BeOS is a discontinued personal computer operating system developed by Be Inc., a company founded by former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassee, and conceived for Be's own BeBox hardware released in 1995. Built from scratch around multithreading, symmetric multiprocessing and multimedia performance rather than compatibility with an existing system, BeOS was seriously considered by Apple as the basis for a next-generation Mac OS in 1996 before Apple chose NeXTSTEP instead. It never achieved significant market share and Be Inc. was later acquired by Palm. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
SignificanceAn operating system built for multitasking and multimedia performance that Apple seriously considered as the basis of a next-generation Mac OS. 1 Classification
LicenseProprietary (Closed Source) 2 FAQs
Why did Apple not buy BeOS?
The talks stalled over price ($300 million asked, $125 million offered), and Apple's board preferred NeXTSTEP.
Apple's CEO Gil Amelio started negotiations to buy Be Inc. in 1996, but the talks stalled over price: Be's chief executive Jean-Louis Gassée wanted $300 million and Apple offered $125 million. Apple's board of directors preferred NeXTSTEP and bought Steve Jobs's NeXT instead.
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Sources
1. Wikipedia: BeOS
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
BeOS is a discontinued operating system for personal computers that was developed by Be Inc. It was conceived for the company's BeBox personal computer which was released in 1995.
2. Wikidata: BeOS
- Wikidata Q62563, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)
- Wikidata Q62563 P571 (inception)
- Wikidata Q62563 P275 (license)
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