Matthew Locke's role at Wallaby, defined by Peter and
Hank Towers, Wallaby's cofounder and vice chairman, was to act as
the company's business leader and Peter's assistant. While Peter
understood the power of his own vision and the importance of his
skill at inventing remarkable products, he admitted to himself
that he lacked the business experience to develop the company
from a handful of engineers to a large and profitable
organization. Which was why he had decided to hire Matthew Locke.
But something had gone wrong.
Matthew, for all of his management strength, did not fit in at
Wallaby the way Peter would have liked. Looking back, he
remembered Matthew's suggestion, about a year ago, that perhaps
Wallaby's portable computers could become more compatible with
ICP's systems. That was what had started Peter wondering if, in
the long run, Matthew was right for Wallaby. Dismissing Matthew's
idea as a naive insult, Peter only wished now that he had paid
better attention. How could Matthew think Wallaby should abandon
its founding vision of giving high technology power to the
individual with a personal computer or portable interactive
assistant in favor of creating mere peripherals that connected to
ICP's dictatorial, impersonal desktop and mainframe computers?
What's more, at about this time their friendship began to
deteriorate.
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