Alternate history: Steve Jobs didn't return to Apple

[RacerX]

In the course of surfing around for an answer to my own question, I found this hilarious (in retrospect) article by none other than Stewart Alsop...

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/02/03/221517/index.htm

What is interesting is that this guy states at the beginning that he has a vested interest in Be. And it sound like he lost a lot of money on the deal not going through. So the article sure sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder about Apple going with NeXT.

He sure thinks Apple had committed suicide by buying NeXT, and that Jobs would take revenge on Apple... good thing for us he was wrong.

Does this article say that:

part of the reason Apple resisted paying $200 million to acquire Be was that Amelio and his team were offended by Be CEO Jean-Louis Gassee​

Everything that I've read was around the $125 million for the initial offer and about $200 million for the asking price. The article say Apple paid $400 million for NeXT, but I'm still pretty sure that the final price was closer to around $425 million (though I don't have any strong references for that figure).

Awesome post!!! But in response to the quote above, I was assuming that Steve choked on a ham sandwich which could have led to NeXT actually being up for sale at that time

Well, if NeXT came up for sale.. without Jobs to sell it (being the sales person that he is) I doubt Apple would have bought it and I'm pretty sure Sun would have to save their investment in the technology.

The deal with Apple and NeXT killed years of development at Sun and cost them millions! And even though Sun could afford the lost back then, they also lost about three years going down what turn out to be a dead end... and they really couldn't afford that!

 

[Cooknn]

The deal with Apple and NeXT killed years of development at Sun and cost them millions!

I seriously doubt that McNealy and crew could have done with NeXTSTEP what Steve and Apple have done. We are very fortunate to have OS X, but if things were as we are discussing and history was different, I'd surely be running a box from Sun with OpenStep or whatever they would have called it. I've loved this OS since I first saw it at Comdex in Las Vegas back in '93. As a matter of fact, I believe Sun spent some of those millions just after that show

 

[RacerX]

but if things were as we are discussing and history was different, I'd surely be running a box from Sun with OpenStep or whatever they would have called it.

Your right... it still wouldn't have been Mac OS X, not under Sun's direction.

And I still love OPENSTEP and still actively use it today.

click to enlarge
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[Cooknn]

Your right... it still wouldn't have been Mac OS X, not under Sun's direction.

And I still love OPENSTEP and still actively use it today.

click to enlarge
​

Dude you're my hero I wanna do that!

 

[jsw]

In the course of surfing around for an answer to my own question, I found this hilarious (in retrospect) article by none other than Stewart Alsop...

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/02/03/221517/index.htm

So much for professional prognosticators! Bring on the amateurs!

Well, in all fairness, Alsop did make the (reasonable) assumption that Jobs would do what he said he'd do - walk away. Had he done so, I think the article would have been dead-on. I think BeOS was very competitive with NeXT, but you just can't beat Jobs - his return saved Apple, not the purchase of NeXT.

 

[emmawu]

Steve Jobs would never choke to death on a ham sandwich. Maybe he got a California roll in his windpipe. Bill Gates panics because there is no one to copy and gives him the Heimlich manuever. Jobs is so grateful he invites Gates to help bail out Apple. Oh wait, that sort of happened except for the California roll. It was the John Sculley backstab and the Gil Ameilo shuffle.

 

[IJ Reilly]

What is interesting is that this guy states at the beginning that he has a vested interest in Be. And it sound like he lost a lot of money on the deal not going through. So the article sure sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder about Apple going with NeXT.

He sure thinks Apple had committed suicide by buying NeXT, and that Jobs would take revenge on Apple... good thing for us he was wrong.

Does this article say that:

part of the reason Apple resisted paying $200 million to acquire Be was that Amelio and his team were offended by Be CEO Jean-Louis Gassee​

Everything that I've read was around the $125 million for the initial offer and about $200 million for the asking price. The article say Apple paid $400 million for NeXT, but I'm still pretty sure that the final price was closer to around $425 million (though I don't have any strong references for that figure).

Yes, I think the final price was closer to $425 million. Apple apparently offered $125 million for Be, but Gassée didn't sell. What he hoped to get out of the deal, I don't suppose many people know for a fact. Not sure why the $500 million sticks figure in my head, but it does.

No matter, Alsop is (or was) supposed to be one of the top guys in technology journalism. It is laughable that he was so far from the mark and so sure of himself -- not just on what Jobs would do ultimately but also on whether NeXTSTEP could be fashioned into a suitable replacement for the old MacOS.

 

[RacerX]

No matter, Alsop is (or was) supposed to be one of the top guys in technology journalism. It is laughable that he was so far from the mark and so sure of himself -- not just on what Jobs would do ultimately but also on whether NeXTSTEP could be fashioned into a suitable replacement for the old MacOS.

Assuming he had the inside track on things at Be, then what he said about why Apple balked at the $200 million could be true. If it really was Gassée that was the deal breaker then that is something I had never heard before.

I had always assumed that the turning point was that NeXT's enterprise software was usable right away. WebObjects was still years ahead of anything else and was selling for close to $50,000 as I recall (it is free today).

But Apple (even under Jobs) squandered the head start WebObjects had on that market.

Thanks for posting the article. I love to read the Death of Apple predictions of the past. And it brings up an interesting insight into the role that Gassée's personality may have played in events back then.