From: <geer@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Message-Id: <8909131350.AA11448@E40-342F-2.MIT.EDU>
To: sysdev@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: staff@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject: fyi on NeXT
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 89 09:50:38 EDT

courtesy of a clipping service.

--dan

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    Steven Jobs finally has the computer he says the
world is waiting for. 

    Next Inc., Jobs's closely held company, has finished
the first version of its operating-system software,
marking the completion of a computer it unveiled eleven
months ago.  "This is going to make Next look good
again," said Ron Johnson, associate vice president for
computing and communications at the University of
Washington. 

    The completion of the operating-system software,
which controls the computer's basic functions,
represents an important milestone for Next.  The company
plans to rely heavily on sales to universities, so it
was considered critical that Next have a finished
product ready this month when students and faculty begin
a new academic year.  Next has been shipping its
computer since the spring with a test version of the
operating system, but many universities have advised
students and faculty not to buy the machine until the
software was completed. 

    Completing the operating system also may quiet
critics who claim the computer hadn't lived up to
expectations.  Jobs, a co-founder of Apple Computer
Inc., has already made good on his promise to build a
computer that blends together advanced graphics, sound
and other "hardware" technologies.  While these novel
devices captured much attention, Jobs acknowledged that
creating the computer's basic software posed a greater
challenge. 

    Next's software has many of the same general
features -- icons, pull-down menus, windows and desktop
imagery -- that are credited with fueling the popularity
of Apple's Macintosh computer, whose design Jobs oversaw
in the early 1980s.  Next's software, however, is
written in a variant of Unix, a computer language widely
used by engineers and scientists.  While Unix is more
powerful than DOS, the standard language for
personal-computer programs, it is more complex and
doesn't yet offer many applications popular with users
of personal computers, such as spreadsheets and
databases. 

    A delay of several months in completing the system
software increased the pressure on Next; those who used
the test versions of the software complained that the
machine was slow and that it frequently "crashed"
because of programming glitches.  Jobs himself even
crashed the computer during a public demonstration this
summer. 

    Next plans to begin shipping its finished system
software by the week of Sept.  18, a spokeswoman said.
She added, however, that Next was still running final
tests on version 1.0 and could not rule out the
possibility of uncovering serious bugs.  That might
delay the release of the software, she said. 

    Next already has begun distributing the operating
system to outside software developers and others.  Users
say the completed version is a vast improvement over
earlier test versions. 

    "We've been pounding on it since last week, and so
far there haven't been any bugs," said Bill Edwards, a
group leader at Frame Technology Corp., a San Jose
software company that has developed a desktop publishing
application for Next's computer. 

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