[strictnein]

And almost the replacement for classic Mac OS:

> "the hope that Apple would purchase or license BeOS as a replacement for its aging Classic Mac OS.[4] Apple CEO Gil Amelio started negotiations to buy Be Inc., but negotiations stalled when Be CEO Jean-Louis Gassée wanted $300 million;[5] Apple was unwilling to offer any more than $125 million. Apple's board of directors decided NeXTSTEP was a better choice and purchased NeXT in 1996 for $429 million, bringing back Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.[6]"

What a different world we'd be in if Jobs had stayed at NeXT.

[pjmlp]

Assuming Apple would managed not to close doors and achieve a similar success with BeOS, the FOSS UNIX guys would have had to contend with GNU/Linux and *BSD as desktop alternatives to BeOS and Windows.

NeXTStep would have probably closed doors as they were already trying to survive by ditching hardware and selling OpenSTEP instead.

Which Sun played for a while, but decided to not adopt it in the end.

[beojan]

I don't see Apple becoming as successful as it did if it hadn't had Jobs at the helm, so we would in all likelihood just have Windows now.

[pjmlp]

I kind of agree, it would be a big "What if".

[pmarreck]

BeOS IMHO would be pretty unstoppable right now, had Apple adopted it, certainly much better/more modern than the current OS X. They should have offered $200 mil to Gassée, and brought Jobs in with a bonus of some sort, and still paid out less than they did. (Although I suppose Jobs wouldn't be enthused to work on BeOS.)

[NuggyMcNugget]

Jobs without next? Would not have happend. Without Jobs, Apple would have been long gone.