Michael Spindler (22 December 1942 – September 5, 2016) was a German businessman who was president and CEO of

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

from 1993 to 1996. Spindler was born in

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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, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

, before he moved to join

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

. 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 1990, then CEO of Apple, John Sculley, 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 Apple's

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

. 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 Inc., App ...

, 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 International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

and

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

, but when these went nowhere, he was replaced by Gil Amelio on February 2, 1996.

Personal life

From 1985 until his death in 2016, Spindler lived between

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, and

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

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

Death

Spindler died after a short illness on September 5, 2016. His long-time friend and business partner Jean-Louis Gassée 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 {{DEFAULTSORT:Spindler, Michael 1942 births 2016 deaths Apple Inc. executives German expatriates in the United States German expatriates in France Businesspeople from Berlin Directors of Apple Inc.