Yesterday, February 9, they were fulfilled 24 years since NeXT Computer, a company that Steve Jobs created when he was expelled from his own company, he devoted himself entirely to making software and forgot about the computer business. The company was then called NeXT Software, and from that day on it focused all its resources on creating software for existing platforms.
On a day like yesterday in 1993, NeXT made a radical change to its policies, ddefining new goals for its business model so far. That day, moreover, is tragically remembered as the "Black Tuesday".
"Black Tuesday" was a massive layoff that NeXT Software suffered as it separated from various departments that would no longer be relevant to the company founded by Jobs. Thus, of the 500 employees the company had, some 330 of them were fired.
According to the experts of the time, this change of direction was a necessary evil: Although the two computers that the company had launched on the market (NeXT Computer, from 1988, and NeXTstation, from 1990) were well valued, they did not capture large market shares, they were not massively purchased.
In fact, as early as 1992 The losses of Jobs' company were estimated to be around $ 40 million. Despite the fact that in the early 90s, Apple suffered its great economic decline, the sales of the Cupertino-based company were much higher than those of NeXT.
«It is estimated that NeXT Computer sold around 50.000 computers, ending its sales in February 1993 (7 years of activity). At that time, it's what Apple could sell in a week. "
Steve Jobs saw at that time how money was in software. In fact, the object-oriented, UNIX-based operating system that NeXT designed in subsequent years, It was way ahead of what most companies were offering at the time.
Jobs's master move that he managed shortly after to sell this NeXT software, called NeXT STEP, to Apple itself, becoming CEO of his own company again. This software was the foundation for what Apple users knew as Mac OS X Server 1.0, which came out in 1999.
