4 ms·

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;

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.

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.