

All NeXT Inc.'s Plant Lacks Is Orders (1990) - shawndumas
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/24/business/all-next-inc-s-plant-lacks-is-orders.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

======
patrickgzill
I used to sell NeXT software and hardware when working for a company called
OpenSource (they actually owned the opensource.com domain name before RedHat
got it).

At that time "open" meant interopable rather than the current "open source
software" meaning. For instance, the DBkit and EOF database software could
talk to Sybase or Oracle or any other database for which there was a driver.

As a result we used NeXTstations for all our tasks, and really, that was the
best computing environment I have used. As another poster says, we really
haven't "budged the needle" since Nextstep v3.3 of the OS.

Later while working for another company I got the ability to talk to Keith
Ohlfs who designed the UI and personally thanked him for it.

~~~
acg
My understanding is the use of Open was used before this by Symbolics and
possibly other lisp machine manufactuers. I'd argue too that their systems
were more open, where the user could read the system software and patch it in
while it was running.

The foundations of the open source movement too stem from these communities
(the GPL) not from NeXt. It would appear to me, like other Unix manufacturers,
NeXt claimed openness when mostly it was marketing-speak for "based on Unix".

~~~
patrickgzill
The word "open" at that time, when used in conjunction with Unix, meant
something along the lines of "POSIX" compliant. Even earlier uses were more
along the lines of "uses TCPIP and supports NFS" IIRC, though that is before
my time.

Open as used above, was started by the users, not the OS vendors, in reaction
to APIs that weren't portable between different versions of Unix - the vendors
were trying to create lock-in and the users didn't like it. Even Microsoft NT
supported POSIX (not sure how well it worked).

Definitely the open source movement came from outside NeXT... Gnu was already
around and used a lot, in fact the GCC compiler, ported for Next was the
supported C/ObjC/C++ compiler.

------
spitfire
The most interesting part of that article was that they produce prototype
boards on the same assembly line as production. No waiting for boards to come
in. If they want a board made simply queue it and it's done.

They were agile before it was cool to be agile.

EDIT: Also, I had a NeXT Cube and NeXT Turbostation with laser printer. They
were fantastic. We've barely budged the needle since then.

~~~
wheels
_They were agile before it was cool to be agile._

Which turned out to be arrogant, stupid and wrong.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I think it turned out pretty well for NeXT. They _are_ the third largest
company in the world by market cap, now.

~~~
wheels
Their hardware was a resounding flop and building a state-of-the-art
production facility for something for which there was no demand is in
retrospect clearly a mistake.

Also, given that NeXT was bought for about 15% of Apple's market cap (after
laying off most of their employees), it's disingenuous to imply that Apple ==
NeXT. What saved Apple was the iPod, not OS X and Cocoa.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
NeXT, effectively, acquired Apple for negative $429 million (and 1.5 million
shares of Apple stock): _As everyone knows by now, what began as an Apple
purchase of NeXT has been turned inside out and become a NeXT takeover._

<http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1997/03/2596>

edit: I want to add a couple points to my followup.

1\. NeXT's hardware _was_ a resounding flop. Their state-of-the-art factory
turned out to be for naught. This is absolutely true.

2\. That said, this mistake did not prevent NeXT from co-opting Apple and
becoming the third largest company (by market cap) in the world.

3\. Apple == NeXT: Apple was, pun intended, rotten. Steve Jobs and his most
trusted lieutenants assumed key positions of power throughout Apple. The only
highly visible and critical Apple employee I can identify who pre-dated
Steve's return to Apple is Jony Ive. _However_ , Ive was laboring in obscurity
before Steve assumed his position as "iCEO" of Apple[1 and 2].

4\. Arguably, the iMac saved Apple. In one of the recently-posted WWDC or
Macworld keynotes, Steve addresses this point in quite a bit of detail. The
iPod made Apple a veritable powerhouse...but not at first[3]. The iPhone made
Apple, well, Apple. As it happens, the iPhone (and OS X, and the iPad) is the
result of decades of engineering work that started at NeXT[4].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive#Career>

[2] <http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/091797apple.html>

[3] [http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/Apple-releases-
iP...](http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/Apple-releases-iPod)

[4] Or, to be pedantic, at CMU, where Mach was originally co-developed by Avie
Tevanian, who later became the SVP of Software Engineering at Apple.

~~~
philwelch
_The only highly visible and critical Apple employee I can identify who pre-
dated Steve's return to Apple is Jony Ive._

Fred Anderson, the CFO under Amelio, was kept on until the backdating scandal.
He played a key role in saving Apple--they were almost cash broke when Amelio
took over, and Anderson arranged a key bond issue to keep the company afloat.

~~~
sambeau
And Ive was a mostly invisible, disenfranchised employee then.

------
smithbits
Here's a low quality video of the factory from back in the day
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhfUKEu7sJ0> (The copy of the video is low
quality that is, the original production values were excellent)

~~~
equalarrow
Here's a better quality video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb7foG1rtlA>

~~~
vinced
who did the musical score? John Williams ?

------
ary
The best I could find on the fate of this factory was from Wikipedia [1].

"NeXT withdrew from the hardware business in 1993 and the company was renamed
NeXT Software Inc; subsequently 300 of the 540 staff employees were laid off.
NeXT negotiated to sell the hardware business including the Fremont factory to
Canon. Canon later pulled out of the deal. Work on the PowerPC machines was
stopped along with all hardware production."

The choice of storage technology always seemed to me to be the reason it
didn't take off. Kind of a bummer that it didn't work out (some would say it
did, à la Apple).

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT#1993.E2.80.931996:_NeXT_So...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT#1993.E2.80.931996:_NeXT_Software)

~~~
rmason
I remember well going to a NeXT exhibit at Michigan State. I was blown away by
the beauty of the machine but thought the disk storage and lack of color
graphics were deal killers.

The sales guy working the booth was quick to let me know that I could order a
machine with a hard drive and that I didn't have to take the optical disk. In
fact he said everyone was ordering them that way. But he grew silent when
asked when asked about the availability of color monitors.

Sure wish I had known when the universities NeXT cubes went through salvage
because I would have certaintly bought one - they were absolutely beautiful.

~~~
razzmataz
There were NeXT slabs that were available from salvage circa 1998. They were
likely the machines in the computing lab in Wells Hall, next to the language
lab. There were also a half dozen color turbo NeXT stations in Holmes Hall.

Those machines were some of the nicest to work on Mathematica with. We also
had installed the ISCA BBS client on those machines, before the remote telnet
access was turned off.

When were you at Michigan State?

------
recampbell
"In Mr. Jobs's view, the factory testifies to the fact that the United States
can still compete as both a low-cost and a world-class manufacturer when it
sets its mind to the task."

I suppose he has changed his position?

~~~
mkr-hn
Manufacturing in the US has never been better. It's the number of people
needed to manufacture stuff in the US that's been declining.

~~~
radicaldreamer
Due to wage/cost inflation in China and the coming rise of the Yuan (along
with the weakness of the dollar), the US is about to become the cheapest place
for high end manufacturing in the world.

~~~
larsberg
Modulo regulatory approval, of course. Most of my family works in various
manufacturing industries (high end foundry, steel mills, etc.) and you're
looking at years to get even the most basic permits through unless you are in
one of the states that allow you to "purchase" fast-track approval. Companies
end up buying the old, dead husks of manufacturing plants that went out of
business not because they want any of the machines or people but because their
permits are often still valid and in some cases transferable to your other
locations.

Even if you wanted to expand to meet increasing demand, the opportunity will
be gone before you can get approval to build out for it (even in relatively
business-friendly states like IN). And the company-purchase strategy has to be
taken carefully, both because business capital is hard to come by today and
because manufacturing operates with margins so small that there's no room for
error.

Further, you have the risk of OSHA shutting you down or penalizing you to
unprofitability. As I understand it, safety regulations are much like traffic
laws -- if a police officer wants to pull you over while you're driving, they
can almost definitely find something to charge you with, even if it's just
their interpretation -- and the same is true of your OSHA inspector.

Wages/productivity play a large portion of being a good place to do high end
manufacturing, but are still a relatively small part of your ability to
profitably grow and run a manufacturing business.

~~~
eru
Yes. Basically the US can only afford to have so many stupid rules, because
they are so productive.

------
gluecode
I have a NeXT cube from the 1990s. It is one of the best built products in
terms of build quality, I have ever seen.

~~~
jseliger
How does it compare to Model M keyboards? Or the recent editions of those
keyboards (see more: [http://jseliger.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp-
custom...](http://jseliger.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp-customizer-
keyboard/) )?

~~~
thought_alarm

        > How does it compare to Model M keyboards?
    

The 1st-gen NeXT keyboards use Alps key-switches, like the Apple keyboards of
the late-80s. The one I have is rock-solid and one of the finest keyboards
I've used.

It also had some clever innovations:

\- It is very compact. It has the same width as a traditional PC keyboard, but
without the top row of function keys. That means it's only 5 rows high.

\- Consequently, the Escape key is next to the "1" key, where the
backtick/tilde key would normally be. However, the tilde is an important
character in Unix, so if you hit Shift+Escape as if to type a tilde, you'll
still get a tilde character. It's a nice touch.

\- The Control key is next to the "A". Command and Option keys are on both
sides of the space bar.

\- There is no Caps Lock key. To engage Caps Lock, press Command+Shift; green
LEDs on both Shift keys light up to indicate Caps Lock.

\- There are no home/end/page up/page down keys. They are replaced with Power,
Volume up/down, and Brightness up/down. All NextSTEP applications support the
traditional Emacs shortcuts for Home/End/Page Up/Page Down etc., and that
tradition lives on in OS X.

\- The hardware (cube, monitor, or printer) has no buttons or switches of any
kind. Power, volume, and brightness can only be controlled from the keyboard
(like a modern laptop). That means you can't turn the machine on or off
without the keyboard, and the keyboard connects to the monitor!

~~~
ConstantineXVI
The OS X keyboard technically still has a Caps Lock key; but you're free to
remap it to any of the other modifier keys (or none of them) in the keyboard
prefs. Being a Vim user I don't use Control much, so I put it to ⌘ to call up
Alfred more easily.

------
forgotAgain
Mr. Jobs you amaze me. It's taken a while but you've buried those who depend
on copier machines for product development.

What would the world look like today if all of the developers who had Windows
95 machines had Next boxes and software instead?

------
krakensden
My uncle did some electrical work for NeXT when they were first setting up,
and he said he knew they were going to fail. They'd just finished putting in a
very expensive new hardwood floor, and the guy in charge of design came in and
said "it's going the wrong way- rip it out and do it right."

~~~
pohl
It's interesting how that story is colored differently, depending on whether
one considers NeXT (and/or its perfectionist attitude) to be a spectacular
success.

------
mrbill
April '93 UnixWorld cover - "Does Steve Jobs have a Future in Software?"

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/29870210/>

Ironic to look back on now, considering that OS X and the Macs that a lot of
us use are the direct descendants of NeXTStep and the NeXT hardware.

I owned a few slabs back in the day, and even found a picture of when I used
one as my main desktop at an ISP in the late 90s:
<http://www.mrbill.net/next.jpg>

------
js2
Apropos of nothing, burning a NeXTcube - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkvQ-
BJD2rU>

------
sehugg
I almost forgot how DOOM, although primarily a DOS game, was created on NeXT
systems:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_of_Doom#Building_the_gam...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_of_Doom#Building_the_game)

~~~
bane
If I recall correctly, id built much of the software on NeXT systems for as
long as it was reasonably possible. I have a feeling Carmack loves his current
work on iOS.

~~~
atomicdog
TIL Carmack's been using Objective C since the Doom days.

------
RexRollman
Being what I call a "computer hobbyist", I have used quite a few operating
systems over the years, and one of my all time favorites is Nextstep (along
with BeOS). In fact, I still prefer the overall look of Nextstep over Mac OS
X, even now, many years later.

Back in 1996, I bought a used Nextstation from a company called Spherical
Solutions, run by a man named Sam Goldberger (IIRC). I loved that computer,
but sadly, it was killed by a good old Florida lightening strike in 1998.

------
ilamont
If anyone is interested in an analysis of the rise and fall of NeXT, I highly
recommend Randall Stross' "Steve Jobs & the NeXT Big Thing", which was
published in 1993.

Considering Apple's incredible comeback, it's kind of strange to read
something that is so critical of Jobs, but the book really helps inform about
his thought processes on product design, marketing, and sales.

------
rogercosseboom
I love the overtones of this article indirectly (but surely not accidentally)
refer to self-replicating machines ala Von Neumann:

Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata :
<http://cba.mit.edu/events/03.11.ASE/docs/VonNeumann.pdf>

------
Apocryphon
"Start-up" company

"Steven P." Jobs

"United States can still compete as both a low-cost and a world-class
manufacturer"

So, what other items become amusingly ironic thanks to the lens of retrospect?

~~~
kstenerud
In what way? Entrepreneurs are still failing and then eventually hitting home
runs. Steve's full name is still Steven P. Jobs. And the US can still complete
as both a low-cost and a world-class manufacturer.

~~~
bmastenbrook
"And the US can still complete as both a low-cost and a world-class
manufacturer."

Assuming that you're referring to the type of electronics manufacturing that
NeXT was doing at its plant, can you provide any evidence to support this
assertion?

~~~
eru
How about Intel?

~~~
bmastenbrook
Intel fabs chips here. They assemble electronics in China.

Edit: And that's assuming that they assemble electronics at all, which I
wouldn't bet on.

~~~
slowcpu
Recent Intel Fabrication Locations:

Fab 24 Leixlip, Ireland

Fab 28 Kiryat Gat, Israel

Fab 68 Dalian, China

Fab 42 Chandler, Arizona, USA

\--------------------------------------

Recent Intel Assembly Sites:

Heredia, Costa Rica

Chengdu, China

Kulim, Malaysia

Penang, Malaysia

Saigon, Vietnam

Chandler, Arizona

~~~
foobarbazoo
Most of that is almost certainly, in part, for tax related reasons. Intel is
profitable; profitable US companies want to keep those profits outside the US
(see: Google).

------
vinced
:( I once owned 2 next cubes with matching printers. Gave them away many years
ago when I started downsizing. I miss them more than some ex-girlfriends :)

~~~
ams6110
Would be fun to get an old cube and stick a mac mini (or few) inside it.

------
lorax
I wonder how that plant compares to electronics plants Tory. Would it still
seem up to date or would it be hopelessly outdated.

