Early Success of Sun and NeXT

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.