Among the dozens (or hundreds) of acquisitions made by Apple, some of you (who follow the MacMagazine longer) should remember that, in early 2010, the Cupertino giant closed a $ 275 million to acquire the Quattro Wireless, a company specializing in mobile advertising. A few months later, that year, Apple decided to end Quattro’s activities in favor of a new platform: the iAd.
Despite all this turmoil, the backstage and details of Apple’s purchase of Quattro were kept within four walls – apparently for no specific reason. Now, the founder of the then advertising company, Andy Miller, provided an (extensive) interview – via 9to5Mac – in which he tells an untold story of the Quattro acquisition process and what the stressful job was like with the co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs.
About the acquisition of Quattro, Miller says that Jobs called him «out of nowhere» in 2009 to make a proposal. Initially, the executive thought it was just a joke (probably because of the imaginary phone calls attributed to the Apple CEO), but later Jobs contacted Miller again, calling him to a meeting.
This meeting also had its adventures: in an intimidating attitude, Miller recalled that, by agreeing to the acquisition price of $ 325 million, Jobs “stepped back” in the agreement and set the purchase price at $ 275 million, threatening to ban the SDK from Quattro on iOS if the new offer wasn’t accepted – and we already know how it ended.
As you can imagine, the adoption of iAd did not happen overnight, and basically since the incorporation of Quattro into Apple, Miller’s team has been tasked with creating examples of ads that demonstrate the platform’s potential. In one of these screenings for the Apple executive team, Miller recalled the following passage, which, while tragic, ended in a comical way:
After about 10 minutes [de apresentação], everyone was laughing except Steve, and I thought he was crazy. Jobs had hated the brands for being of low quality and not reflecting Apple’s sophisticated aesthetic. After several rounds like this, he called me into his office and asked for a new demonstration. He finally told me to get out of his way and look for the marketing department, which would organize better ads. I quickly collected my belongings and, without realizing it, accidentally put Steve’s laptop and mouse in my bag.
Upon arriving at Apple’s marketing department, Miller noted that the team was already working on ads with brands they knew Jobs would like (like Disney, Dyson and Target). However, during the process, two security guards entered the room and handed him a phone – on the other end of the line was Jobs, who was categorical when asking him about the “theft” of his notebook.
Miller explained the mistake and managed to convince Jobs that he had not taken his notebook on purpose, nor seen his secrets, returning it to security. Despite this, he thought he was going to be fired and said that only after all this fuzarca, he noticed that he had not returned Jobs’ mouse – which he said he kept until today.
Can you imagine? ?
