&gt; But former Apple CEO John Sculley&#x27;s most catastrophic mistake was committing the company&#x27;s computers to the PowerPC processor, while Microsoft, IBM, and Intel teamed up to make Windows run on the cheaper, more popular x86 chips.<p>This is wrong in many ways. PowerPC had better performance at that time, and Intel didn&#x27;t catch up until around 2000.<p>IBM didn&#x27;t help Microsoft to develop Windows. Instead, while Microsoft was working on MS-DOS and Windows, IBM partnered with Microsoft to develop OS&#x2F;2 and Presentation Manager. This partnership ended in 1990 and IBM kept on with OS&#x2F;2 for a while.<p>Also, IBM had no interest in making the x86 popular. In fact, they <i>originated</i> the PowerPC and teamed up with Apple and Motorola to make it. This alliance tried but failed to get the OS&#x2F;2 and Windows markets to switch to PowerPC.<p>EDIT: Actually, Sculley himself felt that the switch to PowerPC instead of x86 was a mistake. But he said this in 2003, ten years after he was fired from Apple. It didn&#x27;t seem like such a bad idea the time. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macworld.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;mac&#x2F;john-sculley-admits-intel-blunder-7045&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macworld.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;mac&#x2F;john-sculley-admits-intel...</a>