From the outside it seemed like a surrender: when the company fires half its staff and closes the most visible part of its business, what else can you think about? In fact, everything was even worse – but they did not intend to Surrender.

Public Opinion issued a verdict: “black” iron, as dubbed the computers from NeXT in the industry for their unusual tragic color, was too slow and was not suitable anywhere. The company switched to Intel, and rightly so.

Public opinion clearly sympathized with the company, a rare case in history. NeXT Software was waiting for something special. Mostly sympathetic. It is very different, this is an opinion. The company never became “public”, it was represented on the stock exchange, and its actions were not reacted by crowds of panicked shareholders.

In 1991-92, the performance of the “black iron” from NeXT was not inferior to the competitors, and it was very suitable for the tasks it performed, but in the public opinion there lived its mythical image – insanely beautiful black cubes, mysterious and unusual.

Did Jobs do the right thing, turning NeXT Computer into NeXT Software? The answer to this question is more complicated than it seems. Insufficient data. The financial position of NeXT can only be guessed: it was a private company owned by Jobs.

Most likely, with profitability, she had serious problems. In addition to Steve and the company’s accountant, nobody knew about the real state of affairs.

The RISC revolution was inevitable. It was about to begin Mass Production of processors, “the same as on powerful workstations”, “incredibly powerful” that would sweep away the current “old” from the market … It was very close, but it still has not started yet.

Mass production of the first serial PowerPC should have started about a year later. Naturally, the first to receive them, in industrial quantities, are “members of the trade union.” I mean, the consortium. Apple. But for Apple, the consortium with its participation in any case would have special prices and preferences.

Delay with the release of NeXT RISC Workstation on the market for a year, or even for two years, would have changed little. Worse would not have happened. The prototype NRW in the company was already, it could be brought to the unearthly perfection. For now, 68040 with a clock speed of 33 MHz was one of the best mass-produced processors …