I was reading Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing by Randall E. Stross, and was surprised about Sun Microsystem's early success:
- 1982 - Sun grows to $8 million in sales ($19.7 million in 2014 dollars)
- 1983 - Sun grows to $115 million in sales ($274 million in 2014 dollars)
- 1988 - Sun grows to $1 billion in sales ($2.01 billion in 2014 dollars)
Around this time, NeXT
Computer Systems releases their first product to the market, NeXT Cube
for around $7000 (or $14000 in 2014 dollars). The Cube used Motorola
68030 processor, which was too slow at the time in comparison to Sun
Microsystem's workstations and other competitors that used more powerful
RISC processors.
The
original target market was a niche market for universities that needed
affordable workstations, and the target price range was $3000 (or $6000
in 2014 dollars). However, Steve Jobs uncontrollably added more
features and made other decisions that delayed the product and
dramatically drove up the costs. With the product delays, Sun was able
to sell their workstations into the vacant markets that NeXT wanted.
The
end results were that NeXT did not become the immediate success that
Steve Jobs would have liked at the time, and the NeXT Cube, in a sense,
was an underpowered and overpriced flop.
