NeXT

NeXT, Inc., later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc., was an American computer hardware and software company that was founded by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs. Based in Redwood City, California, the company developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations for higher education and business markets.

History
After being ousted from Apple in 1985, Jobs established NeXT and bought aboard several former co-workers. NeXT introduced the first NeXT Computer in 1988, and the smaller NeXTstation in 1990. The NeXT computers experienced relatively limited sales. However, their innovative object-oriented NeXTSTEP operating system and development environment (Interface Builder) were highly influential and became the future foundation of macOS.

In early 1992, Jobs called Marc Canter, who himself had been ousted from MacroMind-Paracomp before it became Macromedia. Jobs asked Canter to develop for NeXTSTEP. However, Canter declined because NeXT only had monochrome computer models that did not support color at the time.

On December 20, 1996, Apple announced that it would acquire NeXT and Jobs was back at Apple. The NeXTSTEP operating system was adapted into Mac OS X.