October 24, 1985: Sculley’s Biggest “Oops”

Nine months after the release and, despite what some call the best commercial ever, the Mac wasn't selling well. In fact it was selling at a rate less than a fifth of the projections.

The Mac was in danger of dying and Sculley knew he needed to prop up sales. What better way to propel sales than by retaining some Mac exclusivity? That is what Sculley set out to do. Against the advice of many, Sculley agreed to license Mac technology to Microsoft in exchange for a promise not to ship a Windows version of Excel until the Mac had a chance to have a clear lead (1986) and upgrade Word.

In retrospect, the agreement looks positively stupid, Excel was late to Windows (1987) and Word would have been upgraded anyway. Worse than the fact that Sculley gave Microsoft Mac technology basically for nothing, was the fact that the courts found that his agreement allowed Microsoft to nakedly ape the Mac platform in perpetuity.

Sculley made the worst deal possible on this day in 1985.