Did NeXT save Apple?
If you believe you learn more from your failures than your successes, then the leasons learned and experience gained at NeXT allowed Steve to grow into a true multi-national high tech executive, and therefore prepared him to carry Apple to the heights it enjoys today.
NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP could run on several CPUs, including those from Intel. These foundations were the reason Apple could do the impossible: smoothly convert an entire product line based on Motorola and PowerPC to Intel in 10 months and bring all the third party applications with them! To my knowledge, this is a feat never before accomplished in our industry.
Sections to be added:
- Section on stability and NeXT foundations
- Section on the importance of excellent SW development tools for creating programs for small markets.
- Section of the mish mash of Apple products, competing with each other at the time of the NeXT acquisition and how that was reduced to a very few well focussed products.
- Section on the Senior NeXT staff and their positions at Apple six months after the acquisition. e.g. Avi Tavanian, etc. Apple bought NeXT, then NeXT took over Apple.