NeXT - Influence On The Computer Industry

Influence On The Computer Industry

Despite NeXT's limited commercial success, the company had a wide-ranging impact on the computer industry. Object-oriented programming and graphical user interfaces became more common after the 1988 release of the NeXTcube and NeXTSTEP, when other companies started to emulate NeXT's object-oriented system. Apple started the Taligent project in 1989, with the goal of building a NeXT-like operating system for the Macintosh, with collaboration from both HP and IBM.

Microsoft announced the Cairo project in 1991; the Cairo specification included similar object-oriented user interface features for a coming consumer version of Windows NT. Although the project was ultimately abandoned, some elements were integrated into other projects. By 1994, Microsoft and NeXT were collaborating on a Windows NT-port of OpenStep; the port, however, was never released.

WebObjects failed to achieve wide popularity partly because of the initial high price of $50,000, but it remains the first and most prominent early example of a web application server which enabled dynamic page generation based on user interactions as opposed to static content. WebObjects is now bundled with Mac OS X Server and Xcode.

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