I do not think that is correct. Apple needed a new OS badly. I developed game software for PCs in the Win 98 / OS8 era for both platforms. Macs were still a

I do not think that is correct. Apple needed a new OS badly. I developed game software for PCs in the Win 98 / OS8 era for both platforms. Macs were still a nice experience but their performance relative to a PC was terrible. Steve Jobs at that time did not have the reputation he does now, or even had a few years later. Many people view Next as a business failure at the time. They were still in business, but relative to the huge investment they had gotten they were doing pretty poorly. There is a book written at the time, "Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing." That sums up conventional wisdom circa that time. The fact that they were considering Be and Next at the same time tells you that they were looking for an OS.