In moves that position NEXTSTEP as a Trojan horse in the fortress of corporate America, two important NEXTSTEP sites have merged with large firms in two markets.
At press time, Seattle-based McCaw Cellular, which has been developing a NEXTSTEP-based customer-service app for the past nine months, was bought by telecom giant AT&T for a reported $12.6 billion. The deal, expected to gain government approval within the next year, would give AT&T a cellular-service arm to complement its industry-leading wireless-network infrastructure and wired long-distance system.
"The consumer wins and technology moves forward quicker than if we stayed on separate fronts," a McCaw spokesman said.
And in July, Charlotte, North CarolinaÐbased NationsBanc, the sixth-largest U.S. bank, purchased Chicago Research and Trading (CRT). The merger will take CRT's risk-management expertise, some of which has been was developed during a NEXTSTEP pilot project, and make it available to NationsBanc's corporate clientele, according to John Keazirian, CRT's executive vice-president for information technology.