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It's The End Of The Be As We Know It

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the and-i-feel-fine dept.

JRAC writes "Be Inc. has replaced their web site's entire contents with information on the sale of Be to Palm. Stock holders can find all relevant info on the Stock Information page. BeOS 5 Personal Edition is no longer available from the site. Looks like it's time to hit the mirrors. Try ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/beos for files. " The official sale was approved just over a month ago.

2 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Black armband by Therlin · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is it me or is the black armband at the top of the logo new?

  2. This is all Jean-Louis' fault! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Part of the failure of Be is due to Jean-Louis Gassee's hubris. This man had an inflated sense of self-importance that would even make Steve Jobs blush. If he had realized what his company was really worth he would have taken the $100 million offered by Apple in '96. At that time -- even though not fully developed -- BeOS ran rings around the original Mac OS on PowerPC hardware. It would have also allowed the new Mac OS to be brought to market much faster. Instead he wanted much more, Apple went with NeXT, and now Be is trying to satisfy creditors and shareholders with the paltry sum they received from Palm.

    While talking about alternative futures it's interesting to think about what would have happened had Apple used the NT kernel instead of NeXT or Be. According to Gil Amelio, Gates was on the phone almost every day trying to convince him that NT was the best route. Amelio's book is an interesting read for this very subject and gives some insight as to why Apple went with NeXT instead of Be or Microsoft.