Ex-Apple CEO John Sculley’s tenure at Apple was marked for a lack in innovation that eventually almost sunk the company, before Steve Jobs came back to rescue it in the late 90s. So he’s an expert in what makes a company go wrong.
According to Sculley, that’s just what is happening in the Tim Cook years. He says the company is experiencing another “lull in innovation” and needs to find its next creative leap.
Speaking to CNBA Asia, Sculley said:
You have periods of time that are creative leap areas. That’s what Apple’s excels at – it’s a creative leap company. In the last ten years we’ve had in technology a creative leap decade. We’ve seen social media, we’ve seen 3G, mobile wireless, you’ve seem companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, all doing extremely well.
Then you run into a decade like we’re just sort of in right now – the fast follower evolution decade,” he continues, “We’re not at a big breakthrough point in time, but fast followers excel. So Samsung, an excellent fast follower is doing really well.
What Apple needs is the next era of creative leap.
What’s the next big thing? According to Sculley… uh… sensors.
“They are estimating 30 billion connected devices, machine to machine, over the next decade. Sensors, the things we have in cameras, things that can sense almost anything, are going to be very important in the next big creative leap.”
Well, yeah, but sensors are just parts. Apple makes products. So don’t hold your breath for the next big thing to be the iSense, although there’s obviously a lot of potential in a future iWatch that can see and react to a lot more of the world around us.
Source: Macworld
