"I think the acquisition of NeXT opens up enormous opportunities for Apple. A lot of
people aren't very familiar with NeXT's technology so they bad-mouth it (people always
fear what they don't understand)."
As I've watched so many jump on the "Apple is dead" bandwagon, I've also wondered" Why did they switch so suddenly to NeXT, when the Be negotiations seemed to be going well, were popular with many, and acquiring Be for their OS would have gotten Apple a lot of short-term positive press coverage, and would have made many believe that perhaps Apple had gotten their collective heads our of the sand and were finally doing something right, etc. (Not my opinon, paraphrases of things I've heard from others....).
Could it have been that Apple was somehow surprised, in a positive way, by something that NeXT showed or offered them? I know Apple has been on a slide for a long time, and that they have been slow learners in this "what have you done for me lately" marketplace, but, I am not sure I am ready to write them off as complete idiots quite yet. I'd like wait and see the whole picture first; I don't assume that everything Apple got from NeXT is public knowledge. And, a company like NeXT, which has proven it can come up with superior product, paired with Apple and Apple's loyal customer base (which I think will remain mostly loyal until they see what actually HAPPENS, not just what is being speculated), is not something to be written off so easily. The combination of NeXT and Apple, especially with Jobs at least able to have SOMETHING to say within Apple (nobody quite knows yet what that is, but hey, it's a start), is a combination I'd not want to write off just yet.
Larry |
