I have read a number of interviews with Sculley over the years, and it seems he has the wisdom to understand that he will be remembered as "the guy who fired Steve Jobs", and this has brought about a certain humility not seen in most ex-CEOs from major companies.
And contrary to the usual simplified narrative, Apple was quite successful with Scully running it:
+ they built the Mac from a toy computer into a real platform
+ the "sales and marketing" was top-notch with brand-loyalty singlehandedly kept the company alive for years
+ the company did some great R&D producing huge wins like QuickTime
+ he correctly understood that Apple was locked-out of the broader PC market, but had a shot at dominating handhelds
Plus the the consensus view in ~1998 was that Sculley had failed Apple by not moving MacOS to Intel and licensing it out to PC vendors. I imagine very few people hold that opinion today - as Sculley said, the company ran according to Jobs' basic business plan.
And contrary to the usual simplified narrative, Apple was quite successful with Scully running it:
+ they built the Mac from a toy computer into a real platform
+ the "sales and marketing" was top-notch with brand-loyalty singlehandedly kept the company alive for years
+ the company did some great R&D producing huge wins like QuickTime
+ he correctly understood that Apple was locked-out of the broader PC market, but had a shot at dominating handhelds
Plus the the consensus view in ~1998 was that Sculley had failed Apple by not moving MacOS to Intel and licensing it out to PC vendors. I imagine very few people hold that opinion today - as Sculley said, the company ran according to Jobs' basic business plan.