[STEVE JOBS]

Gregor Bailar, Steve Jobs’ primary System Engineer and later Technical Director of NeXT Europe who worked at NeXT from August 1988-October 1992, with his ownership label on bottom of mouse and keyboard. Bailar would go on to serve as Chief Information Officer at the NASDAQ Stock Market, CIO at Capital One Financial, CIO at Citibank Corp., etc.

STEVE JOBS AND THE EVOLVING NeXT STORY.

NeXT Computer equipped with NeXTdimension board, used by Steve Jobs during demonstrations throughout the UK and Europe.

Steve Jobs founded NeXT Inc. in late 1985 after essentially being pushed out of Apple Computer, which he started less than a decade previous and helped build into one of the most important personal computer companies. He struck upon the idea of "starting a company to build a powerful but personal workstation" (Isaacson p 212). There were countless delays, due in part to Jobs’ obsessive pursuit of perfection, before the NeXT Computer was finally introduced to the public on October 12, 1988 with the NeXT Introduction at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall. (See lot 54)

Although the NeXT Computer received accolades during its introduction, the company was still a long way from success. For one, it still wasn’t available for purchase until the following year and, more importantly, it was probably two times the price it should have been for its intended market. It really wasn’t until 1991 when Lotus, most known for its Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software, released Improv that the computer began to gain traction in Europe.

The present lot was the updated demonstration system issued to Steve Jobs’ primary System Engineer Gregor Bailar and updated to the present configuration as upgrades became available. Bailar was promoted to lead NeXT’s UK launch and eventually became overall Technical Director for Europe. Bailar accompanied Jobs on demonstrations and launch events in the UK and Europe including at CeBIT, one of the world’s largest computer expos. This present computer, boldly labeled “G-3” on the back panel to differentiate it as a demonstration unit, includes the NeXTdimension board that brought much-needed 32-bit color and speedy graphics to the computer so was up to date through 1992, when Bailar left NeXT and eventually moved into the financial sector holding executive roles at Citicorp N.A., Capital One Financial and the NASDAQ Stock Market/NASD.

The NeXT Computer was clearly advanced for its time and was the platform used by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at CERN to develop the world’s first web server and web browser – the WorldWideWeb – (Sotheby’s sold the Source Code for the WWW on 30 June, 2021). It was also used by the company id Software to develop the smash hit game series Doom and Quake. One of the main issues with NeXT was that the system was introduced at a price point far beyond the grasp of its intended market and its software wasn’t ready until the year following the 1988 Introduction. It was lost momentum that the company never regained even after they found modest success with the release of Lotus Improv and the lower priced NeXTstation. Despite the slowly improving sales, NeXT made the decision to drop the hardware and focus on software. Fortunes changed for both companies when Apple Inc purchased NeXT in late 1996 to adopt NeXTSTEP as the foundation for OSX. Jobs had clearly evolved through the difficulty and he seemed to have used what he learned to take Apple from a faltering company to one to one of the world’s largest.

Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. NY: [2011]; Stross, Randell E. Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing.  NY: 1993; Webster, Bruce F. The NeXT Book. Reading, MA: [1989].