Though his company is getting beaten badly by its chief competitor here at Harvard, the head of Apple Computer yesterday described his firm's new Macintosh computer as a triumph of technology and marketing.

In a speech to over 400 people gathered in the Business School's Burden Hall. John Sculley, Apple's chief executive officer, said the computer was responsible for Apple's turnaround in its "life and death struggle" with IBM.

The Macintosh is easier to use than comparable IBM personal computer, and is designed with the non-expert in mind, said Sculley, who is considered responsible for turning Apple from a fledgling operation into a $1.5 billion corporation.

Intuition

The personal computer needs to be as intuitive as a telephone," he said, calling Apple computers "tools, for the knowledge worker."

Sculley, in what amounted at times to a sales pitch for his company's new machine, also cited the company's marketing campaign--which amounted to more than $100 million--as integral to the Macintosh's success.

One of the most crucial marketing decisions, he said, was Apple's decision to offer discounted Macintoshes to students at 24 colleges nationwide, including Harvard.

"We're having a phenomenal success in the universities," he said.

At Home

Despite Sculley's claims about Apple at Schools, the Macintosh is doing comparatively poorly at Harvard, where, according to statistics at the Office for Information Technology, students, faculty, and administrators are buying IBM products from the University at four times the rate they are buying Apple.

In addition, the Business School, which has sharply stepped up the use of computers in its courses, has recommended that students buy IBM portable personal computers.

In a brief interview after his speech, though. Sculley said. "Maybe we won't sell Macintoshes at Harvard Business School, but we are at Stanford."