Today in 1983, Apple introduced Lisa, a $9,995 PC for business users.
Many of its innovations such as the graphical user interface, a mouse, and document-centric computing, were taken from the Alto computer developed at Xerox PARC, introduced as the $16,595 Xerox Star in 1981. Steve Jobs recalled that he and the Lisa team were very relieved when they saw the Xerox Star: “We knew they hadn’t done it right and that we could, at a fraction of the price.”
“The Apple raid on Xerox PARC is sometimes described as one of the biggest heists in the chronicles of industry,” wrote Walter Isaacson in Steve Jobs. He quotes Jobs on the subject:
Picasso had a saying–“good artists copy, great artists steal”–and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas–and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas… They [Xerox management] were copier-heads who had no clue about what a computer could do… Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry.
Says Isaacson: “…there is more to it than that… In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important.” True, but given that Lisa didn’t become a commercial success, “execution” obviously means much more than “getting the product right.”
Byte magazine called the Lisa "the most important development in computers in the last five years, easily outpacing [the IBM PC]." But the intended business customers were reluctant to purchase the Lisa because of its high launch price of $9,995, making it largely unable to compete with the less expensive IBM PCs. Steve Jobs' announcement that Apple will release a superior system in the future which would not be compatible with the Lisa didn’t help.
The release of the Apple Macintosh in January 1984, which was faster and much less expensive, was the most significant factor in the demise of the Lisa.