Apple’s New-Products Chief May Quit Soon
Jean-Louis Gassee, head of Apple Computer’s new-product development unit, is expected to resign shortly because he feels wrongly blamed for the company’s current ills, sources close to the company confirmed Wednesday.
The resignation of Gassee, a flamboyant 46-year-old French engineer who had overseen new products for the last five years, would create the third vacancy in the top six jobs at Apple. It also would create considerable disarray both in the company’s executive suite and among its rank and file.
Last week, Allen Z. Loren, president of Apple’s U.S. marketing organization, was forced out by Chairman John Sculley. Loren’s position is temporarily being filled by newly appointed Chief Operating Officer Michael H. Spindler, who had been president of Apple’s European marketing arm, a position now vacant.
Apple officials declined to confirm Gassee’s plans, saying only that he remained president of Apple Products. Gassee could not be reached for comment.
However, the company noted that Gassee, who had once been considered Sculley’s potential heir apparent, had discussed his future with the chairman in light of Loren’s departure and Spindler’s elevation last week to the company’s No. 2 position. Part of Spindler’s new responsibilities include Apple’s marketing and manufacturing operations, two units that Gassee had supervised.
Sculley’s executive suite reshuffling last week also included a decidedly negative assessment of the company’s new-product development operations, a view the chairman shared publicly at the annual shareholders’ meeting and said he was prepared to personally redress.
Sources said Gassee, often billed as Apple’s technological visionary, took exception to being singled out and sought a vote of confidence from Sculley. When Sculley didn’t respond as expected, the sources said, Gassee decided it was time to make his exit.
Reaction to the decision was divided. Some insiders and analysts praised Gassee’s accomplishments, particularly the successful retooling of the best-selling Macintosh product line in 1985, and predicted that Sculley would have difficulty finding a replacement of his technological and intellectual equal.
“He is going to leave a very big hole that will be tough to fill,” said Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple software product director and high-tech entrepreneur.
But Wall Street analysts and others claimed that Apple’s problems introducing new products can be squarely blamed on Gassee’s leadership style, which relied heavily on philosophical musings.
“He runs around talking philosophical, but basically his job is to provide products that people want to buy,” said one critic, who suggested that Gassee had gotten as far as he did at Apple because he lulls listeners with a thick French accent and wears a single diamond stud in his left ear.
Under Gassee’s direction, Apple introduced an updated version of the original Macintosh, called the SE, and a redesigned version called the Macintosh II, Apple’s first machine with a color monitor and a full range of add-on options.
But Gassee was criticized for failing to introduce new low-priced models and for the company’s portable computer, a machine two years in the making that many users complain is bulky, slow and expensive.
