NeXT, effectively, acquired Apple for negative $429 million (and 1.5 million shares of Apple stock): As everyone knows by now, what began as an Apple purchase of NeXT has been turned inside out and become a NeXT takeover.
edit: I want to add a couple points to my followup.
1. NeXT's hardware was a resounding flop. Their state-of-the-art factory turned out to be for naught. This is absolutely true.
2. That said, this mistake did not prevent NeXT from co-opting Apple and becoming the third largest company (by market cap) in the world.
3. Apple == NeXT: Apple was, pun intended, rotten. Steve Jobs and his most trusted lieutenants assumed key positions of power throughout Apple. The only highly visible and critical Apple employee I can identify who pre-dated Steve's return to Apple is Jony Ive. However, Ive was laboring in obscurity before Steve assumed his position as "iCEO" of Apple[1 and 2].
4. Arguably, the iMac saved Apple. In one of the recently-posted WWDC or Macworld keynotes, Steve addresses this point in quite a bit of detail. The iPod made Apple a veritable powerhouse...but not at first[3]. The iPhone made Apple, well, Apple. As it happens, the iPhone (and OS X, and the iPad) is the result of decades of engineering work that started at NeXT[4].
The only highly visible and critical Apple employee I can identify who pre-dated Steve's return to Apple is Jony Ive.
Fred Anderson, the CFO under Amelio, was kept on until the backdating scandal. He played a key role in saving Apple--they were almost cash broke when Amelio took over, and Anderson arranged a key bond issue to keep the company afloat.
Journalistic hyperbole is not equal to fact. Apple acquired NeXT, for $400 million in cash in stock, at a time in which Apple had a market cap of $3.1 billion. I don't know why you seem to think otherwise. Read it from the horse's mouth along with the relevant financial statements:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020208190346/http://product.inf...
Within a period of, I believe, 12 months, Steve Jobs became CEO, installed NeXT execs in almost every key exec role in Apple, and replaced the board of directors.
Although Apple acquired NeXT, in every meaningful way, NeXT consumed Apple.
Takeover for me means change of hands of ownership and power of decision in the company, and whatever your technical or managerial arguments are I think the resulting company was owned by Apple's stockholders, Steve Jobs probably among then after the acquisition, not by NeXT investors.
For the 2 people that downvoted I would love to know what you consider a takeover. I'm pretty sure that in financial term takeover means change of ownership.
BTW, I'm quit, HN is just becoming a place where Steve Jobs and Rails must not be criticized, even when they must be. I will put some random string as my password and never return here, it was a good time but I think the community lost something in these years.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1997/03/2596
edit: I want to add a couple points to my followup.
1. NeXT's hardware was a resounding flop. Their state-of-the-art factory turned out to be for naught. This is absolutely true.
2. That said, this mistake did not prevent NeXT from co-opting Apple and becoming the third largest company (by market cap) in the world.
3. Apple == NeXT: Apple was, pun intended, rotten. Steve Jobs and his most trusted lieutenants assumed key positions of power throughout Apple. The only highly visible and critical Apple employee I can identify who pre-dated Steve's return to Apple is Jony Ive. However, Ive was laboring in obscurity before Steve assumed his position as "iCEO" of Apple[1 and 2].
4. Arguably, the iMac saved Apple. In one of the recently-posted WWDC or Macworld keynotes, Steve addresses this point in quite a bit of detail. The iPod made Apple a veritable powerhouse...but not at first[3]. The iPhone made Apple, well, Apple. As it happens, the iPhone (and OS X, and the iPad) is the result of decades of engineering work that started at NeXT[4].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive#Career
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/091797apple.html
[3] http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/Apple-releases-iP...
[4] Or, to be pedantic, at CMU, where Mach was originally co-developed by Avie Tevanian, who later became the SVP of Software Engineering at Apple.