By mid-April 1997, Apple's stock had cratered and CEO Gil Amelio's turnaround efforts were failing, setting the stage for Steve Jobs's return later that year following Apple's acquisition of NeXT. The company's near-death spiral in this period set up one of the most dramatic corporate turnarounds in business history.
Apple had just posted a $708 million loss for its fiscal second quarter, one of the largest in Silicon Valley history to that point, as clone-maker competition and a bloated product line ate away at its core Macintosh business. Analysts openly speculated the company would be acquired or simply fold within a year or two.
Gil Amelio, brought in to right the ship, had already engineered the purchase of NeXT, Steve Jobs's post-Apple company, months earlier — a deal made ostensibly for its operating system technology but which quietly returned Jobs to Apple's orbit as an adviser.
By September 1997, Amelio would be forced out and Jobs installed as interim CEO, beginning the run that produced the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, and transformed Apple from a near-bankrupt has-been into, briefly, the most valuable company on Earth.
Key people: Gil Amelio, Steve Jobs