If you read carefully the announcement, there were 3 major parts.
1. The deal.
2. Future software development. (how easy, so many years already in real life, compatibility etc...)
3. Memory management, networked...
My comments are:
on 1. The deal is good. 400M is a adequate investment for elite group of developers, libraries, know-how, sales and distribution channel and crazy group of followers, most of whom left Mac people years ago or would be there if not for NeXT anyway.
on 2. Next struggled with the same question that is asked right now most frequently. "How to make system open and less dependent on anything hard -wired or -coded" They dropped their hardware, then they "dropped" their UNIX (mach version of UNIX is not a requirement to run NeXT Apps /as I understand it/). So what is NeXT. At this point, it looks like NeXT is an a la cart of several options that you may take in your development, depends on how far you want to go back to the original black cube. I think the most advanced option would be to give NeXT some kind of MAC-WIN95 blend of look and feel (I think NeXT-Apple developers can do that in matter of days) and limit use of NeXT to it's Object Library structure (which is technically was separated into OpenStep) and Development Tools. (I used some of them 3-4 years ago very briefly and my experience is: nothing but pleasure to use). OpenStep which is what definitely will be the core of new MAC-NeXT should run over ACTUAL OS! Like that UNIX (mach in case of old black cubes) or Solaris... (I heard they were working on Windows NT and 95 version... don't know where it is now)
All that bring as to the third point.
3: I really don't understand... If they were talking about seriously of taking NeXT's MEMORY MANAGEMENT!, MULTITASKING!???? that is coming from UNIX. Maybe it was just PR type of rhetoric (doesn't matter what as long as it sounds good...?) But I really have a problem with 3rd part of that statement. They have a lot of options, yes they may use UNIX mach. They may go with windows-NT for OS and OpenStep for Application layer, they may go with existing NeXT's strategy:we will run over what ever you want... But I doubt there is a good picture on that...
And in the end... I think it is a great move for Apple. NeXT survived because it is really has a lot of good things to offer what others, with much more money couldn't even touch.
So Good luck to all of us...
lEoN
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