Las Vegas Ð With NeXTSTEP '486 aimed at the mainstream personal-computer market, NeXT staged a guerrilla incursion into the PC industry's biggest annual gathering at Comdex/ Fall in November.
Although NeXT's hideaway showroom and meager floor presence captured relatively little attention, Steve Jobs broke through the noise level at his "CEO Perspective" presentation, proclaiming NeXTSTEP as "the only serious alternative to Microsoft Windows on the horizon."
In a demonstration of NeXT-STEP running on a Dell '486 computer, Jobs took repeated swipes at Windows, the industry's dominant operating environment. "[The industry is] in a precarious situation. Whenever monopolies come into play, innovation slows down," Jobs said. "It is very important that we work together to give customers at least one additional choice."
Customers may have to wait longer than expected, however, to get their hands on the software. Although Jobs told the audience that NeXTSTEP '486 would ship in the second quarter of 1993, he revised that date until Q3 when he spoke to financial-services managers in London a week later.
The extra time is needed to provide an adequate beta-test period, which is expected to begin in January, Jobs said.
During the Comdex address, Jobs highlighted NeXTSTEP's advantages but acknowledged the inevitability of Windows by showing Insignia Solutions' SoftPC for NeXTSTEP '486 running Windows in a NeXTSTEP window (see "Soft-PC Professional does Windows").
"NeXTSTEP gives me 3270 sessions into my mainframe for dealing with legacy apps, custom apps in a full client-server environment, great productivity apps, the greatest groupware system in the world Ð and Microsoft Windows to boot, if I want to remember how well off I really am," he said.
In an impromptu interview, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates brushed aside any NeXT challenge. "There is more competition among operating systems now than ever before. For example, there's one called the Macintosh operating system, which Steve may remember," he said.
Gates also declined any interest in developing NeXTSTEP applications. "I am paid to make these decisions. We're not doing anything with NeXTSTEP at this time due to the sales volume."