Michael Spindler (22 December 1942 – 2017) was a German businessman who was president and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

from 1993 to 1996. Spindler was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

Personal life

From 1985 until his death in 2017, Spindler lived between

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, with his wife Maryse and three kids Karen, Laurie, and John.

Career

Spindler graduated from engineering at Technical University in Cologne in 1964 and worked at DEC and

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...

, before he moved to join

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

. Having joined Apple in 1980 after Mike Markkula brought him over to help out with Apple's European office; he rose through the ranks in Apple's European operations as President of Apple Europe, then President of Apple International. Michael Spindler had built a reputation as a great strategist in business tactics. One of his most successful strategies that soared Apple's global sales included giving Apple's various territories more autonomy over their marketing strategies. In January of 1990, then CEO of Apple,

John Sculley John Sculley III (born April 6, 1939) is an American businessman, entrepreneur and investor in high-tech startups. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became chief executive officer (CEO) ...

, appointed Spindler to be Apple's chief operating officer. He was nicknamed "The Diesel" due to his strong work ethic. On October 15, 1993, Spindler was chosen to take over as Apple's CEO when John Sculley was ousted by the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit orga ...

. Spindler presided over several successful projects, such as the introduction of the

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM– ...

, as well as some major failures, including the Newton and the Copland operating system. Spindler shied away from the spotlight preferring instead to work on operational management and strategy without fanfare. After Spindler became CEO, he did not make a public appearance for four months. One of his first moves as CEO included massive cost cutting measures such as laying off workers, ending costly projects and cutting down on R&D projects, freezing executive salaries. During his tenure the Apple board authorized merger discussions with IBM,

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...

and

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

, but when these went nowhere, he was replaced by

Gil Amelio Gilbert Frank Amelio (born March 1, 1943) is an American technology executive. Amelio worked at Bell Labs, Fairchild Semiconductor, and the semiconductor division of Rockwell International, and was also the CEO of National Semiconductor and Ap ...

on February 2, 1996.

Death

Spindler died of illness in 2017. His longtime friend and business partner

Jean-Louis Gassée Jean-Louis Gassée (born March 1944 in Paris, France) is a business executive. He is best known as a former executive at Apple Computer, where he worked from 1981 to 1990. He also founded Be Inc., creators of the BeOS computer operating system. ...

stated, "Mike was an original, highly cultured mind, with high-level geopolitical views of our industry."

References

External links

Michael Spindler: The Peter Principle at Apple
by Tom Hormby, April 6, 2006 1942 births 2017 deaths American computer businesspeople Apple Inc. executives German emigrants to the United States People from Berlin Directors of Apple Inc. 20th-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1940s-stub