What happened to NeXT, the company founded by Steve Jobs when he left Apple and that saved the technology giant

For many indicators, Manzana It is the largest tech company in the world, but to become the tech giant it is today, it had to make a major acquisition after Steve Jobs resigned: cbuy NeXT, founded precisely by Jobs.

Before being worth more than two trillion dollars, the Cupertinos lived a tense moment when Jobs resigned in 1985. That moment generated uncertainty at Apple, trying to innovate while its profits collapsed due to the arrival of IBM in the computer market.

Meanwhile, as a report published on the website of xatakain September 1985, Steve Jobs told Apple’s board of directors that he would found his own company, NeXTand that he would take some employees with him.

Jobs’ goal was sell workstations to education and not to general consumersa promise he made to Apple not to interfere in their plans, but those with the bitten apple did not like the genius’s decision and sued NeXT for “nefarious schemes” to take advantage of the co-founders’ inside information.

“It’s hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300+ people couldn’t compete with six people in jeans.”, Steve Jobs expressed about the lawsuit, resolved later.

Jobs invested $12 million of his own money to found NeXT, convinced of the project. But the paths of life were not as he thought: In 1996, Apple acquired NeXT, Inc..

The return of Steve Jobs to Apple

that transaction brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded and allowed him to take over as interim CEO in late 1997. His mission was to make Apple a profitable company.

With Microsoft dominating market share, Jobs’s subsequent decisions helped Apple go from losing $1.04 billion in 1997 to make a profit of $309 million a year later. Later, he saved the company and positioned it in the market.

Steve Jobs also cut Apple’s multiple profit and loss statements and was the one who implemented tracking of all expenses in 1997.

NeXT could be considered a failure: in total it sold 50,000 workstations, but left elements that saved Apple when it was bought. NeXTSTEP technology became the core of Mac OS X and some elements of the graphical interface were also born in this OS, such as the Dock, the services menu, among others.