As Apple Computer's recently named president and chief executive
officer, Michael H. Spindler is responsible for all corporate functions,
Apple USA, Apple Pacific, Apple Europe, Worldwide Sales and Marketing,
Worldwide Product Development and Manufacturing, Worldwide Corporate
Communications, Government Affairs, and Public Policy.
Previously, Spindler was president of Apple Europe, overseeing Apple's
thirteen European subsidiaries and distribution representation
throughout Africa, the Mediterranean region, and the Middle East.
A 25-year veteran of the computer and telecommunications industries,
Spindler joined Apple in 1980 as marketing manager for European
operations and was subsequently named general manager of Apple's
European marketing and sales operations. In 1985 he was named vice
president in charge of Apple's international marketing and sales
division. Under his leadership, Apple's international division expanded
its global sales and marketing coverage with the addition of new
subsidiaries.
Michael Spindler spoke with Educom Review about Apple's plans for the
future, its commitment to education, and its position on the computer
industry's new spirit of cooperation.
Educom Review: Noting your reputation as a tough-minded, hands-on
manager, some analysts have speculated that Apple will be less
adventurous in the future as a company and will place more emphasis on
the bottom line and less on R&D. Are they right, wrong, or somewhere in-
between?
SPINDLER: Given the complex and ever-changing dynamics of the personal
computer industry, Apple has indeed undergone significant changes over
the past two years, in terms of our products, our channels of
distribution, and our service and support programs. But we have always
remained steadfast in our commitment to develop and produce new tools
and technologies that allow our customers take full advantage of the
power of the Macintosh platform, especially in areas such as multimedia,
networking, and mobile computing, which are of major importance to the
education market.
In order to remain a long-term and viable player in this industry,
we certainly have to pay attention to the bottom line, but not at the
expense of our research and development efforts. In fact, our R&D
investment, which last year totaled more than $600 million, is a
critical factor in Apple's goal to maintain our technology leadership
position. Our role in the information industry is to continue to
innovate, which will allow us to leverage our technology strengths
across the many different businesses we're currently enganged in. We
believe this commitment to developing new technologies is what will fuel
Apple's future success in the industry.
ER: Apple has traditionally been very supportive of educational
institutions, including colleges and universities. What does the future
look like for such support?
SPINDLER: I've always said that education is one of our most strategic
businesses, and many of the products we've developed were done in
collaboration with higher education, such as System 7, QuickTime, built-
in Ethernet, and integration with standards-based products like X.400,
SNMP, and SMTP.
In addition to collaborating on product development, we've also
evolved our programs in how we work with institutions. In 1993, we
introduced a new initiative called the Collegiate Partnership Program
[CPP], which provides institutions with greater flexibility and options
for purchasing, supporting, and servicing Apple products on campus.
The CPP is designed to better support schools that have campus
resale operations, as well as those seeking to build and develop their
campus computing plan through investment in Apple technology and direct
purchasing programs.
Considering that higher education represents approximately 25
percent of our annual U.S. sales revenue, it's critical for us to
continue to collaborate with our higher education partners in areas that
exploit next generations of hardware, software, and networking
technologies that advance the education mission of the institution.
ER: Could you share your thoughts about industry alliances, such as the
one that produced the PowerPC chip that is the base of Apple's new
product line, or such as the Apple-IBM alliance that produced Taligent
and Kaleida? When do you form alliances and when do you compete?
SPINDLER: The whole notion of alliances rests on the premise that, given
the limitations of companies' resources, no one organization can go it
alone these days when developing next-generation computing technologies.
Apple has been very aggressive in the past in forging and
maintaining strategic alliances, with both software developers and other
hardware manufacturers. We formed these alliances for several important
reasons. The first is no one company has all the resources to develop
and manufacture products that meet all of the diverse needs of its
customer base. By leveraging the strengths of our partners, we're able
to offer more customized solutions that meet the specific requirements
of the customer.
Second, the economies of scale that can be brought to bear by the
individual partners can significantly reduce the development cycles,
which is an increasingly critical component when you consider that time-
to-market in the personal computer market can make the difference
between a hit product and an also-ran.
And third, alliances such as the Apple-IBM-Motorola pact that
developed the PowerPC architecture and chip set have laid the foundation
for Apple's next generation of computing technologies, which will be a
key differentiator for us and will offer our customers new levels of
performance and flexibility.
ER: Apple has taken something of a beating with the Newton, which,
thanks to Doonesbury, is probably the first computer to have been
ridiculed in a syndicated comic strip. Has the company taken this in
stride? What is the future of Newton? Will there be an effort to develop
a Personal Digital Assistant that can do Internet communications?
SPINDLER: Yes, our first Newton product was the subject of tremendous
media attention, given the expectations of the market. Yet the
underlying technologies that it represents hold great promise for the
future. When you look at the initial market response to the device,
compared with the response to other breakthrough technologies--like CD-
ROM players, for example--Newton is doing quite well. The newest member
of our Newton family of products has a number of enhanced capabilities
and improved handwriting recognition features that will provide users
with much more functionality, especially with the educational
applications that will soon be available for the K-12 and higher
education markets. And we are working with our developer partners on
applications that will enable Newton users to access Internet and use
the device as a navigation tool to access Internet knowledge bases. The
key point here is that we are clearly moving in the right direction. Our
Newton technology represents a platform, not just one product. And with
the flurry of licensing activity already under way for the Newton
platform, we're confident that Newton will be a great enabling
technology for a wide variety of human communications.
ER: What do you expect in the way of development of handwriting
recognition and voice recognition? Do you expect one or the other to
eventually dominate as an input process?
SPINDLER: In terms of handwriting recognition, our Newton technology
represents a breakthrough in human communications, so with each new
iteration, that capability will improve, allowing Newton's recognition
software to learn faster and more accurately from its user.
Regarding voice recognition, we've made it a key strategic goal to
reshape and enhance the value of personal computing by adding human
communications features as a standard feature across our entire product
line. We've already developed new categories of functionality that are
being integrated into the heart and fabric of the Macintosh operating
system, especially in speech recognition and speech synthesis.
In fact, the Macintosh is now able to intrepret human English
speech commands as well as convert text into spoken English. Although
it's hard to determine at this point whether handwriting recognition or
voice recognition will become the dominant input process, we've always
let the market decide on the specific computing requirements and will
continue to do so.
ER: One of Apple's recent products is the box that combines a TV set and
a computer. Is this a niche product or do you see it as just the first
of a long series of such products?
SPINDLER: You're referring to our Macintosh TV product, which is a pilot
technology incorporating both a CPU [central processing unit] and CD-ROM
drive with a TV tuner into an all-in-one design. It's an exciting
product, one that delivers on the idea of combining technologies like
computers and television into one system. Such a combination is
especially useful in higher education, since desktop space is at a
premium in a dorm room or student lab, and the growing use of multimedia
warrants a flexible system that can integrate multiple media types such
as text, graphics, full-motion video, sound, and animation.
Although the Mac TV product is being tested in specific areas, we
think it represents the future of converging technologies and intend to
continue our development efforts in this area.
ER: You recently have encouraged other manufacturers to clone
Macintoshes. That's a bit of a surprise. Can you explain Apple's
attitude turnaround on this issue?
SPINDLER: We've been investigating the issue of licensing for some time
and have held discussions with other manufacturers about the prospect of
licensing the Macintosh operating system for specific purposes, such as
PowerPC-based personal computers. The clone manufacturers have told us
they're very interested in PowerPC licensing and felt our technology
would greatly improve their differentiation in the marketplace.
So while we've been very hesitant in the past to share the crown jewels
with our competitors, the ever-changing dynamics of the industry have
created new opportunities for Apple and our efforts to attain greater
market share. So we are actively talking to potential partners about
licensing the Macintosh operating system on PowerPC-based systems. And
I'm confident that once we resolve some of the business and technical
issues involved in this process, we'll see some exciting partnerships
with other manufacturers.
ER: Could you tell us something about e*World, the new information
service that Apple will be offering? You'll be in competition with
CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online, and other such services, including
new ones apparently being planned by AT&T and by Microsoft. Why do you
think Apple will succeed?
SPINDLER: I'm very excited about the prospects for e*World, especially
in light of the size of the electronic information industry, with 1991
revenues of almost $11 billion. e*World is Apple's new online
information service that was previewed at the MacWorld Expo in January
and is scheduled to become available in spring 1994.
e*World uses a city as its interface metaphor, with marked
buildings that direct users toward areas of interest, such as e*World
Center, News Stand, and Marketplace. e*World will provide users with a
wide range of information databases and will target Macintosh and Newton
users initially and Windows users within a year or so. Eventually, it
will replace Apple Online Services' AppleLink� service, building on
AppleLink's base of 60,000 subscribers in fifty-two countries.
By the time e*World is launched, more than a hundred content
providers will have signed on, which will ensure that we have a robust
electronic offering and the ability to really differentiate e*World from
other services.
ER: Every newspaper seems to bring with it new stories about the
convergence of computing, communications, broadcasting, and so on.
What's Apple's overall strategy for playing a major role in these
developments?
SPINDLER: Apple's strategy already includes a commitment to enhance
human communications by offering new technologies like CD-ROM, digital
video, videoconferencing, and telephony across our entire product line.
As this convergence of computers and communications comes into better
focus, you will see Apple's mainstream products all offering these
capabilities. We also think our R&D efforts will result in a number of
exciting new technologies that capitalize on our strengths in these
areas.
For example, we're working on an exciting trial program with Oracle
Corporation that will allow Oracle's Media Server product line to work
with a TV-set top unit we've developed based on the Macintosh.
The technologies will be used to deliver services like video on
demand, home shopping, interactive learning, and other multimedia
applications to consumers. Ultimately, it's these kinds of technologies
that will be the catalyst in driving content on the information
superhighway, and we intend to be a major force in that business.
ER: A final question on education: Do you think the higher education
system will look significantly different twenty-five years from now, and
if so, will Apple have helped significantly to improve it?
SPINDLER: I think our higher education system will look significantly
different from today's, given the rapid advances in technology and the
fact that the world's knowledge base is doubling every seven years. It's
absolutely critical that our institutions continue to evolve and
innovate if we're to maintain our position as having the best higher
education system in the world.
And we certainly hope that Apple will have made an impact on how we
help students and faculty think, learn, and communicate. Higher
education is in the business of information and ideas. So is Apple. And
access to information and the ability to analyze, share, and communicate
information and ideas will be the keys to effective learning.
For students, learning will no longer be limited to the lecture hall;
learning will take place where and when students want it to. And
electronic "agents" will help them to access the world's knowledge and
build their own personalized databases. For faculty, technology will
help to develop customized courseware they can deliver electronically to
their students. I don't think it will ever replace the human connection
between teacher and student, but technology will certainly give both of
them more choices and more flexibility concerning how, when, and where
learning takes place. And that's an exciting prospect, don't you think?