Skip to Content

Blast from the Past: Apple acquires NeXT

by Erica Sadun Mar 12th 2007 at 7:00AM

It's December 20, 1996. Apple has just acquired NeXT in a $400 million deal that brings Steve Jobs back to Apple. Jobs will act as an "advisor" to CEO Gil Amelio, bringing his charisma to the team led by Amelio and Ellen Hancock.

The deal offers $350 million in cash and stock as well as covering about $50 million of NeXT's debts. Apple suggests that it will start shipping products using NeXT's new OS some time in 1997. After abandoning Copland, some had predicted Apple would acquire the Be operating system.

RixStep hosts a copy of the early 1997 letter sent to NeXT customers regarding the Apple/NeXT Merger as part of its Red Hat Diaries. In this letter, Gil Amelio promises to continue to develop and enhance WebObjects and to provide cross-platform support for QuickTime. He looked forward to WebObjects running on Power Macs in short order.



View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Retro Mac

It's December 20, 1996. Apple has just acquired NeXT in a $400 million deal that brings Steve Jobs back to Apple. Jobs will act as an...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

9 Comments

Filter by:
R Muffet

I for one am so happy Apple went with Plan A instead of Plan Be.

BeOS would have been cool for a few years - it was a very technically advanced OS - but without the return of Jobs to the helm and the massive product shakeup that he forced on Apple, the company would have dwindled into obscurity, and almost certainly suffered Be's eventual fate: bankruptcy.

March 12 2007 at 7:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Peter Lovell

Actually, Apple didn't acquire NeXT.
NeXT acquired Apple for minus $400 million.

March 12 2007 at 12:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Macintologist

"We firmly believe that Apple's acquisition of NeXT will increase the market acceptance for the NeXT technology"

Wow he never could have been more right about that!

March 12 2007 at 11:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris

If you have an extra 35 minutes to spare, this video of Steve Jobs demoing NeXTSTEP is quite interesting. It still amazes me how much of NeXT made it into OS X.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A

March 12 2007 at 11:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
wheels

Caption: Would you buy an operating system from this man?



Yup.

March 12 2007 at 10:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
wheels

Caption: Would you buy an operating system from this man?



Yup.

March 12 2007 at 10:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MurphyMac

Nice post! NeXT looked so slick next to Windows. The graphics were miles ahead.

March 12 2007 at 10:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
CajunLuke

Good tip, Danny - there's a whole slew of new ones.

March 12 2007 at 9:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Danny

Off topic - but thought TUAW folk might like to know there's a new I'm a Mac advert playing on Apple's UK home page. It's promoting the magnetic power cord and features David Mitchell (PC) in a wheelchair.

March 12 2007 at 7:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.