>A 1984-type commercial from Apple in 1997 would be a palpable lie. At
>one point Apple represented revolution. But those of us who know history
>(or have read Animal Farm) know what can happen to revolutions...
>To spell it out: Scully presided over Brezhnev-style stagnation. Copland
>was their Chernobyl (gross technical incompetence), Newton their
>Afghanistan (costly and useless war fought and lost). Looks like we've
>just seen the passing of Gil Andropov - hi, bye, leaving so soon? If
>Apple is lucky, they'll get a Gorbachev, someone who can semi-gracefully
>disassemble Apple, so that the remaining parts can fend for themselves.
>(Of course the purchase of NeXT doesn't quite fit - it's almost as if
>Italy joined the USSR in the Andropov era...)
Joe, you're forgetting Michael Spindler, who replaced Scully. Clearly,
Spindler was Chernenko and Amelio was Andropov. (Actually, I was
blanking on Spindler's name until I found it at
http://product.info.apple.com/pr/background/pr.background.timeline.html#
1990. Obviously, he had just as memorable a reign as Chernenko.)
- dan