Special Report
Apple, NeXT, and the Web at MacWorld
By Michael Swaine
In December of 1996, Apple stunned — and possibly confused — its customers, investors, third-party developers, the press, and the computer industry by announcing its intention to buy NeXT software.
NeXT, for those who don't spend a lot of time following unprofitable, marginal companies, is the computer company that Apple founder Steve Jobs started after his acrimonious ouster at Apple a decade ago. Or rather, it's the software company that Jobs turned the computer company into after it became painfully obvious that nobody was going to use NeXT's hardware. (Not quite true: Among the "nobodies" who were more than happy to use the NeXT machine was Tim Berners-Lee, who used it to create the first Web browser and server. But not enough people bought the black boxes to convince even optimistic Steve Jobs that he had a real business.) Thus was born NeXT Software, which was also unprofitable, but with a lower cost of goods.
At the same time, Apple announced its intention to hire Jobs as a part-time consultant to help the company with its future operating-system strategy. This news set the stage for a well-attended MacWorld Expo in San Francisco this January. MacWorld San Francisco is the big Mac show of the year, and Apple often uses it to lay out future plans for the general public. At this particular MacWorld, Apple was expected to drop some hints about what all this NeXT business would mean for Apple products and technologies.
For some of us attending, this meant Internet products and technologies in particular.
