“It is well-known that Steve Jobs [was] a Japanophile. It is also well-known that Steve Jobs was a big fan of Sony,” Nobuyuki Hayashi reports for Nobi.com. “Apple and Sony [were] in a special relationship all along the way. The two companies had been very close even during Steve Jobs’ absence… The relationship between Apple and Sony became even stronger when Steve Jobs returned to Apple.”
“Most of Sony’s executives spends their winter vacation in Hawaii and play golf after celebrating new year. In one of those new year golf competitions back in 2001, ‘Steve Jobs and another Apple executive were waiting for us at the end of golf course holding VAIO running Mac OS’ recalls recalls Kunitake Ando, the ex-president of Sony, Inc 2001 is the year Mac OS X shipped and I am speculating this is Intel-version of Mac OS X, they hid for four and half years since then,” Hayashi reports. “When Steve Jobs regained the control of Apple back in 1997, one of the first thing he did was to close all the Mac-compatible deals claiming it is destroying Mac’s eco-system… Steve Jobs believed that Mac-compatible business would harm not only Apple’s business but also the ‘Mac’ brand. But that same Steve Jobs was willing to make an exception in 2001. And that exception was Sony’s VAIO.”
“But the timing was bad for Sony, it is just about the time, Sony’s VAIO gained popularity and it is just about the time that VAIO team had finished optimizing both VAIO’s hardware and software specifically for Windows platform. Because of this, most of the VAIO team opposed asking ‘if it is worth it.’ And that was the end of story for this Mac-compatible VAIO,” Hayashi reports. “”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Sony’s blunder ranks right up there among the biggest business mistakes of all time.
Related article:
The amazing true story of Project Marklar; how Mac OS X for Intel was born – June 10, 2012
Apple Mac owns 90% market share for ‘premium’ PCs costing over $1,000 – February 1, 2010
