New York, February 5, 1990, IBM to offer NextStep on AIX workstations

While searching for information about the "GNU Source Code Disk" N5501, I stumbled upon this archived post:

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/Humanist/v03/1051.html

I found the last part below interesting, as I was not aware of IBM offering NeXTstep (or NextStep how it was called back then). Did this ever happen?

QuoteDate: Sun, 4 Feb 90 20:50:04 EST
From: kfoster@NeXT.COM
Subject: NeXT announcements

QuoteThe GNU Source Code Disk is now available to order.
It costs $150.
The NeXT order number is: N5501.

Included in the package are:
GNU Source Code on Optical Disk
GNU Licensing Agreement
NeXT Letter

QuoteSAS has asked for information on accounts expressing interest in SAS on
the NeXT to give them positive feedback to push the project along.

If you send me information, I'll be sure to pass is along, also the
contact at SAS is:

Armistead Sapp
SAS Institute Inc.
SAS Circle
Box 8000
Cary, NC 27512-8000
Tel # 919-467-8000

QuoteC++ is shipping from Oasys for $1500. The phone number is (617)890-7889.

QuoteIBM TO OFFER NEXTSTEP ON AIX WORKSTATIONS


NEW YORK, February 5, 1990 . . . IBM and NeXT, Inc. today announced
that IBM plans to offer NextStep on AIX. IBM's NextStep offering will
provide AIX users with a major new application environment for
enhanced business and professional productivity.

NextStep is an application software development and user interface
environment, created by NeXT and licensed to IBM in 1988. IBM will
support the same applications programming interfaces (APIs) as NextStep,
providing compatibility and consistency so that developers can offer
applications on both machines, resulting in a larger market for their
efforts.

NextStep will join OSF/Motif as graphical user interface offerings
planned for the IBM PS/2 and RISC computers running AIX, IBM's
open-standard UNIX operating system based on AT&T System V and BSD 4.3.
Specific product offerings and availability will be made at a future
date.

"The innovative NextStep application environment will offer outstanding
ease- of-use and development productivity," said Nick Donofrio,
president of IBM's Advanced Workstation Division. "We're especially
excited about the benefits of the NextStep Interface Builder and
Application Kit, which bring significant value to our customers."

The UNIX operating system offers sophisticated features such as powerful
networking and multitasking, but it may been considered, by some users,
to be too complicated for those who are not UNIX experts. NextStep,
which hides the complexity of the UNIX operating system under an
object-oriented environment, will allow users to take advantage of the
benefits of UNIX.

"We believe IBM's support of NextStep will have profound implications +
over time," said Steven P. Jobs. "UNIX is destined to be a crucial
operating system this decade. NextStep tames UNIX so business users
can tap its power. NextStep offerings from both IBM and NeXT will be a
dynamic combination."

That's cool, especially the part about NextStep being licensed to IBM in 1988. I'd be interested in hearing the story behind this too.

at least the manuals seem to exist...

https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?msg=28525

I totally missed that, thanks for the link.

Thanks @mikeboss , it is really interesting to learn what all happened around NeXTstep :)