Today we recognise Apple as one of the leading companies in the world of high tech. This is despite its detractors. However, in the 1980s it launched a product that was such a failure that the company itself decided to bury 7,000 of these units.
This is the premise of the story of Bob Cook, who bought 7,000 Apple Lisa computers with the idea of modifying and reselling them. Unfortunately for him, before he could carry out his plan, the company took them back, destroyed them and buried them in a landfill.
The failure of Lisa. It was 1983 when Apple launched one of the first personal computers with a graphical user interface. Although the proposal sounded innovative, the product failed due to its high price of $10,000 and several technical drawbacks.
In addition, the Apple Lisa faced fierce competition: the Macintosh, which was much more affordable at $2,500, and computers from IBM. As a result, it only managed to sell 30,000 computers.
Shark’s mind. Finally, just two years after its launch, Apple decided to discontinue the project. This decision left a surplus of 7,000 computers in their inventory. Although the plan was not to sell them, they offered Bob Cook the opportunity to buy them.
Initially, Cook sought to become a distributor of Apple’s new products, but when he did not get the expected results, he decided to change his strategy. Instead of selling the latest models, he opted to market older computers at more affordable prices.
The ambition. Given that the Lisa was already technically obsolete, he decided to modernize it by integrating a new Macintosh operating system. First, he upgraded the floppy disk drive, increased the RAM and added a higher-capacity hard disk. In total, he invested $200,000 in upgrading the device.
But as we said at the beginning, before they could start selling the devices, Apple recovered all the units in 1989. Everything indicates that the company had a clause in its contract with Cook that allowed it to reclaim the computers at any time.
A radical decision. According to information provided by The Verge, Apple recovered the 7,000 Lisa units, destroyed them and buried them in a landfill in Logan, Utah. Of course, the company justified this decision on the grounds that it was beneficial for the business.
According to the company, it obtained a tax break of $34 for every $100 of depreciated value and avoided service costs for this equipment. However, Cook assumed that the real reason was different: Apple simply wanted to erase Lisa’s failure from the collective memory.
Truth uncertain. It is not clear whether Apple compensated Bob Cook for his investment or how many units were actually buried. Some sources of information state that the company only recovered 2,700 computers, which has led to discrepancies in the figures. One possible explanation is that Cook managed to sell some of the upgraded units, although the truth remains a mystery.
