The name couldn't be more obvious and simple, Next, next in English. The company that created Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, when the shareholders' meeting unanimously decided to kick him out of his own company. Jobs was getting past his criticisms and demands and it was becoming very difficult to work alongside him. This is how we see it in films, documentaries and especially in Walter Isaacson's novel, which in my opinion is the most faithful to reality and the most reliable.
The other day we talked about step of Steve Jobs by Pixar, today we will discuss the story of what happened to his company Next and how he managed to return to Apple years later.
From Apple to Next after the Macintosh
Apple I, then Apple II, which was the team that gave the company the most income in its first stage. After that came LISA, a failure, because Jobs announced ahead of time that they were working on an even better and revolutionary computer, the Macintosh. A spectacular advertising campaign, although even questioned by the shareholders' meeting itself. Jobs raised expectations too much with totally absurd and very ambitious data, but the truth is that the Mac was a very closed and not very compatible team, so it did not have half the expected success.
Apple continued to depend on its early computers to make a profit and they ended up firing Steve Jobs, not because of the failure of the Macintosh, but because of his attitude toward members of the shareholders' meeting. In September 1985 Jobs had to leave his own company, thinking that he would never be part of it again.
Next, one step ahead
He was 30 when that happened, and he invested $ 7 million to create this new computer and hardware company. He called it Next, because it was the next after Apple. He worked on a new computer capable of impressing anyone for its design, its hardware and its operating system and it was introduced on October 12, 1988. It was a black cube, literally. He was so determined to make it visually perfect and that everything was to the millimeter that the price was inflated too much. He didn't sell too many, of course. You could practically say that it was a failure. Another person would have tried to lower the price, reduce costs, make it compatible with almost everything and try to take it to every American house, but Steve Jobs was different, he thought differently and launched something that users did not know what they wanted and could hardly use, yes, with a terribly high price.
As for Hardware, it cannot be said that it revolutionized anything. Very cubic and very black everything, but there it remained, in a strange and confused idea. What he did like was its operating system, ideal for development and programming. In fact, it was on a Next computer that the concept of the internet that we know today, the famous World Wide Web, was created. Seeing the success of the software, they had to give the company a twist. No hardware, just software, something like what Microsoft was doing, only in this case it was Bill Gates who began to dominate everything. Focusing on the operating system and software they kept going for a few years until Jobs saw his chance to return to Apple.
My home, the dear apple
Apple needed software like Next had, as their computers were going from bad to worse in sales due to poor management and administration. They ended up buying this new company from Steve Jobs and he managed to return to his first creation. Of course, at that time Apple had been on the verge of going bankrupt and disappearing. The shareholders allowed Steve to do what he wanted and organize the company, and he did. Although that is another story that I will tell you on another occasion.
Did you know this Steve Jobs company? It never hurts to look back and see in perspective the path that Apple and its founder followed over the years to become the great leader that it is now in the computer, mobile and technology market.