November 27, 1996: Jobs Calls Amelio

by Chris Seibold Nov 27, 2010

Apple was in a bad way and Gil Amelio was doing everything he could think of to right the ship. Remedies included layoffs, killing projects and axing the Performa line. One thing that needed to be addressed was Apple's next generation operating system, the one Apple had been promising for years and failing to deliver.

Once the Copland project was killed at Apple, Gil Amelio knew he would have to buy an OS from someone. Many were considered, including Microsoft's NT, but the clear frontrunner was BeOS, an operating produced by ex Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassee's company, Be.

Jobs called Amelio, ostensibly to counsel against buying and using BeOS. As fate would have it, one thing led to another and Apple chose to purchase NeXT instead of option Be (pun courtesy of Gil Amelio). The call that got the ball rolling came this week in 1996.

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Comments

  • Wasn’t this actually in 1996?

    MarkSF had this to say on Nov 27, 2006 Posts: 14

  • This was actually in 1996, not in 1997. The deal was nearly complete by the end of December 1996. Early 1997 saw Steve Jobs as an advisor to Amelio. By summer of 1997 Amelio was gone from Apple, Steve Jobs was back in as interim CEO. The iMac came in 1998.

    Ronnie Mc had this to say on Nov 27, 2006 Posts: 2

  • Could someone explain what the deal is with these headlines with no articles or explanations? Am I supposed to understand the significance of “Jobs calls Amelio” from memory or something?

    brianus2 had this to say on Nov 27, 2006 Posts: 1

  • I believe this was actually in 1996.

    macman had this to say on Nov 28, 2006 Posts: 6
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