 Logo designed byPaul Rand | |
 Redwood City headquarters at 900 Chesapeake Drive, July 2022 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Founded | 1985; 40 years ago (1985) |
| Founder | Steve Jobs |
| Defunct | 1997; 28 years ago (1997) |
| Fate | Merged intoApple Computer, Inc. |
| Successor | Apple Inc. |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
Key people |
|
| Products | |
Number of employees | 530 (1993) |
| Website | next.com at theWayback Machine (archived 1997-04-12) |
NeXT, Inc. (laterNeXT Computer, Inc. andNeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered inRedwood City, California that specialized in computerworkstations forhigher education and business markets, and later developed web software. It was founded in 1985 by CEOSteve Jobs, theApple Computer co-founder who had been forcibly removed from Apple that year.[1][2] NeXT debuted with theNeXT Computer in 1988, and released theNeXTcube and smallerNeXTstation in 1990. The series had relatively limited sales, with only about 50,000 total units shipped. Nevertheless, theobject-oriented programming andgraphical user interface were highly influential trendsetters of computer innovation.
NeXT partnered withSun Microsystems to create aprogramming environment calledOpenStep, which decoupled theNeXTSTEP operating system's application layer to host it on third-party operating systems. In 1993, NeXT withdrew from the hardware industry to concentrate on marketingOPENSTEP for Mach, its own OpenStep implementation for several other computer vendors. NeXT developedWebObjects, one of the first enterpriseweb frameworks, and although its market appeal was limited by its high price ofUS$50,000 (equivalent to $103,000 in 2024), it is a prominent early example ofdynamic web pages rather thanstatic content.
Apple merged with NeXT in 1997 as part of a $427 million deal, including 1.5 million shares of Apple stock. The deal appointed Steve Jobs, then the chairman and CEO of NeXT, to an advisory role at Apple; and OPENSTEP for Mach was combined with theclassic Mac OS, to createRhapsody andMac OS X.
Many successful applications have lineage from NeXT, including thefirst web browser and the video gamesDoom andQuake.[3]
In 1985, Apple co-founder and CEOSteve Jobs led a division campaign called SuperMicro, which was responsible for developing theMacintosh andLisa computers. They were commercial successes on university campuses because Jobs had personally visited a few notable universities to promote his products, and because ofApple University Consortium, a discounted academic marketing program.[4]: 56, 67, 72 The Consortium had earned over $50 million on computer sales by February 1984.[5]
Jobs metPaul Berg, a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, at a luncheon inSilicon Valley held to honor President of FranceFrançois Mitterrand.[4]: 72 [6] Berg was frustrated by the time and expense of researchingrecombinant DNA viawet laboratories, and suggested that Jobs should use his influence to create a "3M computer" that is designed for higher education.[7][8]
Jobs was intrigued by Berg's concept of a workstation and contemplated starting a higher-education computer company in late 1985, amid increasing turmoil at Apple. Jobs's division did not release the upgraded versions of the Macintosh computer and much of theMacintosh Office software.[9] As a result, its sales plummeted,[10]: 193 and Apple was forced to write off millions of dollars in unsold inventory.[10]: 227 In 1985,John Sculley ousted Jobs from his executive role at Apple and replaced him withJean-Louis Gassée.[10]: 291 Later that year, Jobs began a power struggle to regain control over his company. Theboard of directors sided with Sculley, and Jobs took a business trip to Western Europe and the Soviet Union on behalf of Apple.[11]
In September 1985, after several months of being sidelined, Jobs resigned from Apple.[12] He told the board he was leaving to set up a new computer company, and that he would be taking several Apple employees from the SuperMicro division with him, but he also promised that his new company would not compete with Apple and might even consider licensing their designs to them under the Macintosh brand.[13]
Several former Apple employees followed him to NeXT, includingJoanna Hoffman,Bud Tribble,George Crow,Rich Page,Susan Barnes,Susan Kare, and Dan'l Lewin.[14] After consulting with major educational buyers from around the country, including a follow-up meeting with Paul Berg, a tentative specification for the workstation was drawn up. It was designed to be powerful enough to run wet lab simulations and affordable enough for dormitory rooms.[15] Before the specifications were finished, however, Apple sued NeXT on September 23, 1985, for "nefarious schemes" to take advantage of the cofounders'insider information.[4]: 75 [15]: 44 [14] Jobs argued, "It is hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300-plus people couldn't compete with six people in blue jeans."[16]: 207 The suit was eventually dismissed before trial.[4]: 75
In 1986, Jobs recruited graphic designerPaul Rand to create a brand identity for$100,000 (equivalent to $287,000 in 2024).[17] Jobs recalled, "I asked him if he would come up with a few options, and he said, 'No, I will solve your problem for you and you will pay me. You don't have to use the solution. If you want options go talk to other people.'"[18] Rand created a 20-page brochure detailing the brand, including the precise angle used for the logo (28°) and a new company name spelling, NeXT.[17]
I want some kid at Stanford to be able to cure cancer in his dorm room.
In mid-1986, NeXT changed its business plan to develop both hardware and software, rather than just workstations.Rich Page, a NeXT cofounder who formerly directed Apple's Lisa team, led a team to develop the hardware, whileMach kernel engineerAvie Tevanian led the development of NeXT's operating system,NeXTSTEP. NeXT's first factory was established inFremont, California in 1987, capable of manufacturing about 150,000 machines per year.[4]: 72 NeXT's first workstation is theNeXT Computer, nicknamed "the cube"[20] due to its distinctive magnesium one-foot (30 cm) cubic case. The case was designed byHartmut Esslinger and his team atFrog Design.[21][22]
In 1987,Ross Perot became NeXT's first major outside investor. He invested $20 million for 16% of NeXT's stock after seeing a segment about NeXT on the 1986PBS documentaryEntrepreneurs.[14] In 1988, he joined the company's board of directors.[23][24]
NeXT andAdobe collaborated onDisplay PostScript (DPS), a2D graphics engine that was released in 1987. NeXT engineers wrote an alternativewindowing engine edition to take full advantage of NeXTSTEP. NeXT engineers used DPS for on-screen graphics such as title bar and scroller for theuser-space windowinglibrary.[25]
The original design team anticipated completing the computer in early 1987 and launching it for$3,000 (equivalent to $8,300 in 2024) by mid-year.[26] On October 12, 1988, the NeXT Computer received standing ovations when it was revealed at a private gala event, "NeXT Introduction – the Introduction to the NeXT Generation of Computers for Education" at theLouise M. Davies Symphony Hall inSan Francisco, California. The following day, selected educators and software engineers were invited to attend the first public technical overview of the NeXT computer at the event "The NeXT Day" held at the San Francisco Hilton. The event gave developers interested in NeXT software an insight into theirarchitecture,object-oriented programming, and the NeXT Computer. The luncheon speaker was Steve Jobs.[27]
The first NeXT Computers were test launched in 1989, and then NeXT sold a limited number to universities with NeXTSTEP 0.9beta pre-installed.[28] Initially, this targeted the United Stateshigher-education institutions only, with a base price of$6,500 (equivalent to $16,000 in 2024).[20] The computer was widely reviewed in magazines, primarily the hardware portion. 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!"[29]
The NeXT Computer has the 25 MHzMotorola 68030central processing unit (CPU). TheMotorola 88000RISC chip was originally considered, but it was not available in sufficient quantities.[30] The computer has between 8 and 64MB ofrandom-access memory (RAM), a 256 MBmagneto-optical (MO) drive, a 40 MB (swap-only), 330 MB, or 660 MBhard disk drive,10BASE2Ethernet,NuBus, and a 17-inchMegaPixel grayscale display with 1120×832pixels. In 1989, a typical new PC,Macintosh, orAmiga computer included a few megabytes of RAM, a 640×480 16-color or 320x240 4,096-color display, a 10- to 20-megabyte hard drive, and fewnetworking capabilities.[31][32] It is the first computer to ship with a general-purpose DSP chip (Motorola 56001) on the motherboard. This supports sophisticated music and sound processing, including theMusic Kit software.[33]
The magneto-optical (MO) drive manufactured byCanon Inc. is the primarymass storage device. This drive technology was relatively new to the market, and the NeXT is the first computer to use it.[34] MO drives were cheaper but much slower than hard drives, with an averageseek time of 96 ms; Jobs negotiated Canon's initial price of $150 per blank MO disk so that they could sell at retail for only $50. The drive's design made it impossible to move files between computers without a network, because each NeXT Computer has only one MO drive and the disk can not be removed without shutting down the system.[34] The drive's limited speed and capacity makes it insufficient as NeXTSTEP's primary medium.[34]
In 1989, NeXT started a deal for formerCompaq reseller Businessland to sell the NeXT Computer in international markets. Selling through a retailer was a major change from NeXT's original business model of only selling directly to students and educational institutions.[35] Businessland founder David Norman predicted that sales of the NeXT Computer would surpass sales of Compaq computers after 12 months.[36]
That year, Canon invested$100 million in NeXT, for a 16.67% stake,[37] making NeXT worth almost $600 million. This had the condition of installing NeXTSTEP on its own workstations, greatly expanding NeXTSTEP's market. After NeXT exited the hardware business, Canon produced a PC line calledobject.station—including models 31, 41, 50, and 52—specifically designed to run NeXTSTEP on Intel.[38] Canon was NeXT's distributor in Japan.[39]
The NeXT Computer was released in 1990 for$9,999 (equivalent to $24,000 in 2024). In June 1991, Perot resigned from the board of directors to concentrate on his company,Perot Systems, aPlano, Texas–based software system integrator.[40]
In 1990, NeXT released a second generation of workstations, a revised NeXT Computer calledNeXTcube and theNeXTstation. The NeXTstation's nickname is "the slab" for its low-rise box form-factor. Jobs ensured that NeXT staffers did not nickname the NeXTstation "pizza box" to avoid inadvertent comparison with competitor Sun workstations, which already had that nickname.
The machines were initially planned to use the 2.88 MB floppy drive, but its floppy disks were expensive and had failed to supplant the 1.44 MB floppy. NeXT used theCD-ROM drive instead, which eventually became the industry standard forstorage. Color graphics were available on the NeXTstation Color andNeXTdimensiongraphics processor hardware for the NeXTcube. The new computers, with the newMotorola 68040 processor, were cheaper and faster than their predecessors.[41][42]
In 1992, NeXT launched "Turbo" variants of the NeXTcube and NeXTstation, with a 33 MHz 68040 processor and the maximum RAM capacity increased to 128 MB. In 1992, NeXT sold 20,000 computers, counting upgraded motherboards on back order as system sales. This was a small number compared with competitors, but the company reported sales of $140 million for the year, which encouraged Canon to invest a further $30 million to keep the company afloat.[43]
In its existence, Next has sold a total of 50,000 copies of Nextstep, says Jobs. It's not much of an installed base, so he predicts the company will ship 50,000 Nextstep packages in 1993. But Next needs to increase its volume three-fold in order to build enough momentum to forestall Microsoft and Taligent in the object-oriented software business.
In total, 50,000 NeXT machines were sold,[45][44] including thousands to the then super-secretNational Reconnaissance Office located in Chantilly, Virginia. NeXT's long-term plan was to migrate to one of the emerging high-performanceReduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architectures, with the NeXT RISC Workstation (NRW). Initially, the NRW was to be based on theMotorola 88110 processor, but it was later redesigned around dual PowerPC 601s, due to a lack of confidence in Motorola's commitment to the 88000-series architecture in the time leading up to theAIM alliance's transition toPowerPC.[46][47]
In late 1991, in preparation for NeXT's future withdrawal from the hardware industry, the company startedporting the NeXTSTEP operating system toIntel 80486-basedIBM PC compatible computers. In January 1992, it was demonstrated at NeXTWorld Expo. By mid-1993, the process was completed, and version 3.1 (NeXTSTEP 486) was released.[48]
NeXTSTEP 3.x was later ported toPA-RISC-[49][50] andSPARC-based platforms, for a total of four versions: NeXTSTEP/NeXT (for NeXT's own hardware), NeXTSTEP/Intel, NeXTSTEP/PA-RISC, and NeXTSTEP/SPARC. Although the latter three ports were not widely used, NeXTSTEP gained popularity at institutions such asFirst Chicago NBD,Swiss Bank Corporation, O'Connor and Company, due to its sophisticated programming model.[51] The software was used by many U.S. government agencies, including theUnited States Naval Research Laboratory, theNational Security Agency, theAdvanced Research Projects Agency, theCentral Intelligence Agency, and theNational Reconnaissance Office.[52] Some IBM PC clone vendors offered somewhat customized hardware solutions that were delivered running NeXTSTEP on Intel, such as the Elonex NextStation[53] and the Canon object.station 41.[54]
In 1993, NeXT withdrew from thehardware industry, and the company was renamed to NeXT Software, Inc. Consequently, 230 of the 530 staff employees were laid off.[55] NeXT negotiated to sell its hardware business, including the Fremont factory, to Canon, which later canceled the deal. Work on the PowerPC machines was stopped, along with all hardware production. Sun CEOScott McNealy announced plans to invest $10 million in 1993 and use NeXT software in future Sun systems.[56] NeXT partnered with Sun to create aprogramming environment called OpenStep, which is NeXTSTEP's application layer decoupled for third party operating systems.[57] In 1994, Microsoft and NeXT collaborated on a port of OpenStep to Windows NT, which was never released.[58]
In January 1994, a developers' conference was held in Washington, D.C. Attendees of the 1994 NeXT East Coast Developer Conference had the opportunity to purchase a software bundle including NEXTSTEP 3.2.[59]
Stepstone, originally named Productivity Products International (PPI), was a software company founded in 1983 byBrad Cox and Tom Love, best known for releasing the original version of theObjective-C programming language. In April 1995, NeXT acquired the Objective-C trademark and rights from Stepstone.[60] Stepstone concurrently licensed back from NeXT the right to continue selling its Objective-C based products.Apple Computer later acquired the rights to Objective-C along with NeXT.
After exiting the hardware business, NeXT focused on other operating systems. New OpenStep products were released, including OpenStep Enterprise forWindows NT. NeXT launchedWebObjects, a platform for building large-scale dynamic web applications. It did not achieve wide popularity, partly because of the initial high price of$50,000 (equivalent to $103,200 in 2024), but it did generate profit for the company. WebObjects is the first and most prominent early example of a web application server that enabled dynamic page generation based on user interactions instead of static web content.[61] WebObjects was used by many large businesses includingDell,Disney,Deutsche Bank, theBBC,[62]Ford,Nissan,[61] and later Apple for theiTunes Store andonline Apple Store.[63][64]
We went for one of our, you know, signature Steve Jobs walks around Palo Alto, and ... we happened to see someone who was in that meeting from the [Apple] management team who said, 'You guys won easily, no problem. You have nothing to worry about.'
On December 20, 1996, Apple Computer announced its intention to acquire NeXT.[66] Apple paid $427 million in cash, shares, stock options, and debt.[67]: 277 [68] Steve Jobs preferred to only receive cash, butGil Amelio insisted he take 1.5 million Apple shares to give the deal credibility.[69] The main purpose of the acquisition was to use NeXTSTEP as a foundation to replace the datedclassic Mac OS.[70] Steve Jobs also returned to Apple as a consultant.[71]
The deal was finalized on February 7, 1997.[72][73] In 2000, Jobs took the CEO position as a permanent assignment,[74] holding the position until his resignation on August 24, 2011, shortly before his death on October 5, 2011.[75]
Several NeXT executives replaced their Apple counterparts when Jobs restructured the company's board of directors. Over the next five years the NeXTSTEP operating system was ported to thePowerPC architecture ofMacintosh. At the same time, an Intel port and OpenStep Enterprise toolkit for Windows were produced. That operating system wascodenamedRhapsody,[76] and the crossplatform toolkit is Yellow Box. For backward compatibility, Apple added the Blue Box to Rhapsody, running existing Mac applications in a self-contained cooperative multitasking environment.[77]
A server version of Rhapsody was released asMac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999, and the first consumer version,Mac OS X 10.0, in 2001. The OpenStep developer toolkit was renamedCocoa. Blue Box was renamedClassic Environment and changed to run applications full-screen without requiring a separate window. Apple included an updated version of the original Macintosh toolbox, calledCarbon, running existing Mac applications natively without the constraints of Blue Box.[78][79] Some of NeXTSTEP's interface features are used in Mac OS X, including theDock, theServices menu, theFinder's "Column" view, and theCocoa text system.
NeXTSTEP's processor-independent capabilities were retained in Mac OS X, leading to PowerPC, x86, and ARM versions. Only PowerPC versions were publicly available before 2006 and were discontinued by 2009, and ARM versions were not released until 2020. Apple transitioned its Mac computers to Intel processors by August 2006, and to ARM processors as of September 2022.[80][81]
Jobs created a unique corporate culture at NeXT in terms of facilities, salaries, and benefits. Jobs had experimented with some structural changes at Apple, but at NeXT he abandoned conventional corporate structures, instead making a "community" with "members" instead of employees. There were only two different salaries at NeXT until the early 1990s. Team members who joined before 1986 were paid$75,000 (equivalent to $215,000 in 2024) and those who joined afterward were paid$50,000 (equivalent to $143,000 in 2024). This caused a few awkward situations where managers were paid less than their employees. Later, employees were given performance reviews and raises every six months. To foster openness, all employees had full access to the payrolls, although few employees ever used the privilege. NeXT'shealth insurance plan offered benefits to not only married couples but unmarried and same-sex couples, although the latter privilege was later withdrawn due to insurance complications.[4]: 80 The payroll schedule was also very different from other Silicon Valley companies at the time, because instead of employees being paid twice per month at the end of the pay period, they were paid once per month in advance.[4]: 289
Jobs found office space inPalo Alto, California, at 3475 Deer Creek Road, occupying a glass-and-concrete building that featured a staircase designed by the architectI. M. Pei. The first floor had hardwood flooring and large worktables where the workstations would be assembled. To avoid inventory errors, NeXT used thejust-in-time (JIT) inventory strategy. The company contracted out for all majorcomponents, such as mainboards and cases, and had the finished components shipped to the first floor for assembly. On the second floor was office space with an open floor plan. The only enclosed rooms were Jobs's office and a few conference rooms.[67]: 323
NeXT's expansion prompted renting an office at 800 and 900 Chesapeake Drive, in Redwood City, also designed by Pei. The architectural centerpiece was a "floating" staircase with no visible supports. The open floor plan was retained, with furnishings that were luxurious, such as $5,000 chairs, $10,000 sofas, andAnsel Adams prints.[4]: 80
NeXT's Palo Alto office was subsequently occupied by Internet Shopping Network (a subsidiary ofHome Shopping Network) in 1994, and later bySAP AG. Its Redwood City office was later occupied by ApniCure andOncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc.[82]
The first issue ofNeXTWORLD magazine was printed in 1991. It was edited by Michael Miley and, later, Dan Ruby and was published inSan Francisco by Integrated Media. It was the only mainstream periodical to discuss NeXT computers and software. The publication was discontinued in 1994 after only four volumes.[83] A developerconference, NeXTWORLD Expo, was held in 1991 and 1992 at the San Francisco Civic Center and in 1993 and 1994 at theMoscone Center in San Francisco, with Jobs as the keynote speaker.[84]
Though not very profitable, the company had a wide-ranging impact on the computer industry.Object-oriented programming andgraphical user interfaces became more common after the 1988 release of the NeXTcube and NeXTSTEP. The technologically successful platform was often held as the trendsetter when other companies started to emulate the success of NeXT's object-oriented system.[85]
Widely seen as a response to NeXT, Microsoft announced theCairo project in 1991; the Cairo specification included similar object-oriented user-interface features for a proposed consumer version of Windows NT. Although Cairo was ultimately abandoned, some elements were integrated into other projects.[58]
By 1993,Taligent was considered by the press to be a competitor in objects and operating systems, even without any product release, and with NeXT as a main point of comparison. For the first few years, Taligent's theoretical innovation was often compared to NeXT's older but mature and commercially established platform,[a] but Taligent's launch in 1995 was called "too little, too late", especially when compared with NeXT.[89]
Several developers used the NeXT platform to write pioneering programs. For example, in 1990, computer scientistTim Berners-Lee used a NeXT Computer to develop thefirst web browser and web server.[90][91] The video game seriesDoom,[92] andQuake were developed byid Software using NeXT computers.[93][94] Other commercial programs were released for NeXT computers, including Altsys Virtuoso—a vector-drawing program with page-layout features, which was ported to Mac OS and Windows asAldus FreeHand v4—and theLotus Improvspreadsheet program.[b]
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