DBWI: Apple Buys NeXT Instead of Commodore

As we all know, Apple bought Commodore in 1996. They now base Mac OS X on Amiga. This has given Mac OS X an advantage to gamers, as you simply had to apply your Amiga knowledge to this new Mac OS. I have a question: What if Apple bought NeXT, the company that was originally planned to be bought, instead? This should raise an interesting scenario...

[OOC: In this timeline, Commodore survived for 2 more years. Apple, however, goes down the same path until then.]
 
jesus .. I'm a die hard amiga fan.. but every company that touched commodore either went belly up or got into trouble. you are cruel ;)

apple would have stifled under pressures from the outside by probably doing something as foolish as integrating mac os and BSD code base.

The Amiga was light years ahead in the gaming department as well as the OS multi-tasking department. combine that with apple resources and the lock in education segment. ( as well as the Amiga's strength and inroads already in Hollywood with the video toaster ) the next generation hardware would have been great! there would I think have to be some compromise on OS structure. The amiga had a more open system with data types and other pluggable components.

You could have had gaming make its way to the new platform in short order.

Amiga wanted to move to the PPC anyway at this time.

The only real advantage with NeXT would have been bring Jobs back into the fold. however that said Jay Miner did a great job as the voice of the new combined company and pushing the board to change and put out the great products we now all love and use. Imagine if Jobs came back and moved the mac to Intel?! Jobs was great but had no real vision for a truly useful product that was at least moderately affordable

I mean the Amiga Newton itself single handly put apple back in the game.

Followed by their smart phone - the mac-phone was 10 years ahead then and even further now. they saw the future. high end workstations - mobile tech
and with the two brands they could take the lowed end home users with the Amiga name and then cross over at the mid range into the high end workstations.
 
I know NeXT would have been a better choice in hindsight.
But sometimes personal animosity interferes with business decisions.
If only John Sculley had been fired earlier, it could have smoothened the path for the return of Steve Jobs in some capacity.
 
I know NeXT would have been a better choice in hindsight.
But sometimes personal animosity interferes with business decisions.
If only John Sculley had been fired earlier, it could have smoothened the path for the return of Steve Jobs in some capacity.

Come on we all know Jobs was a one hit wonder. His NeXT hardware was great and all, but gawd awful expensive.
Commodore and the Amiga while limping at this point, brought new life to Apple. The idea of modularity, real multi-tasking, Memory management and Multi-tasking, more advanced custom chips took the company to the next level. yes it took a few years to combine the best of AmigaOS and MacOS, but the final product is much better than what Microsoft had created with their Windows 2003 operating system by that time.

lets not forget that Apple also purchased Motorolla and for all intensive purposes co-designs the PPC chips as well as controls its own custom chipsets.

Apple owns the entertainment and creative industries and the majority of the education sector, along with obviously the mobile market and every 3rd computer at home. Steve Jobs would have done better?
 
Top