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Agree with everything you said and NeXT was the right call (even sans Jobs). Apple needed mature ecosystem, libraries, etc, not just a base OS. However, BeOS w

by npunt 8y ago

Agree with everything you said and NeXT was the right call (even sans Jobs). Apple needed mature ecosystem, libraries, etc, not just a base OS. However, BeOS was far more stable/mature than its 'developer release' status implied. I remember how blown away people were at the dev release in 1996 by how solid it was, not just by how forward thinking its features were. I don't think multiuser would have been a showstopper for release if BeOS was acquired by Apple. They could have put out 2-3 versions of a single user OS and few would have cared.

Apocryphon 8y ago
One wonders, what if someone else had bought Be?
- BonesJustice 8y ago
  Someone did: PalmSource (the software spinoff from Palm). It was to be the basis for their Palm OS “Cobalt”, which was eventually abandoned. Or by “someone else”, did you mean someone other than PalmSource? Let’s be honest, though: most new OSes don’t enjoy much success or longevity. The only successful new arrival I can remember recently was Android, and it had the backing of Google, and was aimed at a relatively new market. It also borrowed heavily from established tech: Linux kernel, JDK and JVM. I doubt there’s more than a handful companies that could have turned BeOS into something big, and of those, Apple was probably their best bet.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    Someone who actually had a chance to do something with BeOS, and of sticking around for longer than a few years.
foobiekr 8y ago
something I have been wondering about for years, having been around: was Be actually acquisition bait from day one for Apple? I am convinced that NeXT wasn't; they just didn't build something that was designed for acquisition. But Be, Inc. and BeOS really strike me as the kind of design, company, compromises, focus and leadership/team that I've come to associate with startups that are actually designed to be acquired by the executive's former employer after some time. I would love to know if this is true, though in my experience, that is usually only known to the founders and executives except in the really obvious cases.
- acomjean 8y ago
  It was started by a former apple executive Jean-Louis Gassee [1]. At apple he said he wanted a kernel on macOS[2]. When he started BE they did develop their own hardware (BE Box). They eventually decided to port it other hardware (hardware is expensive). Microsoft had a strangle hold on most PC manufacturers and the BEbox was power PC so it made sense to try to get Mac clones to use it (There was a brief period in the 90s where apple clones existed.). I got a disk and tried it on a "Power computing" mac clone. It was kinda amazing compared to macos8. But the lack of software made it hard day to day. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gassée https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gassée [2] https://mondaynote.com/50-years-in-tech-part-11-getting-the-mac-out-of-the-ditch-bc70d8c2947e https://mondaynote.com/50-years-in-tech-part-11-getting-the-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox
  - foobiekr 8y ago
    I'm aware of all that history. The part I'm asking about is whether his exit plan was Apple and when that exit plan went with the other option the company was not viable. This is very common for "startups" founded by executives who come from a company they know is failing to execute on something critical. Be smells like this.

by npunt 8y ago

Apocryphon 8y ago

One wonders, what if someone else had bought Be?

BonesJustice 8y ago
Someone did: PalmSource (the software spinoff from Palm). It was to be the basis for their Palm OS “Cobalt”, which was eventually abandoned. Or by “someone else”, did you mean someone other than PalmSource? Let’s be honest, though: most new OSes don’t enjoy much success or longevity. The only successful new arrival I can remember recently was Android, and it had the backing of Google, and was aimed at a relatively new market. It also borrowed heavily from established tech: Linux kernel, JDK and JVM. I doubt there’s more than a handful companies that could have turned BeOS into something big, and of those, Apple was probably their best bet.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  Someone who actually had a chance to do something with BeOS, and of sticking around for longer than a few years.

foobiekr 8y ago

something I have been wondering about for years, having been around: was Be actually acquisition bait from day one for Apple? I am convinced that NeXT wasn't; they just didn't build something that was designed for acquisition. But Be, Inc. and BeOS really strike me as the kind of design, company, compromises, focus and leadership/team that I've come to associate with startups that are actually designed to be acquired by the executive's former employer after some time. I would love to know if this is true, though in my experience, that is usually only known to the founders and executives except in the really obvious cases.

acomjean 8y ago
It was started by a former apple executive Jean-Louis Gassee [1]. At apple he said he wanted a kernel on macOS[2]. When he started BE they did develop their own hardware (BE Box). They eventually decided to port it other hardware (hardware is expensive). Microsoft had a strangle hold on most PC manufacturers and the BEbox was power PC so it made sense to try to get Mac clones to use it (There was a brief period in the 90s where apple clones existed.). I got a disk and tried it on a "Power computing" mac clone. It was kinda amazing compared to macos8. But the lack of software made it hard day to day. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gassée https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gassée [2] https://mondaynote.com/50-years-in-tech-part-11-getting-the-mac-out-of-the-ditch-bc70d8c2947e https://mondaynote.com/50-years-in-tech-part-11-getting-the-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox
- foobiekr 8y ago
  I'm aware of all that history. The part I'm asking about is whether his exit plan was Apple and when that exit plan went with the other option the company was not viable. This is very common for "startups" founded by executives who come from a company they know is failing to execute on something critical. Be smells like this.