Computer Museum of America

Founded in 1993 by Steve Jobs
Headquarters: Redwood City, California
Purchased by Apple in 1997

Steve Jobs in a NeXT promotional video Steve Jobs as seen in a NeXT promotional video
From the Museum Collection

When Steve Jobs was abruptly forced out of Apple computers in 1985, he already had the next thing in mind.

After recruiting five other Apple employees, he announced plans to create a new company, appropriately called NeXT, that would create computers and software catering specifically to colleges and universities.

His mission took him longer than imagined. He also had to rely on big-time investors like Ross Perot to keep the company afloat while he developed a brand-new operating system, a variation of Unix, that would make writing software and applications easier and take away monopolization by the big boys of the computing world. In October 1988, Jobs debuted the NeXT Cube that was most certainly an innovation in look and design. At $6,500, $3,000 above what Jobs originally hoped for a retail price, it was indeed fast with advanced sound technology and a higher capacity erasable optical disk drive (cousins of the CD-ROM and a hoped-for replacement for traditional magnetic disk drives).

NeXT Color Computer
From the Museum Collection

Unfortunately, the education market was less than enthusiastic and the corporate world positively chilly. The lack of a color monitor and the price proved to be the system�s greatest downfalls. The competition was also close on the heels of NeXT, producing equally fast and innovative systems that better met the needs of colleges and universities at discounts already worked out between companies like Apple, IBM, Sun Microsystems and Digital Equipment and the higher-education market.

Jobs kept trying to refine his original concept for NeXT computers, but in 1993 finally pulled the plug on the hardware division. He then threw his energy into the operating system he had created for his computers, believing it would completely change the way software was made and created, leaving his competitors out of the loop.

NextStep screen shot from a NeXT promotional video
From the Museum Collection

The NextStep operating system focused on creating an object-oriented operating system to run on all hardware platforms. The idea was to simplify how companies created in-house software to run various parts of their business. A pre-existing library allowed programmers to plug in various parts of a particular program to meet specific needs, thus cutting down the time it took to create the programs from scratch. Jobs also was looking to create software specifically for manipulating the Internet, such as through interactive Web sites.

While alternatively trying to bolster his NeXT software company, Jobs accidently happened upon a boon to his business through Pixar, an animation studio he purchased in 1986 when he bought out a computer division of Lucusfilms Ltd. for $60 million. Pixar went on to create the fully computer-generated feature, "Toy Story," in 1996 and when Pixar went public that year, Jobs became a billionaire virtually overnight.

Then Apple came courting. The company announced in December of 1996 that it would buy NeXT for $430 million and hire Jobs on as an "advisor." A year later, Jobs was re-installed as CEO of the company he helped created.

Learn More

Wired Magazine — Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing

Tech Encyclopedia: NeXT

Apple Museum — History Timeline

BusinessWeek — Steve Jobs: Can He Do It Again?

Smithsonian Oral and Video Histories — Steve Jobs

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