By: ex-apple (ex.delete@this.apple.com), August 4, 2014 6:20 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
anon (not.delete@this.this.time) on August 3, 2014 10:29 pm wrote:
> Keep in mind that this is the same guy who refused to sell Be to Apple for $120M.
> We all know how that turned out (thank goodness - NeXTStep was a far better OS)
I worry this is turning into one of those urban myths. "If only Gary Kildall hadn't been flying his plane that day..."
BeOS was never in the running to replace Mac OS. To go up against Windows, Apple needed a gorilla-sized OS plus libraries plus tools plus language plus apps plus ecosystem. Be employed some good programmers with good ideas, and Apple was definitely interested in paying for that. But they weren't interested in BeOS.
Apple had evaluated BeOS technically - I know the guys who did it. It was a nice kernel with some tech demos on top. And that's all it was. Apple had already developed a couple of those in-house by then - we knew that was only 10% of the job.
NeXTStep was the obvious choice for a lot of reasons, and Apple was not stumbling blind into either the NeXT or Be offer. If Gassee had sold BeOS, OS X might have had a better kernel team, but it would still be built on NeXTStep.
> Keep in mind that this is the same guy who refused to sell Be to Apple for $120M.
> We all know how that turned out (thank goodness - NeXTStep was a far better OS)
I worry this is turning into one of those urban myths. "If only Gary Kildall hadn't been flying his plane that day..."
BeOS was never in the running to replace Mac OS. To go up against Windows, Apple needed a gorilla-sized OS plus libraries plus tools plus language plus apps plus ecosystem. Be employed some good programmers with good ideas, and Apple was definitely interested in paying for that. But they weren't interested in BeOS.
Apple had evaluated BeOS technically - I know the guys who did it. It was a nice kernel with some tech demos on top. And that's all it was. Apple had already developed a couple of those in-house by then - we knew that was only 10% of the job.
NeXTStep was the obvious choice for a lot of reasons, and Apple was not stumbling blind into either the NeXT or Be offer. If Gassee had sold BeOS, OS X might have had a better kernel team, but it would still be built on NeXTStep.
