[3] In 1985, Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs led a division campaign called SuperMicro, which was responsible for developing the Macintosh and Lisa computers.

[5] Jobs met Paul Berg, a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, at a luncheon in Silicon Valley held to honor President of France François Mitterrand.

[4]: 72 [6] Berg was frustrated by the time and expense of researching recombinant DNA via wet laboratories, and suggested that Jobs should use his influence to create a "3M computer" that is designed for higher education.

[7][8] Jobs was intrigued by Berg's concept of a workstation and contemplated starting a higher-education computer company in late 1985, amid increasing turmoil at Apple.

The board of directors sided with Sculley, and Jobs took a business trip to Western Europe and the Soviet Union on behalf of Apple.

[14] After consulting with major educational buyers from around the country, including a follow-up meeting with Paul Berg, a tentative specification for the workstation was drawn up.

[15] Before the specifications were finished, however, Apple sued NeXT on September 23, 1985, for "nefarious schemes" to take advantage of the cofounders' insider information.

[4]: 75 In 1986, Jobs recruited graphic designer Paul Rand to create a brand identity for $100,000 (equivalent to $278,000 in 2023).

'"[18] Rand created a 20-page brochure detailing the brand, including the precise angle used for the logo (28°) and a new company name spelling, NeXT.

[4]: 72  NeXT's first workstation is the NeXT Computer, nicknamed "the cube"[20] due to its distinctive magnesium one-foot (30 cm) cubic case.

In 1989, a typical new PC, Macintosh, or Amiga computer included a few megabytes of RAM, a 640×480 16-color or 320x240 4,096-color display, a 10- to 20-megabyte hard drive, and few networking capabilities.

After NeXT exited the hardware business, Canon produced a PC line called object.station—including models 31, 41, 50, and 52—specifically designed to run NeXTSTEP on Intel.

[41][42] In 1992, NeXT launched "Turbo" variants of the NeXTcube and NeXTstation, with a 33 MHz 68040 processor and the maximum RAM capacity increased to 128 MB.

But Next needs to increase its volume three-fold in order to build enough momentum to forestall Microsoft and Taligent in the object-oriented software business.

In total, 50,000 NeXT machines were sold,[45][44] including thousands to the then super-secret National Reconnaissance Office located in Chantilly, Virginia.

[46][47] In late 1991, in preparation for NeXT's future withdrawal from the hardware industry, the company started porting the NeXTSTEP operating system to Intel 80486-based IBM PC compatible computers.

Although the latter three ports were not widely used, NeXTSTEP gained popularity at institutions such as First Chicago NBD, Swiss Bank Corporation, O'Connor and Company, due to its sophisticated programming model.

[52] Some IBM PC clone vendors offered somewhat customized hardware solutions that were delivered running NeXTSTEP on Intel, such as the Elonex NextStation[53] and the Canon object.station 41.

[56] NeXT partnered with Sun to create a programming environment called OpenStep, which is NeXTSTEP's application layer decoupled for third party operating systems.

It did not achieve wide popularity, partly because of the initial high price of $50,000 (equivalent to $100,000 in 2023), but it did generate profit for the company.

[63][64] We went for one of our, you know, signature Steve Jobs walks around Palo Alto, and ... we happened to see someone who was in that meeting from the [Apple] management team who said, 'You guys won easily, no problem.

[67]: 277 [68] Steve Jobs preferred to only receive cash, but Gil Amelio insisted he take 1.5 million Apple shares to give the deal credibility.

For backward compatibility, Apple added the Blue Box to Rhapsody, running existing Mac applications in a self-contained cooperative multitasking environment.

Blue Box was renamed Classic Environment and changed to run applications full-screen without requiring a separate window.

Apple included an updated version of the original Macintosh toolbox, called Carbon, running existing Mac applications natively without the constraints of Blue Box.

[78][79] Some of NeXTSTEP's interface features are used in Mac OS X, including the Dock, the Services menu, the Finder's "Column" view, and the Cocoa text system.

[4]: 289 Jobs found office space in Palo Alto, California, at 3475 Deer Creek Road, occupying a glass-and-concrete building that featured a staircase designed by the architect I. M. Pei.

The open floor plan was retained, with furnishings that were luxurious, such as $5,000 chairs, $10,000 sofas, and Ansel Adams prints.

Its Redwood City office was later occupied by ApniCure and OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc.[82] The first issue of NeXTWORLD magazine was printed in 1991.

[58] By 1993, Taligent was considered by the press to be a competitor in objects and operating systems, even without any product release, and with NeXT as a main point of comparison.