Fremont, CA Ð Having failed to find a buyer to take over its factory intact, NeXT last month sold it off piece by piece in a public auction. The sale, conducted by high-tech liquidators Ross-Dove, included factory equipment and fixtures, office furniture, and finished NeXT computers and peripherals.
According to Dominique Trempont, NeXT's CFO, the auction raised $400,000, a small fraction of the money invested in the facility. "That was basically fair value for the assets we sold," Trempont said, noting that much of the prime factory equipment and technology had been sold separately.
NeXT officials said that the sale was unrelated to ongoing negotiations with Canon, its former partner in hardware design and manufacturing. Despite initial indications that Canon might purchase the factory, it was never the biggest piece of the overall transaction, which is now nearing completion, according to sources close to the company.
The auction attracted about 300 bidders and onlookers, including NeXT resellers, customers, and user-group members. Also present were members of the team that designed NeXT's world-leading automation facility, including Rich Page, former VP and general manager of the hardware division.
Many of the auctioned items were sold for typical used-equipment prices, while assembly-line components, such as a robotic laser-marking system and wave-solder machine, went for salvage rates.
But products with the NeXT logo, such as color monitors and printers, commanded high prices, some higher than the current prices for such items from Bell Atlantic.
"If they [these bidders] want to pay that much, I'll sell them the same monitors for a lower price, and it will include a warranty," said Sam Goldberger of Spherical Solutions, a reseller of NeXT equipment.