NeXT

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NeXT Software, Inc.
The NeXT logo designed by Paul Rand.
The NeXT logo designed by Paul Rand.
Fate Bought by Apple, Inc.
Successor Apple, Inc.
Founded 1985 (California, Flag of the United States United States)
Defunct 1996
Location Redwood City, California
Flag of the United States United States
Industry Computer hardware
Computer software
Products NeXT Computer
NeXTcube
NeXTstation
NeXTdimension
NeXTSTEP
OPENSTEP
WebObjects
Key people Steve Jobs, Chairman and CEO
Ross Perot, Director
John Patrick Crecine, Director
Avie Tevanian, VP of Engineering
Mitchell Mandich, VP of Sales and Services
Peak size 240 (1993)[1] employees
For other meanings, see Next.

NeXT Software, Inc. (formerly NeXT Computer, Inc.) was a computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets.

NeXT was founded in 1985 by Steve Jobs after his resignation from Apple Computer. In addition to its hardware, NeXT developed the NEXTSTEP operating system, later retooled as a programming environment capable of running on several different operating systems, most notably Solaris. This put NEXTSTEP in direct competition with Windows NT and Cairo, a vaporware object-oriented version of Windows NT. In 1993, NeXT withdrew from the hardware business and, on December 20, 1996, was bought by Apple for US$400 million.[2] Parts of NeXT's software were later used as the foundation for Mac OS X.[3]

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] 1985–1986: Early years

In 1984, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was the head of Apple's SuperMicro division, which was responsible for the development of the Macintosh and Lisa personal computers. The division failed to release upgraded versions of the Macintosh and most of the Macintosh Office.[4] As a result, sales plummeted,[5] and Apple was forced to write off millions of dollars in unsold inventory.[6] Apple CEO John Sculley was forced to oust Jobs from power at Apple, replacing him with Jean-Louis Gassée in 1985.[7] Later that year, Jobs began a power struggle to regain control of the company. The board of directors sided with Sculley, while Jobs toured Europe and the Soviet Union on behalf of Apple.[8][9]

The Macintosh had been successful on university campuses mostly because of the Apple University Consortium, which sold more than $50 million in computers by February of 1984.[10] The Apple University Consortium allowed students and institutions to buy the computers at significant discounts.[11][12] In his role as chairman, Jobs visited university buying departments, and also faculty members to sell Macintoshes.[13] Jobs met Paul Berg, a Nobel Laureate, at a luncheon held in Silicon Valley to honor François Mitterrand.[14][9] Berg was frustrated by the expense of teaching students about recombinant DNA from textbooks instead of in the wet lab. The wet labs were prohibitively expensive for lower level courses. Berg suggested to Jobs that he use his influence at Apple to create a 3M workstation, named so because they had more than one megabyte of RAM, a megapixel display and megaflop performance.[9]

Jobs was intrigued by Berg's concept for a workstation and contemplated starting a higher education computer company in the Fall of 1985. After several months of being sidelined at Apple, he resigned on Friday, September 13, 1985, telling the board of directors that his new company would not compete with Apple and might even consider licensing its designs back to Apple to market under the Macintosh brand.[9] Jobs was joined by former Apple employees Bud Tribble, George Crow, Rich Page, Susan Barnes, Susan Kare, and Dan’l Lewin and named his new company Next Computer, Inc. After consulting with major educational buyers from around the country (including a follow-up meeting with Paul Berg), a tentative specification was drawn up. The workstation would be powerful enough to run wet lab simulations and cheap enough for freshmen to use in their dorm rooms.[15]

Before the specifications were finished, Apple sued NeXT for "nefarious schemes" to take advantage of insider information its cofounders were privy to.[16][14] Jobs remarked, "It is hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300-plus people couldn't compete with six people in blue jeans."[14] The suit was eventually dismissed before trial, but was a major boon for Next's image in the computer industry.

Jobs recruited graphic designer Paul Rand in 1986 to create a brand identity for Next for $100,000. Rand created a 100 page brochure detailing everything about the brand, including the precise angle the cube logo was to be tilted (28°) and a brand new name, NeXT.[17] The first major outside investment was from Ross Perot, who originally saw NeXT employees and Jobs featured on The Entrepreneurs, a television show.[9] He decided to invest US$20 million in 1987 for 16% of NeXT's stock, pricing the company at $125 million. He subsequently joined the board of directors in 1988.[18]

[edit] 1987–1993: NeXT Computer, Inc.

By mid-1986, it was clear that no existing operating system (OS) would be able to meet their tentative specification for an object-oriented programming environment and user interface. This forced a major change in the business plan: not only would NeXT create an object-oriented programming environment, they would need to build hardware and a Unix-like Mach-based OS on which the toolkit would run.[4] A team led by Avie Tevanian, one of the Mach engineers at Carnegie Mellon University who had since joined the company, were to develop the operating system, whilst the hardware division led by Rich Page, one of the cofounders who had previously led the Apple Lisa team, were to develop and design the hardware. The name of the company was changed to NeXT Computer, Inc..

A NeXTcube with the built-in magneto-optical drive and magnesium enclosure.
A NeXTcube with the built-in magneto-optical drive and magnesium enclosure.

NeXT's workstation was named simply the "NeXT Computer" and featured a distinctive case designed by frogdesign[19] which led to its nickname of "the Cube". It was based on the new 25 MHz Motorola 68030 Central processing unit (CPU). The Motorola 88000 RISC chip was originally considered, but the needed quantity was not available at the time.[20]

The NeXT Computer was slower than many Unix workstations becoming available at that time, but cost about half as much[citation needed]. It included 8 MB of random access memory (RAM), a 256 MB MO drive, Ethernet, NuBus and a 17-inch MegaPixel grayscale display measuring 1120×832 pixels. Meanwhile, a typical PC included 640 KiB of RAM, the 8086, 8088, 286 or 386 CPU, a 640×350 16-color or 720×348 monochrome display, a 10 to 20 megabyte hard drive and no networking capabilities.

At the time, most workstations and high-end personal computers shipped with a hard drive between the size of 10 and 40 MB. Floppy disks were used to load the OS and additional software. This was becoming a problem, as the user needed to swap between floppy disks to load an ever-growing number of applications. At the time, a 640 MB drive cost approximately US$5,000. In an attempt to solve this issue, the NeXT Computer used a removable-medium 256 MB magneto-optical drive (MO) manufactured by Canon. These drives were relatively new to the market, the NeXT being the first computer to use them. They were much cheaper than hard drives but they were slower and made it impossible to move files between computers without a network since there was only one magneto-optical drive on the cube.

By 1987, NeXT's first factory was completed in Fremont, California; it was capable of producing 150,000 machines per year.[14] Prototype workstations were shown to standing ovations on October 12, 1988, and several magazines reviewed the system — all concentrating on the hardware. By 1989, the machines were in testing, and NeXT started selling limited numbers to universities with a beta version of the OS installed. When asked if he was upset that the computer's debut was delayed by several months, Jobs responded, "Late? This computer is five years ahead of its time!"[21]

In 1988, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates commented on the NeXTcube: "He [Steve Jobs] put a microprocessor in a box. So what?". He was later asked if he intended to develop for the NeXT platform, replying "Develop for it? I'll piss on it."[14] In February 1989, Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy was asked what he thought of the NeXTcube, replying, "it's the wrong operating system, the wrong processor, and the wrong price."[14]

BusinessLand, a large office-supply chain which had a large sales force that targeted large companies sold Compaq personal computers, which did not have a huge sales force to counter IBM, the company abruptly stopped selling the brand. After BusinessLand stopped selling Compaq computers in 1989, NeXT struck a deal to sell the NeXT Computer in select markets and its successors nationwide, a drastic move from NeXT's original business model to only sell directly to students and educational institutions.[22] BusinessLand founder David Norman predicted that sales of the NeXT Computer would surpass sales of Compaq PC's after 12 months.[23]

A NeXTstation with the original keyboard, mouse and the NeXT MegaPixel monitor.
A NeXTstation with the original keyboard, mouse and the NeXT MegaPixel monitor.

Canon invested US$100 million in 1989, a 16.67% stake.[24] The machines were finally released on the retail market in 1990, for the price of US$9,999. At the time Jobs was concerned that the market was quickly stratifying and the window of opportunity to introduce any new platform was rapidly closing. NeXT’s original investor Ross Perot resigned from the board of directors in June 1991 after losing confidence in the company.

The magneto-optical drive was expensive and had performance and reliability problems despite being faster than a floppy drive. Disks cost about US$100 each, and the drive was not sufficient to run as the primary medium running the NeXTSTEP operating system. After a few years, most of the magneto-optical drives had failed and become useless. In 1990, NeXT released a second generation of workstations in an attempt to solve these problems, by replacing the magneto-optical drive with a 2.88 MB floppy drive. The new range comprised a revised NeXT Computer, renamed the NeXTcube and a more conventional "pizza box" workstation, the NeXTstation. The new computers were cheaper and used the newer and faster 68040 processor. However, the 2.88 MB floppies were expensive and never took off as a successor to the 1.44 MB floppy. NeXT quickly realized this, and switched to CD-ROM. Color graphics options were also available for these models in the form of the NeXTstation Color and the NeXTdimension graphics processor board for the NeXTcube.

In 1992, NeXT launched "Turbo" variants of the NeXTcube and NeXTstation with a 33 MHz 68040 and maximum RAM capacity increased to 128 MB.

NeXT's long-term aim was to migrate to a RISC architecture; the project was referred to as the NeXT RISC Workstation or NRW. Initially the NRW was to be based on the Motorola 88110 processor, but due to a lack of confidence in Motorola's commitment to the 88k architecture, it was later redesigned around dual PowerPC 601s. [25] [26] Pre-production motherboards and enclosures were produced, but the NRW did not enter production before NeXT exited the hardware market.

The first issue of NeXTWORLD magazine debuted in 1991. It was published in San Francisco by Integrated Media, and edited by Michael Miley and later Dan Ruby. It was the first and only mainstream periodical to discuss NeXT computers, operating system and software. Publication was ceased in 1994, after four volumes had been released.[27] A NeXTWORLD Expo followed as a developer conference, held in 1991 and 1992 at the San Francisco Civic Center and in 1993 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, with Steve Jobs as the keynote speaker.[28] NeXT sold 20,000 computers in 1992 (controversially, NeXT counted upgrade motherboards on backorder as sales), a small number compared to their competitors. The company reported annual sales of US$140 million, encouraging Canon to invest a further $30 million to keep the company afloat.[29]

The NeXT Computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the world's first Web server.
The NeXT Computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the world's first Web server.

Several developers used the NeXT platform to write programs that would make them famous. Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXT Computer in 1991 to create the first web browser and web server, the beginning of the World Wide Web as it is known today.[30] Also, in the early 1990s, John Carmack used a NeXTcube to build two of his pioneering games: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Altsys re-wrote their drawing program FreeHand (then at version 3) for NeXTstep, adding many page layout features and marketing as Altsys Virtuoso, versions 1 and 2; ultimately v2 was then ported back to Windows and the Mac OS as FreeHand 4.

A number of programs shipped for NeXT computers, including the Lotus Improv spreadsheet program, WorldWideWeb, the world's first web browser, and Mathematica. The systems also shipped with a number of smaller applications built in such as the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Oxford Quotations, the complete works of William Shakespeare, and the Digital Librarian search engine to access them all.

In all, some 50,000 NeXT machines were sold.[31] This was a tiny segment of the market, and proved Jobs' own words prophetic. Although the lack of success by other new desktop platforms (such as the BeBox) suggests that the age of unique hardware designs was over, it is an open question as to whether the systems would have been more successful had they avoided the performance and price problems by including a hard drive in the first machines, and had found a more cost-effective RAM setup.

[edit] 1993–1996: NeXT Software, Inc.

NeXTSTEP, the operating system used by the NeXTcube and NeXTstation.
NeXTSTEP, the operating system used by the NeXTcube and NeXTstation.

NeXT started porting the NeXTSTEP operating system to the Intel platform in 1992. Work also began on replacing the 68000 series CPU's with the new PowerPC, a joint processor platform created by Apple, IBM and Motorola. In 1993, NeXT dropped their hardware business and re-named to NeXT Software, Inc., laying off 300 employees of 540 total employees; they also negotiated to sell the hardware business including the Fremont factory to Canon.[1] Canon later pulled out of the deal. By late 1993, the Intel port of NeXTSTEP was complete, and version 3.1, also known as NeXTSTEP 486, was released. Work on the PowerPC machines was stopped along with all hardware production. Before its release, Chrysler planned to buy 3,000 copies of the NeXTSTEP 486 operating system in 1992.[32] Also in 1993, CEO of Sun Microsystems Scott McNealy announced plans to invest US$10 million in NeXT, and use its software in future Sun systems.[33]

NeXTSTEP 3.x was later ported to PA-RISC[34] and SPARC based platforms, for a total of four versions including NeXTSTEP/NeXT (for NeXT's 68k "black boxes"), NeXTSTEP/Intel, NeXTSTEP/PA-RISC and NeXTSTEP/SPARC. Although these ports were not widely used, NeXTSTEP gained popularity at institutions such as the National Reconnaissance Office, Central Intelligence Agency, First Chicago NBD, Swiss Bank Corporation, and other organizations due to its programming model.

NeXT partnered with Sun Microsystems to create OpenStep, which was NeXTSTEP without the Mach-based Unix kernel. When it was founded, NeXT originally intended to sell a toolkit running on top of other operating systems, but ventured into hardware instead. After dropping their hardware business, NeXT returned to selling a toolkit to run on other OSes. New products based on OpenStep continued to ship, including OpenStep Enterprise, a version that ran on Microsoft's Windows NT.

The company also launched WebObjects, a platform for building large-scale dynamic web applications. It became very successful, and quickly surpassed NeXTSTEP as NeXT's biggest money maker. Many large businesses including Dell, Disney and BBC used the WebObjects software,[35] and Apple still uses it for their iTunes Store in addition to the majority of their main website.[36]

[edit] 1996: Acquisition by Apple

On December 20, 1996, Apple Computer announced its intention to purchase NeXT for approximately US$400 million in cash (returned to the initial investors) and 1.5 million Apple shares, which went to Steve Jobs.[37] The main purpose of the acquisition was to use NeXTSTEP as a foundation to replace the outdated Mac OS. Apple preferred this move to either the pursuit of in-house Copland efforts or the purchase of BeOS. Jobs returned to Apple as a consultant in 1997, and then became the interim CEO[38]. In 2000, he took the CEO position full-time.[39]

Jobs brought with him most of the NeXT executives, who replaced their Apple counterparts. Over the next four years, the NeXTSTEP operating system was ported to the PowerPC architecture, and the Intel version and the OpenStep Enterprise toolkit for Windows were kept in sync. The operating systems were code-named Rhapsody,[40] while the toolkit for development on all platforms was given the moniker Yellow Box. Apple added many of their facilities and tools to Rhapsody, including QuickTime and ColorSync. For backwards compatibility, Apple added the Blue Box to the Mac version of Rhapsody; this allowed existing Mac applications to be run in a self-contained environment.[41]

Rhapsody for Intel disappeared after two beta releases and the PowerPC version became Mac OS X Server 1.0. Two years later, a consumer version was released as Mac OS X 10.0. The server version was brought into sync soon after. The OpenStep toolkit was renamed from Yellow Box to Cocoa. Rhapsody's Blue Box was re-named Classic Environment. At the insistence of existing Mac developers, Apple included an updated version of the original Macintosh toolbox that allowed existing Mac applications integrated access to the environment without the constraints of Blue Box; this was named Carbon. Many interface features from NeXTSTEP were carried over into Mac OS X, including the Dock, the Services menu, the Finder's "browser" view, the text system (NSText) and system-wide selectors for fonts and colors.

NeXTSTEP's processor-independent capabilities were completely retained in Mac OS X. Every version was secretly compiled onto both the PowerPC and Intel x86 architectures, even though only PowerPC versions were released — except for Darwin, the open sourced foundation of Mac OS X, for which both versions were released. On June 6, 2005, Apple publicly announced that, starting in 2006, Macs would be based on Intel CPUs instead of PowerPCs, returning the NeXT software back to the platform to which it was ported in 1993.[42] Apple's Intel-based hardware transition was completed in August 2006.

[edit] Corporate culture

Jobs had been stymied by Apple's corporate structure and was determined to avoid the bureaucratic infighting that had led to his resignation. The changes ranged from a health insurance plan that offered benefits to not only married couples, but unmarried couples and same-sex couples to a completely new corporate nomenclature.[43] At Apple, secretaries were area associates, but Jobs took it a step further and abandoned conventional corporate structures,[43] instead making NeXT a community with members instead of employees.[43]

The office space and salary plans also contributed to the NeXT 'community'. Jobs found luxurious office space in Palo Alto on Deer Creek Road,[44] occupying a glass and concrete building, which featured a staircase by I. M. Pei.[44] The first floor was outfitted with hardwood flooring and huge worktables where the workstations would be assembled. Jobs wanted to avoid the inventory errors that had partly caused his ouster from Apple, so NeXT used just in time manufacturing (JIT).[44] The company would contract out for all of the major components, such as motherboards and cases, and have the finished components shipped to the first floor for assembly. The second floor was the office space, which had an open floor plan. The only enclosed rooms were Jobs' office and a few conference rooms.[44]

As NeXT grew, and it became clear that the just in time manufacturing model would not be practical, new office space was rented on the San Francisco Bay in Redwood City.[43] The space, designed by I. M. Pei, was dominated by a floating staircase with no visible supports. The open floor plan was retained, though it was now very luxurious, including $10,000 sofas and Ansel Adams prints.[43]

There were only two different salaries at NeXT until the early 1990s.[43] Team members who joined before 1986 were paid US$75,000 while those who joined afterwards were paid $50,000. This caused a few awkward situations where managers were paid less than their employees. Employees were given performance reviews and raises every six months because of the spartan salary plans. To foster openness, all employees had full access to the payrolls, though few employees ever took advantage of the privilege.[43]

The payroll schedule was also very different from other companies in Silicon Valley at the time. Instead of getting paid twice a month at the end of the pay period, employees would get paid once a month in advance.

[edit] Impact on the computer industry

Despite NeXT's lack of commercial success, it had a large impact on the computer industry. Object oriented programming and user interfaces became more common after the release of the NeXTcube and NeXTSTEP in 1988.[45] Other companies started work to duplicate the "top to bottom" OO system of the NeXT, which was considered by many in the industry to be the "next big thing".

One such project started at Apple around 1989, with the goal of building a NeXT-like but all-Mac operating system. Over the years the project was shuffled around, and eventually became part of the Apple-IBM Taligent system. Taligent was delivered in 1995 as a development platform only (as opposed to a complete operating system), but saw little use and disappeared soon after.

Microsoft began its Cairo project, officially announced in 1991, which was to bring an object oriented user interface to a consumer version of Windows NT. The project was ultimately abandoned with some elements rolled into other products. By 1994, Microsoft and NeXT began collaborating on a Windows NT-port of OpenStep[46] which was never released.

WebObjects never became very popular because of its initial high price of $50,000,[47] but it also had an impact disproportionate to its popularity. Websites including Dell's online store, Disney, BBC News and the iTunes Store adopted the software to create dynamic webpages.[35] Though WebObjects was not the first, it heralded the advent of popular dynamic websites and is now bundled with Mac OS X Server and Xcode.[47]

NeXT's most notable impact on personal computer users came in the form of Mac OS X. Apple estimated that 10 million Mac users moved to the OPENSTEP-based Mac OS X by 2004.[48] Mac OS X retains many of the user interface and technical elements of NeXTStep, including the Dock, object oriented file browser, the XNU microkernel and relative processor independence. Notably absent are Display PostScript, which had been discontinued by 2001 and replaced with Quartz, and tear-off menus.[49]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "NeXT Inc. to Drop Hardware 300 losing jobs in strategy shift", The San Francisco Chronicle, February 9, 1993. 
  2. ^ Duncan, Geoff (1996). What System Comes NeXT? (HTML). TidBITS.
  3. ^ Apple Computer, Inc. Finalizes Acquisition of NeXT Software Inc.. Press release. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  4. ^ a b Hormby, Thomas (2006). The NeXT years: Steve Jobs before his triumphant return to Apple (HTML). Low End Mac.
  5. ^ Rose, Frank (1990). West of Eden. Viking, pg. 193. ISBN 0-670-81278-1. 
  6. ^ Rose 1990, pg. 227
  7. ^ Rose 1990, pg. 291
  8. ^ Young, Jeffrey S.; Simon, William L. (2005). iCon: Steve Jobs. John Wiley & Sons, pg. 118. ISBN 0-471-72083-6. 
  9. ^ a b c d e Hormby, Thomas (2006). Good-bye Woz and Jobs: How the first Apple era ended in 1985 (HTML). Low End Mac.
  10. ^ Morrison, Ann. "NeXT, Microsoft tackle objects: NT to gain OpenStep port.", Fortune, February 20, 1984. 
  11. ^ Stross, Randall (1993). Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing. Athenium, 56. ISBN 0-689-12135-0. 
  12. ^ Stross 1993, pg. 67
  13. ^ Hertzfeld, Andy. What's a Megaflop?. Folklore.org. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
  14. ^ a b c d e f Stross 1993, pg. 72
  15. ^ Deutschman, Alan (200). Second Coming of Steve Jobs. Broadway Books, pg. 64. ISBN 0-7679-0432-X. 
  16. ^ Deutschman pg. 44
  17. ^ Heller, Steven; Helfand, Jessica; Lois, George (2000). Paul Rand. Phaidon Press, 256. ISBN 0-7148-3994-9. 
  18. ^ Young, Jeffrey S.; Simon, William L. (2005). iCon: Steve Jobs. John Wiley & Sons, pg. 134. ISBN 0-471-72083-6. 
  19. ^ Barlow, John. The NeXT and Former King: 1991. The WELL. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  20. ^ Hormby, Thomas (2005). Full Circle: A Brief History of NeXT (HTML). Low End Mac.
  21. ^ Standefer, Robert (2004). "Evolution of Mac OS X", Macintosh Switcher's Guide. Wordware Publishing, pg.33. ISBN 1-55622-045-6. 
  22. ^ "Businessland Deal Seen for Next Inc.", REUTERS, March 25, 1989. 
  23. ^ Shaffer, Richard. "NeXT means business now.", Personal Computing, General Reference Center Gold, July 1989. 
  24. ^ Vance McCarthy. "Steve Jobs just says no.", Fortune, General Reference Center Gold, July 17, 1993. 
  25. ^ Simson L. Garfinkel (March 1993). Hardware was great while it lasted. NeXTWORLD. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
  26. ^ Dan Lavin (March 1993). Canon to buy NeXT factory, design center. NeXTWORLD. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
  27. ^ SERIAL ARCHIVE LISTINGS for NeXTWORLD. The Online Books Page. University of Pennsylvania Library. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  28. ^ NextStep users seek safety in big numbers. "NeXT makes play for corporate market", PC Week, January 27, 1992. 
  29. ^ Young, Jeffrey S.; Simon, William L. (2005). iCon: Steve Jobs. John Wiley & Sons, pg. 200. ISBN 0-471-72083-6. 
  30. ^ Berners-Lee, Tim. The WorldWideWeb browser (HTML). Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  31. ^ NeXT Fans Give Up the Ghost. Wired News (2005). Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  32. ^ "Next Computer Close To a Deal With Chrysler", The San Francisco Chronicle, September 8, 1992. 
  33. ^ "Sun invests in Next, which will license NextStep OS for Sparc.", InfoWorld, General Reference Center Gold, November 29,1993. 
  34. ^ Sherman, Lee (2004-04), "First NeXT RISC Workstation", NeXTWORLD, <http://www.simson.net/ref/NeXT/nextworld/94.4/94.4.Apr.PA-RISC1.html>
  35. ^ a b Evans, Johnny (June 16, 2005). Apple releases WebObjects as a free application (HTML). MacCentral.
  36. ^ Dalrymple, Jim (June 2, 2003). Apple releases WebObjects as a free application (HTML). Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  37. ^ Apple Computer (December 20, 1996). Apple Computer, Inc. Agrees to Acquire NeXT Software Inc.. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  38. ^ Coventry, Joshua (2006). Beleaguered: Apple Bottoms Out, 1996-98 (HTML). Low End Mac. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  39. ^ Davis, Jim; Michael Kanellos (January 5, 2000). Jobs takes Apple CEO job full time (HTML). CNet. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  40. ^ Britton, Arlen (August 6, 1997). What's NeXT? (HTML). MacObserver. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  41. ^ Knight, Dan (2006-09-17). Red Box, Blue Box, Yellow Box (HTML). Low End Mac. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  42. ^ Apple Computer (June 6, 2005). Apple to Use Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006. Retrieved on 2007-01-04.
  43. ^ a b c d e f g Stross, Randall (1993). Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing. Athenium, 80. ISBN 0-689-12135-0. 
  44. ^ a b c d Linzmayer, Owen W. (2004). Apple Confidential 2.0. No Starch Press, 323. ISBN 1-59327-010-0. 
  45. ^ Smith, Carrie. "NeXT means business now.", Wall Street & Technology, General Reference Center Gold, May 1994. 
  46. ^ Smith, Carrie. "NeXT, Microsoft tackle objects: NT to gain OpenStep port.", PC Week, General Reference Center Gold, November 7, 1994. 
  47. ^ a b Stewart, Graham (2006). Happy Birthday: WebObjects at 10. MacObserver. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
  48. ^ Apple Computer, Inc. (January 6, 2004). Mac OS X Users Approach 10 Million. Press release. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
  49. ^ Siracusa, John. Mac OS X Update: Quartz & Aqua. ArsTechnica. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
v • d • e
NeXT (now defunct)
Corporate Directors: Steve Jobs · Ross Perot · John Patrick Crecine (as of 1988)
Hardware Products: NeXTstation · NeXTcube · NeXTdimension · NeXT MegaPixel Display · NeXT Laser Printer
Software Products: NeXTSTEP · OPENSTEP · WebObjects
Annual Sales: $140 million USD ( FY 1992) · Employees: 240 (1993) · Website: www.next.com (web archive)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT"
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