Filed under: Apple Corporate, Odds and ends, Apple, Blast From the Past, Apple History
Apple hires former Newton guru as new VP of Product Marketing
The New York Times Bits Blog is reporting that Michael Tchao, a member of the team that brought the Apple Newton MessagePad to market, is going back to work for Apple after a 15-year absence. In Tchao's new job as Vice President of Product Marketing, he'll be reporting to Apple Senior V.P. of Product Marketing Phil Schiller.For the past 7 years, Tchao has been General Manager of Nike's Techlab, which has been responsible for the Nike + iPod line as well as the online integration that makes nikeplus.com so powerful.
If you wanted to start doing a bit of speculating, it's interesting to note that Tchao was part of the team that was responsible for Apple's first tablet computer. Of course, the Newton platform wasn't exactly a huge success during its 5 years of life, owing primarily to its high price and (at least in the first versions) less-than-stellar handwriting recognition. Tchao wasn't in a marketing position at the time as the General Manager of Product Planning and Strategy for Apple's Personal Interactive Electronics group, and most of the marketing fumbles of the Newton era can be laid at the feet of the Apple execs in charge at the time.
Tchao certainly has the street cred as a tablet computing expert, with 5 patents to his name during his time with the Newton team. Although we don't know for sure at this time if Tchao has been tapped to resurrect tablet computing at Apple, his background both at Apple and Nike Techlab shows that he not only has the technical background to shepherd a new product to market, but the marketing savvy as well.
Welcome back, Mr. Tchao!
[via Mashable]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason said 2:11AM on 9-29-2009
Well, Apple hired back Jobs, and it was probably one of their greatest decisions ever.
Surely hiring Tchao back couldn't be a horrible decision either? Sometimes the best products are just a bit too ahead of the game...
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numpty said 6:26AM on 9-29-2009
I really don't get the hype around tablets, I'm afraid. The last thing I want to do with a computer is write on it. (Well, second-last : the last thing is probably "talk to it".)
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asif said 9:01AM on 9-30-2009
The Nike+ website isn't that great, buggy, very slow to fix or bring new features, it's not exactly a stellar resume.
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Drunken Economist said 8:54AM on 9-29-2009
Schiller needs some serious clue. Maybe Chao will help, maybe not.
But both gents having spotty records? Maybe that's 'synergy'.
As to the tablet thing, I can see them as interactive eBook readers with color and little more. It WOULD be nice to have more reading area and to run things like Eucalyptus on a bigger screen.
The question is, can Apple keep the price down and kill the Kindle?
The ONLY way I'd pay more is if it was MacOSX desktop OS or if it was easily jailbreak'able to that end. Otherwise big fat Meh.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
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Eric said 9:07AM on 9-29-2009
"less-than-stellar handwriting recognition."??? Really? Did you ever actually use it? The handwriting recognition may not have been perfect, but I have yet to come across anything even remotely as good (with the exception of OSX).
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oZ said 11:31AM on 9-29-2009
He said in the first version.
And, really, the recognition in Vista/Win7 is far better at this point. I know -- I use a tablet with both.
brombl said 2:39PM on 9-29-2009
I don't really think comparing Ink to the Newton is a good idea. I know Ink is based off of the Newton's handwriting recognition engine, but it just isn't as good in my experience. I suppose because the Newton was more trainable, whereas Ink is more or less just supposed to work… I've never gotten Ink to work reliably for me, whereas I can still use my Newton effortlessly…