NeXT

NeXT Computer, Inc (become NeXT Software, Inc ) was a Entreprise of Informatique founded by Steve Jobs in 1985 after its departure of Apple.

Difficult beginnings

The original idea of Steve Jobs was to conceive Ordinateur S for the schools and academics. Its new business, to which five former employees of Apple unite, quickly profits from the financing of the American billionaire Ross Perot. Jobs, extremely concerned on the physical aspect of the computers, decides to give to its products an incomparable esthetics. They will be black cubes drawn by Hartmut Esslinger, and a logo with the original typography, imagined by Paul Rand, and symbolizing this form.

The goal of NeXT was the design, construction and the sale of Ordinateur S. But in complement of the material, placed under the responsibility of Rich Page, which took part in the launching of LISA at Apple, NeXT had to develop a specific Operating system for its computers. It is a team carried out by Avie Tevanian, one of the principal developers of the micronucleus Mach, which is charged to develop new the sytème, baptized NeXTSTEP, Of the French engineers like Jean-Marie Hullot and Bertrand Serlet joins the company then.

In 1987, the factory of production of NeXT, located at Fremont, was able to manufacture 150.000 machines per annum. Canon decides to invest 100 million dollars in the company, then IBM accepts finally, in 1989, to pour 65 million dollars to obtain the license of NeXTstep. This money re-entry makes it possible the company to be maintained with flood, but dissensions appear in the team and part of the executives leaves NeXT at the time when the first models of NeXT Cube are marketed. But the sales remain confidential. Canon, anxious of its investment, then injects 30 million dollars moreover in the company.

In June 1991, Ross Perot does not have any more confidence in the company and resigns of the board of directors. In 1992, Rich Page leaves NeXT. Canon must still subsidize the company, bringing 55 million additional dollars. But Jobs perseveres. On the whole, 50.000 NeXT machines will be sold. It is on a NeXT computer that Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web with CERN. On its side, John Carmack used a NeXT Cube to develop its two plays high-speed motorboats: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.

Material with the software

In spite of undeniable assets, like the directed Programming object (with the language Objectifies C), the environment of fast development Project Builder, the graphic waiter Display PostScript or the core Mach, NeXT does not succeed in selling, of sufficient number, its machines, innovating and of Esthétique neat, but expensive.

In February 1993, three years after the marketing of her first computers, Steve Jobs then decides to change course: NeXT will be devoted from now on only to the software. The manufacturing plant of the machines and the personnel charged with the material are taken again by Canon. NeXT passes from 530 to 200 employees.

NeXT Software , new name of NeXT Computer, marketed then the operating system NeXTSTEP adapted to different Processeur S (X86, PA-RISC and SPARC), then API OPENSTEP, in partnership with Sun Microsystems, making it possible to use the functions of NeXTSTEP above other systems, such as Microsoft Windows or Mac OS.

The last version of NeXTSTEP goes back to 1995. The team devotes itself more to the development of tools for Internet like WebObjects, an environment of fast development of Web services in Objective C, still used today for the ITunes Store.

A new breath for Apple

NeXT is finally repurchased in 1996 for 427 million dollars by Apple, which sought a new operating system for its computers Macintosh. Following this repurchase, Steve Jobs is found propelled with the head of Apple. A joke said at the time Apple had spent 400 million dollars to be made repurchase by NeXT.

The development team of NeXT works then on a new operating system, baptized Mac OS X, which is in fact an adaptation of NeXTSTEP. Apple also took again WebObjects and the development continued some to make of it an implementation of J2EE. Thus, one finds in Mac OS X the micronucleus Mach, the Objective C, the XCode Tools container, inter alia, Project Builder, and the functionalities of the graphic waiter, but using this time the environment pdf and either Display Postscript.

Sources

  • Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon, iCon , Wiley, 2005
  • Tom Hormby, The NeXT Years: Steve Jobs before His Triumphant Return to Apple , 2006 (online version)

External bond

  • Site concerning NeXT (Many photographs)

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