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Ultimately, Jobs' new machine will be judged by what's inside the
black box. If nothing else, the NeXT is a treat for the eyes, ears
and mind. The 17-inch black-and-white screen is remarkably sharp. It
dispenses with floppy disks; instead, it stores information on a
removable "optical disk" that can hold pictures and sound as well as
100,000 pages of text. Thanks to an advanced sound chip, the machine
could be used as a telephone-answering machine or a music
synthesizer. It can also record with the fidelity of a compact disc.
The NeXT will come with a bundle of software designed to meet the
needs of educators and students: word processing, a data base and
advanced computer languages for programmers (not to mention a
dictionary, thesaurus and "book" of quotations).
 New
computers often don't succeed because software isn't available for
them yet. Jobs has tried to end-run that problem. The NeXT's
operating system (the link between the machine and the programs it
runs) is a variant of Unix, the current favorite in the academic and
technical communities. That means the computer should be able to run
the programs that exist or are being written with Unix. The machine
makes it easy to write "courseware": instead of requiring complex
programming commands, it uses a simplified set of software "building
blocks." The company also offers a laser printer that beats the
industry standard at a third of the standard's price.
Despite the technical wizardry, the NeXT is less revolutionary
than evolutionary. Each component was within reach of Jobs'
competitors. Of its pioneering "erasable optical" disk drive,
Microsoft's Gates says: "Anyone can write Sony a check." (In fact,
the drive came from Canon) But even as an evolutionary step, NeXT is
impressive. After all, Jobs wrote the check to Canon before anyone
else, and drove his staff to incorporate the device into his machine
even though many analysts had not expected to see it emerge before
1990. "[Jobs'] gift is assessing the risk of new
technologies-gambling that it will be ready when he's ready," says
John Warnock of Adobe Systems, which produced NeXT software. "Most
companies take things off the shelf." John Dvorak, computer
columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, argues that even the gaps
in Jobs' technical knowledge are part of his strength. "Since Jobs
isn't a professional engineer," Dvorak says, "he doesn't know what
can't be done."
The NeXT venture does have several strikes against it, however,
the most important being the cost of bringing a computer to market.
Trip Hawkins, an early Jobs protégé and now president of Electronic
Arts, says that the Macintosh survived only because of bountiful
profits from the Apple II line and because Apple "had a religious
belief in it and went to the wall." NeXT, he says, "has the same
religious leader, but not the cash cow." Critics also say any "box
for the '90s" should have a color screen; Jobs says that's on the
way.
Jobs' third act won't be as easy as his first, when Apple
virtually invented the personal-computer market. The highly
competitive workstation market has already seen its pioneer days,
with plucky start-ups like Sun and Apollo. The $2.5 billion market
is ripe for entry by majors like AT&T and IBM--which has already
launched one unsuccessful workstation, but is gearing up for another
try. Meanwhile, the high-end personal computers from IBM and Apple
already rival low-end workstations for performance and price.
NeXT's competitors say they aren't worried about Jobs' entry into
their turf. In the nine months before NeXT reaches the market (most
machines will go to software developers until then), several of the
competitors are likely to launch new machines that meet Jobs'
computer head-on -- and offer deep discounts. "We're not out to do a
'NeXT killer'," says Curt Wozniak, vice president of the
educational-products division at Sun. "We're out to capture the
education market."
Despite those dangers, many industry analysts are still
enthusiastic about NeXT. Adam Cuhney, a vice president and high-tech
analyst at Kidder, Peabody & Co., was one of the few who warned
in 1983 that the Lisa was overpriced. Although he notes that a lot
can happen before NeXT comes to market, he calls it "a phenomenal
product." Unlike the computer buyers of 1983, Cuhney says, today's
market is now savvy enough to recognize value and pay for it. Mitch
Kapor, who launched Lotus Development Corp. and its pioneering Lotus
1-2-3 business program, has now left to form a new company and is
working with NeXT. Kapor predicts that "after the initial shock,
when [workstation makers] realize they can't do spin control,
they'll say [Jobs] is right."
Photograph: John
Sculley, head of Apple Computer. Photograph by: Rob Kinmonth
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