Jean-Louis Gassee's Be buzzes on, having failed to enter Apple's hive
Article Abstract:
Be Inc is forced to re-enter the market to promote its alternative OS since Apple has decided to acquire Next Software, rather than Be, as the source of its new OS. Both Be and Apple represent early bargaining negotiations in much the same way. Be has maintained that it based its asking price of more than $400 million of Apple's stock, along with the right to name an Apple board member, on the assumption that it was Apple's sole option for a new OS. Be recalls later modifying its proposal to 10 million Apple shares, but by that time Apple had shifted its concentration towards Next Software. Jean-Louis Gassee, Be's founder, partially blames Apple's fluctuating goals to obtain the celebrity status of Apple's co-founder, Steve Jobs, as well as its desire for a corporate software platform that would rival Microsoft's Windows NT in the high-end market, as paramount to Apple's ultimate decision.
Publication Name: The Wall Street Journal Western Edition
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0193-2241
Year: 1997
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Sun, IBM, in rare cooperation, to create Java operating system
Article Abstract:
Sun Microsystems and IBM will jointly develop Java OS for Business, a new Java-based OS. The first-ever cooperation between the two computer rivals will target terminals linked to central computers and presenting data to terminal-replacement businesses such as reservation clerks, computer help desks and data-entry workers. Both companies said the software will be available by summer 1998. Sun exclusively has handled the project's difficult part of designing the new Java software's basic design, according to Jim Herbert, the Sun general manager in charge of the joint IBM project. Plans call for IBM to use the OS in its high-end network computers in early 1999, and Sun expects to phase it into its JavaStation machines throughout 1999.
Publication Name: The Wall Street Journal Western Edition
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0193-2241
Year: 1998
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