Steve Jobs MIT 1992: Steve Jobs Talk, Steve Jobs Speech

TL;DR NeXT targets the operational productivity market by providing software that builds custom applications five to ten times faster than competitors. This strategy requires a direct sales force and hardware integration, which pure software companies cannot support.

NeXT focuses on operational productivity rather than management productivity.

• Successful companies spend most of their information technology budget on operational productivity applications.
• PCs and Macs only attacked management productivity for small businesses.
• Large corporations need custom applications to launch new products quickly.
• Wall Street firms build custom apps to execute trades and manage mortgages.

NeXTSTEP software accelerates application development significantly.

• Developers write only 20% of the code compared to other environments like Sun.
• The software includes six years worth of reusable objects for developers.
• Companies can create mission-critical apps in 90 days instead of two years.
• Faster development allows firms to field eight new products for every one competitor product.

NeXT must sell hardware to fund its software strategy effectively.

• A direct sales force is necessary to educate the market about revolutionary products.
• Software-only companies cannot afford a large direct sales team with low average selling prices.
• Hardware sales provide the revenue needed to support high-cost professional sales staff.
• NeXT sells less than 100% of NeXTSTEP hardware but will still grow its hardware business.

Manufacturing excellence provides a competitive advantage through speed and quality.

• NeXT uses a true Just-In-Time factory with no warehouses or inventory.
• Engineering and manufacturing share the same databases and processes from day one.
• The factory builds engineering prototypes without needing separate wire-wrap models.
• Robots are controlled by object-oriented software written by NeXT engineers.

NeXT views competitors as Sun, Microsoft, and Taligent.

• Sun’s Solaris software lacks object-oriented features and falls behind NeXTSTEP.
• Microsoft NT is merely better plumbing for Windows with a poor development environment.
• Taligent represents the first true competitor expected around 1995.
• Object-oriented programming is the biggest technical breakthrough since graphical user interfaces.