January 26, 1997: Is Be NeXT?

Jean-Louis Gassee is a savvy businessman. Foreseeing the problems that would develop with Apple's next generation operating system, codenamed Copland, he resigned from Apple and started his own company: Be Inc.

The company produced computers, but the name of the game was BeOS. The operating system had generated a lot of positive press and addressed many of the failings of the classic Mac OS. Apple entered into serious negotiations with Be in an attempt to purchase Be's crown jewel. Gassee, sensing weakness, squeezed hard. Apple offered 125 million and Be asked for 200 million. Apple balked at the steep price and began to investigate other options, even going so far as to consider Windows NT.

After a call from Steve Jobs ostensibly to warn against going with Be, Apple began to consider NeXT. The deal was spun with all of the usual niceties. Apple could do a lot for NeXT and NeXT could do a lot for Apple but in the end all that really happened was that Apple bought the seeds for OS X and current Apple CEO Gil Amelio got Steve Jobs back in an advisory role for a mere $427 million. And thus, because of Be's high price, it was January 26, 1997 that Steve Jobs returned to the company he had co-founded, just to help out for a while.