After porting to x86 they had issues getting preinstalled on OEMs because of the OEMs contract with Microsoft which prevented the OEM from selling PCs with any other operating system. https://www.theregister.com/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft...
I’ve never heard that they were restricted by Apple in any way (which may have been possible since Gasse and Sakoman left Apple to start Be). Do you have any reference?
So if you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals.
What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with.
Ideally for JLG, this product attracts attention from Cupertino. If Be Inc. flops but Apple hire him back as new CEO, that's fine. If they buy Be Inc. and he gets to cash out and prove he was right too that's even better.
Did they sell the hardware at a loss?
> If you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals.
If the hardware earns a small profit, and the enthusiast does not call the vendor for support, but creates blogs/video/media to generate user/developer/partner demand, that should be net positive for the vendor.
> What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with.
A variation of this text/sentiment should be included on the marketing page for every hardware "dev board", including Qualcomm SDXE dev device from ex-Apple team, that is attempting to compete with Apple Silicon and x86 PCs.
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/c8380-12c-mp-32g/thunderco...
In practice there's always going to be a certain element of post-hoc justification as to why this or that software really mattered and how it "couldn't" have existed for other platforms.
Apple went with Jobs + NeXT instead.