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2002–present: After Be, Inc.

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{{Short description|French businessman (born 1944)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Jean-Louis Gassée
| image =
| landscape =
| birth_date = {{Birth-date and age|24 March 1944}}
| birth_place = [[Paris]], France
| occupation = [[Business executive]]
| employer = {{Plain list|
* Hewlett Packard 1968–1974
* Data General 1974–1981
* Apple Computer Inc. 1981–1990
* Be, Inc. 1991–2002
}}
}}

'''Jean-Louis Gassée''' (born 24 March 1944) is a business executive. He is best known as a former executive at [[Apple Computer]], where he worked from 1981 to 1990.<ref>{{cite book| first=Jean-Louis |last=Gassée |title=The Third Apple: Personal Computers & the Cultural Revolution |date=February 1987 |orig-year=Originally published in French in 1985 |publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. |isbn=0-15-189850-2 |lccn=86-19557 |url=https://archive.org/details/thirdappleperson00gass/ |url-access=registration}}</ref> He also founded [[Be Inc.]], creators of the [[BeOS]] computer operating system. After leaving Be, he became Chairman of [[Access Systems Americas|PalmSource, Inc.]] in November 2004.

==Career==
Gassée was born 24 March 1944 in [[Paris]].

===1980s: Apple Computer===
Gassée worked for six years at [[Hewlett-Packard]] from 1968 to 1974, where he was responsible for overseeing the launching of the company's first desktop scientific computer and the development of its sales organization in France, before his promotion to Sales Manager of Europe, in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1974 to 1981, Gassée served as the Chief Executive Officer of the French affiliates of [[Data General]] and Exxon Office Systems.<ref name="early_bio">[https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=234261&privcapId=21739 Bloomberg.com]</ref>

In 1981, Gassée became Director of European Operations at [[Apple Computer]]. In 1985, after learning of [[Steve Jobs]]'s plan to oust CEO [[John Sculley]] over Memorial Day weekend while Sculley was in China, Gassée preemptively informed the board of directors, which eventually led to Jobs leaving Apple.<ref name="jobs_dismissal">{{cite web |title=10 of the bravest moves Steve Jobs made at Apple |website=[[Business Insider]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230330223413/https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-10-bravest-moves-2015-3?op=1 |archive-date=30 March 2023 |url-status=live |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-10-bravest-moves-2015-3?op=1}}</ref>

Later, Sculley personally appointed Gassée to Jobs's old position as head of [[Mac (computer)|Macintosh]] development. Gassée introduced several Macintosh products on-stage in the late 1980s including the [[Macintosh Portable]] in 1989, and also the [[Macintosh IIfx]]. In his product introductions, he was often very comical. Gassée was less formal than many executives. He wore tailored suits when necessary, but he often addressed employees wearing a black (lambskin) leather jacket and a single diamond-stud earring.{{Citation needed|date=June 2013}}

When the idea of licensing the Mac OS for other companies use was brought up by various members of Apple, Jean-Louis refused to give in to the idea, maintaining that the Macintosh was more powerful than any other computer at the present, and had a superior architectural roadmap for future expansion than any other computer. Although many of the companies were interested (such as AT&T, for the use of the OS in their own equipment—they were so interested in this idea that the then-CEO of AT&T made a personal phone call to Sculley), Gassée would have none of it, and so the idea of licensing the Mac OS was shelved.

In the mid-1980s, Gassée started the [[skunkworks project]] to create what eventually became the [[MessagePad|Newton MessagePad]].<ref name="gizmodo_newton">{{Cite web |url=https://gizmodo.com/5452193/the-story-behind-apples-newton |title=Gizmodo: The Story Behind Apple's Newton |access-date=9 September 2017 |archive-date=28 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170828105118/http://gizmodo.com/5452193/the-story-behind-apples-newton |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1987, Apple CEO John Sculley published his memoir ''Odyssey.'' In the hope of inspiring "excellence," he ordered a hardback copy for each Apple employee, at Apple's expense.{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}} Shortly afterward, Gassée ordered a paperback copy of [[Fred Brooks]]'s ''[[The Mythical Man-Month]]'' for all product-development employees, in the hope of inspiring good sense in project management. Brooks gave a lecture at nearby [[De Anza College]]: the room was filled with Apple employees with copies of his book, who told him stories that confirmed his conclusions.{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}}

In 1988, Gassée became head of Apple's advanced product development and worldwide marketing, and rumors of his taking over as CEO of Apple from Sculley were circling. Other rumors concerning [[Michael Spindler]] were also circulating. At one point in 1990, a number of Apple employees held a demonstration, marching around in circles, carrying signs, on the lawn in front of one Apple building, to petition Apple management to retain Gassée. A ''[[USA Today]]'' reporter saw the demonstration and asked an employee what it was about. The employee, well aware of Apple's rules on divulging trade secrets to the press, succinctly explained the issues. The next day, ''USA Today'' reported that Apple employees, many wearing black leather jackets and berets in honor of Gassée, had demonstrated to persuade management to keep him at Apple. In fact, the only person wearing a leather jacket (a brown goatskin [[A-2 jacket|A-2]]) and a beret had been the person whom she had asked to explain the purpose of the demonstration.

In 1989, Gassée successfully killed a [[Claris]] project, 'Drama', which aimed to start a new brand to sell low-end Macintosh computers. Gassée argued that consumers would continue to be willing to pay the premium price for a full Macintosh experience.<ref name="gizmodo_newton"/>

Despite Gassée's efforts and those of his supporters, in 1990 he left Apple, forced out by Sculley and Apple board members dissatisfied with his performance in delivering new products.{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}} Spindler got the top job.

===1991–2002: Be Incorporated===
In 1991, Gassée started a new venture, Be Inc., with the ambitious goal of creating an entire new computer platform, hardware and software, from the ground up. A number of Apple employees left with him, including [[Steve Sakoman]], the developer of the [[Apple Newton]]. Be developed a new [[operating system]], optimized for multiple [[Central processing unit|CPU]]s and [[Thread (computer science)|multithreaded]] applications, which became known simply as "the Be Operating System," or [[BeOS]].

BeOS was written for Be's own dual-processor machine, the [[BeBox]]; later development releases of BeOS were ported to run on the Macintosh, and Macintosh clone makers, including [[Power Computing Corporation|Power Computing]] and [[Motorola]], signed deals to ship BeOS with their hardware when the OS was finalized. In light of this, Be stopped production on the BeBox after selling only around 2000 units, and focused entirely on development of BeOS.

In 1996, Apple Computer decided to abandon [[Copland (operating system)|Copland]], the project to rewrite and modernize the Macintosh operating system. BeOS had many of the features Apple sought, and around Christmas time they offered to buy Be for $120 million, later raising their bid to $200 million. However, despite estimates of Be's total worth at approximately $80 million,{{Citation needed|date=July 2008}} Gassée held out for $275 million, and Apple balked. In a surprise move, Apple went on to purchase [[NeXT]], the company their former co-founder [[Steve Jobs]] had earlier left Apple to found, for $429 million, with the high price justified by Apple getting Jobs and his NeXT engineers in tow. [[NeXTSTEP]] was used as the basis for their new operating system, [[Mac OS X]].

After the return of Jobs, Apple withdrew the license to make [[Macintosh clone]]s. With Intel's assistance, BeOS moved to "Plan B", a port to the x86 platform. While it arguably never grew past a cult following, it sold enough copies to have a nascent development and user community, and had several thousand programs available for it, including several dozen commercial products. BeOS was also used as an embedded operating system in multimedia production systems from Edirol, TEAC and Level Control Systems. However, partially due to behind-the-scenes pressure from Microsoft, Be was not successful in getting top-tier OEMs to bundle BeOS with their hardware - only [[Hitachi, Ltd.|Hitachi]] and [[AST Research|AST]] (who were major in Europe at the time) did so - which Gassée saw as fundamental to their success.

At the end of 1999, Be had a "focus shift," giving their desktop OS away for free (with commercial distributions sold by third-party vendors, similar to Linux distributions) to focus on [[BeIA]], a build of BeOS specifically targeted to [[internet appliance]]s. The company lost several employees who disagreed with this strategy and who had no desire to work on an appliance OS.{{Citation needed|date=July 2008}} While there was vendor interest in BeIA and at least one shipping product based on it (the [[Sony eVilla]]), the market for internet appliances proved to be nearly non-existent, and Be laid off most of its employees in 2001, with its assets and the remaining engineers being bought by [[Palm, Inc.]] for $11 million that August. Gassée stayed on through that transition, but left in January 2002.

===2002–present: After Be, Inc.===
After leaving Be, Gassée served as president and CEO of Computer Access Technology Corporation (CATC), a company which made network protocol analyzers, but left within a year (CATC was purchased in fall 2004 by LeCroy Corporation, a competitor). Gassée resurfaced as a general partner at Allegis Capital, a venture capital fund based in [[Palo Alto, California]], where he is still in position.

In November 2004, Gassée became chairman of [[Access Systems Americas|PalmSource, Inc.]], where several former Be executives and engineers still worked. BeOS technology was being worked on for use in [[Palm OS]] "Cobalt" (Version 6), but as of February 2006, there were no major customers—including Palm, Inc. itself—who have committed to using the Cobalt release.

In March 2006, he started writing a French-language [[blog]]; it was active for a month and contains four entries.

In 2009, he started contributing regularly to the Monday Note blog, a newsletter covering the intersection of media and technology which is now a part of [[Medium (website)|Medium]].<ref>[http://www.mondaynote.com/ Monday Note blog]</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://mondaynote.com/@gassee Monday Note postings]
* [http://gassee.blog.20minutes.fr/ Jean-Louis Gassée's blog] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060327212214/http://gassee.blog.20minutes.fr/ |date=27 March 2006 }} {{in lang|fr}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080704114329/http://www.allegiscapital.com/team-gassee.html Jean-Louis Gassée's bio as General Partner of Allegis Capital]
* [http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/0620.html "How Jean Louis Gassée Changed the Mac's Direction" by Tom Hormby]
* [http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9902/msg00130.html Jean-Louis Gassée on why PC manufacturers don't sell non MS products]

{{Apple celeb}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gassee, Jean-Louis}}
[[Category:1944 births]]
[[Category:Apple Inc. executives]]
[[Category:Be Inc. people]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:French company founders]]

Jean-Louis Gassée - Revision history

imported>BeansS77: /* 2002–present: After Be, Inc. */