Michael Spindler nicknamed "the Diesel" for his reputed around-the-clock work habits, was president and CEO of Apple from 1993 to 1996.

Having joined Apple in 1980, he rose through the ranks in Apple's European operations as President of Apple Europe and was chosen to take over as CEO when John Sculley

John Sculley

John Sculley is an American businessman. Sculley was vice-president and president of PepsiCo , until he became CEO of Apple on April 8, 1983, a position he held until leaving in 1993...

 was ousted by Apple's board of directors

Board of directors

A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

 in June 1993.
Spindler presided over several successful projects, such as the introduction of the PowerPC

PowerPC

PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

, as well as some major failures, including the Newton

Apple Newton

The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...

 and the Copland

Copland (operating system)

Copland was a project at Apple Computer to create an updated version of the Macintosh operating system. It was to have introduced protected memory, preemptive multitasking and a number of new underlying operating system features, yet still be compatible with existing Mac software...

 operating system. He also engaged in takeover discussions with IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

, Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

 and Philips

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

, but when these went nowhere, he was in turn replaced by Gil Amelio

Gil Amelio

Gilbert Frank Amelio is an American technology executive. He grew up in Miami, Florida and received a bachelor's degree, master's degree, and Ph.D. in physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology...

, on February 2, 1996.

External links

• Michael Spindler: The Peter Principle at Apple by Tom Hormby, April 6, 2006