley Bets Big with the Newton

by Chris Seibold Apr 04, 2011

Apple was looking for something to replace the revenue they derived from the Mac. The Mac was still profitable but with Windows 3.0 around the corner, Apple executives were worried about an ever-declining revenue stream. In the end, they banked on the Newton to be the next big thing.

The Newton came to then President Sculley's attention after Jean-Louis Gassee announced his departure from Apple on March 2, 1990. Sculley urged the team to work up a prototype of the Newton in time for a Board of Directors Meeting. Sculley was enthusiastic about the device that emerged, seeing it as a stepping-stone to his pie in the sky "Knowledge Navigator" dream.

Convinced that the Newton would be a huge hit and that it would more than make up for any declining revenue from the Mac, Sculley used the prototype in a pitch to the Board of Directors and the idea was accepted. With everyone on board, the Newton project went from small guerilla project backed by Gassee to the future of Apple in April of 1990.

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Comments

  • Newton rocks! Just today I had to demo mine to yet another curious person. Wowed him.

    Bad Beaver had this to say on Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 371

  • I’m so sad that I missed the whole Newton thing… Those were such cool years for everything technological.

    stephencolon had this to say on Apr 05, 2007 Posts: 15

  • I still have my 2000. Don’t use it much these days, but I still fire it up once in a great while and chuckle at the severely pixelated cheesecake shots of Brooke Burke I still have stored on it. Unfortunate noone could successfully realize the potential of this great device. A victim of being too far ahead of it’s time.

    Blackjack had this to say on Apr 07, 2007 Posts: 3
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