There was an article in the Dec. 24 WSJ about the Apple/NeXT deal. The article focused on one of NeXT's 90-pound brains, Avie Tevanian, one of the very early employees of NeXT and author of the base OS (Mach). Avie is currently the VP of engineering at NeXT.
The article raised some very interesting points:
Avie is in charge of figuring out how the Apple and NeXT technologies will work together and managing the two groups of engineers. No real technical details were given, but the article raises the same questions we've been asking here -- what parts of the NeXT system will be retained, what will the compatibility be for existing Apple technology, what will be the portability to different architectures, etc. Avie said he hopes to ship something by the end of 1997.
The developers at Apple were described as "pampered, petulant, and unproductive." The article calls Apple's Copeland OS a "failed project", and cited the developers including their own pet projects rather than trying to meet deadlines as a primary reason for its failure and the subsequent search for another OS. Avie was described as a schedule and deadline oriented manager and something that Apple sorely needs.
The article cites that Be's final asking price was about $225 million worth of Apple stock, so the $400M paid for NeXT was almost twice that offer. It mentions that Apple bought more than NeXT's OS. "Next [sic], he said, has growing business lines selling software for the Internet and for companies developing custom in-house software; both are major markets where Apple needs a leg up."
It mentioned that Adobe Systems, Inc. is willing to work with the new Apple/NeXT arrangement, though Adobe's revenue from Apple systems has been slipping. "...Windows sales of Adobe's graphics programs are growing so fast they will soon represent a majority of Adobe's revenues, say analysts."
A Microsoft person said it's too early to tell if Microsoft will rewrite Word and Excel programs to work on Apple's new OS. Recently, Microsoft has been reaping more profit from selling Macintosh software than Apple has from selling the Macintosh itself.
The article also mentions that this platform will provide a viable competitor to Microsoft's products.
Randy |
