7 ms·

A little more color on ARM and its financial contribution ($800M) to keeping the lights on at Apple: https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/john-sculley-how-arm-saved-a

A little more color on ARM and its financial contribution ($800M) to keeping the lights on at Apple: https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/john-sculley-how-arm-saved-apple https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/john-sculley-how-arm-saved-ap.... In 1996, money to keep things going was important: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/28/business/apple-expects-it-will-lose-700-million.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/28/business/apple-expects-it.... Finally, foreshadowing arguments about why it was important to use 64-bit computing in a handheld device, Mike Culbert explains 32-bit advantages in Newton over the incumbent 16-bit of the time: https://beepdf.com/wp-content/uploads/newton/COMPCON-HW.pdf https://beepdf.com/wp-content/uploads/newton/COMPCON-HW.pdf.

billti 4y ago
Wow. I knew Apple was an investor in ARM, but the specifics are crazy. For those that won't read the linked story, this I found to be fascinating: > Newton was not successful, but Newton actually made $800 million dollars because Apple eventually sold the 43 percent it owned in ARM, which, by the way, kept the doors open at Apple, just before Steve Jobs came back. It was one of the really important decisions that Gil Amelio [the last CEO before Steve Jobs returned] made, and it gave them the cash to buy NeXT.
- musicale 4y ago
  This is extraordinary. Picking ARM for Newton basically enabled all of Apple's modern success: keeping the lights on, getting Steve Jobs back, NeXTSTEP evolving into Mac OS X and {i/iPad/TV/mac}OS, and of course ARM-based systems from the original iPod to the Mac Studio/M1 Ultra.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    One wonders what the world would look like if AT&T could design a processor worth a damn.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  You know, it occurs to me in retrospect that Apple overpaid for NeXT, which is something people said at the time, but I kind of ignored. No one else would have bought them at anywhere near that price. The black hardware had failed. OpenStep was cool but the OS didn’t run super well on PC hardware. NeXT should have been $150M tops. Apple eventually had to rewrite all of the software anyway to make use of it. Sure, Jobs himself was priceless. But, yeah, Apple did overpay for NeXT at the time.
  - jdkee 4y ago
    "Sure, Jobs himself was priceless. But, yeah, Apple did overpay for NeXT at the time." Not if you view the transaction as a package deal.
  - msh 4y ago
    If a deal makes you the most valuable company in the world, how can that deal be overpriced?
  - xenadu02 4y ago
    You know how YC investors pick teams, not products? Apple at the time bought a team, not the technology. They also bought credibility by bringing a founder back on-board. Apple's biggest problem at the time was bad management, followed by credibility. They solved both problems and got some technology (ObjC, what would become Darwin, etc) as a free bonus. The complete NeXT takeover of management made it more like a reverse acquisition in any case and the results speak for themselves.
  - lproven 4y ago
    ISTM that everyone misses a vitally important key part of NeXT. Yes, there was the OS, but there were other OSes, notably BeOS, and NeXTstep/OpenStep ran on other OSes, notably Solaris. Yes, there was Steve Jobs. But NeXT had a core thing that nobody else did: the state-of-the-art development tools. Apple needed to get Mac developers on-board with the new OS. Sun had a great OS. Be had a great OS. Apple itself had A/UX. OSes abounded; there was lots of choice. Jobs' vision was very important. But without the NeXT developer tools, notably Interface Builder and Objective-C, the deal would not have saved Apple.

billti 4y ago

Wow. I knew Apple was an investor in ARM, but the specifics are crazy. For those that won't read the linked story, this I found to be fascinating: > Newton was not successful, but Newton actually made $800 million dollars because Apple eventually sold the 43 percent it owned in ARM, which, by the way, kept the doors open at Apple, just before Steve Jobs came back. It was one of the really important decisions that Gil Amelio [the last CEO before Steve Jobs returned] made, and it gave them the cash to buy NeXT.

musicale 4y ago
This is extraordinary. Picking ARM for Newton basically enabled all of Apple's modern success: keeping the lights on, getting Steve Jobs back, NeXTSTEP evolving into Mac OS X and {i/iPad/TV/mac}OS, and of course ARM-based systems from the original iPod to the Mac Studio/M1 Ultra.
- jandrese 4y ago
  One wonders what the world would look like if AT&T could design a processor worth a damn.
KerrAvon 4y ago
You know, it occurs to me in retrospect that Apple overpaid for NeXT, which is something people said at the time, but I kind of ignored. No one else would have bought them at anywhere near that price. The black hardware had failed. OpenStep was cool but the OS didn’t run super well on PC hardware. NeXT should have been $150M tops. Apple eventually had to rewrite all of the software anyway to make use of it. Sure, Jobs himself was priceless. But, yeah, Apple did overpay for NeXT at the time.
- jdkee 4y ago
  "Sure, Jobs himself was priceless. But, yeah, Apple did overpay for NeXT at the time." Not if you view the transaction as a package deal.
- msh 4y ago
  If a deal makes you the most valuable company in the world, how can that deal be overpriced?
- xenadu02 4y ago
  You know how YC investors pick teams, not products? Apple at the time bought a team, not the technology. They also bought credibility by bringing a founder back on-board. Apple's biggest problem at the time was bad management, followed by credibility. They solved both problems and got some technology (ObjC, what would become Darwin, etc) as a free bonus. The complete NeXT takeover of management made it more like a reverse acquisition in any case and the results speak for themselves.
- lproven 4y ago
  ISTM that everyone misses a vitally important key part of NeXT. Yes, there was the OS, but there were other OSes, notably BeOS, and NeXTstep/OpenStep ran on other OSes, notably Solaris. Yes, there was Steve Jobs. But NeXT had a core thing that nobody else did: the state-of-the-art development tools. Apple needed to get Mac developers on-board with the new OS. Sun had a great OS. Be had a great OS. Apple itself had A/UX. OSes abounded; there was lots of choice. Jobs' vision was very important. But without the NeXT developer tools, notably Interface Builder and Objective-C, the deal would not have saved Apple.