As you know by now NeXT has merged with Apple Computer. This is truly an historic event and will have lasting benefits. As a current NeXT customer you will continue to be fully supported. NeXT will continue to sell and support all of our existing products, and we will continue to offer cross-platform support. The entire NeXT field Sales and Services organization will be kept together and will be part of Apple's strengthened enterprise focus. The NeXT Sales organization will be the focal point for leading Apple into the enterprise, the internet/intranet, and for delivering solutions for a more open Apple, including cross-platform support for Microsoft and Unix. I will continue to be responsible for all of NeXT's current customers, and our sales and services strategy. This organization, of course, will now be Apple's focal point into enterprise sales.
This merger, described in the press release below, increases the market acceptance for the technology which you have invested in. I believe that Apple, NeXT, our joint customers, and the Computer Industry all benefit from this strategic relationship. The following briefly lists the five key reasons for this merger:
Embracing outside technology and cross platform industry standards, Apple believes it can innovate in the key areas that give its products and technology differentiation. NeXT's cross-platform development environments in the enterprise and Internet/intranet space allow developers to write once and deploy across a range of Internet and client-server platforms. With Apple driving alliances in the Internet/intranet space, Apple technology will contribute to the further development of the information industry.
NeXT's dynamic object oriented development environments allow enterprise customers to develop software solutions quickly and deploy reusable applications on either traditional client-server or Internet/intranet based networks. These powerful tools allow new applications to access legacy data and applications, a key concern for enterprise customers in the late 1990s. This, coupled with Apple product offerings and the "megatrend" toward corporate-wide intranets, reinvigorates Apple's product offering to enterprise customers.
The acquisition of NeXT will significantly strengthen Apple's technology portfolio in the Internet/intranet space. Apple's current Internet products and technologies, when combined with NeXT's object-oriented Java-enabled open development platform, give the company a competitive advantage. Apple Computer believes the acquisition of NeXT will give the company the opportunity to become a preeminent development and deployment platform for Java technology.
The acquisition of NeXT's development environments for enterprise and Internet markets will allow Apple to supplement its growing list of software products with a ready-made portfolio of powerful customer-focused software solutions. Apple is committed to increasing the revenue it makes from its software business and the acquisition of NeXT will be a significant milestone in building a differentiated, sustainable and profitable software business.
NEXTSTEP's maturity, networking, customer and developer acceptance, multi-tasking, protected memory, scalability from portable to server-level products, information linking, and powerful object-oriented architecture - will provide the MacOS the underpinning it needs to provide differentiated multimedia and Internet leadership moving forward. Apple is also confident that compatibility with existing applications will be strong in Mac OS as it evolves.
Feel free to visit our website at http://www.next.com. We will be contacting you soon with more information. In the mean-time, enjoy the holiday season and be secure in the knowledge that you are an essential part of our success.
