After Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985, everyone wanted to know what Steve would do next.... so NeXT was what he did.
In 1988 his NeXT team launched a new kind of computer for it's time, built on standards with a Unix core but with a user experience "my grandma could understand". It was well ahead of it's time, so naturally, it was not embraced by main stream consumers... a classic "Crossing the Chasm" issue. But many saw it for what it was, a breakthrough product as innovative as today's iTunes, iPod and iPhone.
Building upon NeXT's hardware and more importantly, their software development environment, many third party NeXT developers added their own magic dust to create revolutionary products, like the world's first web browser, or a new form of spread sheet, Lotus Improv or WebObjects, the foundation upon which the iTune store is built, to name only a few. Some of these ground breaking products may never be repeated. Most contained innovations embraced by future applications, with a clear lineage back to NeXTSTEP.
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