There was certainly much lamentation at the time that Apple didn’t purchase BeOS.
I’m also reminded of Sun’s near-acquisition of Apple (apparently multiple times), which McNealy(?) later acknowledged would never have worked out so well.
Jobs gets a lot of grief here and elsewhere for his personal failings and management style, but this was an epochal moment in the computer business. I remember roughly at the same time dreading what seemed like the inevitable Windows victory over all of personal computing.
BeOS would have been a disaster. Jobs gave Ive a chance to design an iconic iMac, which handily restored Apple's credibility and also helped get some money rolling in. And then the iPod, iPhone, iPad and the rest.
I can't imagine BeOS going in the same direction. Macs would have been increasingly PC-like - but with a much nicer OS, and maybe brightly coloured plastic [1] instead of beige - and someone else would have eaten mobile.
I suspect BeOS Macs would have ended up more like the Amiga - an item of nostalgia. Apple would likely have been sold off within a couple of years.
As told in the Walter Isaacson book about Jobs, Larry Ellison wanted to buy a controlling interest (or all of it) in Apple and install Jobs back as CEO around the time Jobs was attempting to accomplish the same end goal by acquisition. Jobs was responsible for preventing Ellison from using that tactic, on the argued basis of claiming the moral high ground.
I’m also reminded of Sun’s near-acquisition of Apple (apparently multiple times), which McNealy(?) later acknowledged would never have worked out so well.
Jobs gets a lot of grief here and elsewhere for his personal failings and management style, but this was an epochal moment in the computer business. I remember roughly at the same time dreading what seemed like the inevitable Windows victory over all of personal computing.
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