Nice post. Thanks.

It was a neat OS, and the BeBox was a neat piece of hardware (SMP built in!). I had some hope at the time that Apple was going to grab it, but they clearly made the right choice in getting NeXT and Steve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS

What killed it? I think that ultimately, the same thing that killed HP's NewWave - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_NewWave - and GEM - http://en.wikipedia....vironment_Manager - and WordPerfect, and even OS/2. Not the lack of apps, but mostly the various restrictions and bundles that Microsoft put together. Why buy GEM when you get Windows Runtime for free? Why buy NewWave when MS decreed that future versions of Windows would not permit a different shell? Why buy WordPerfect when you could get the whole Office for less money? Why buy OS/2 when you can get Windows "free" with a new PC and the next version of Windows will be better anyway?

Initially Apple's Look-and-Feel lawsuits attempted to kill competing GUIs. Then MS's per-processor licenses locked up the pre-installed OS market. The PowerPC machines never matured as quickly as promised (which may have been at least partially related to Intel strangling the market with their contracts). The new GUIs needed every bit of horsepower they could get back then.

Yes, the apps weren't there either. But the apps don't come if the machines aren't there to be a platform. (The Wikipedia article says about 1800 BeBoxes were sold.)

Maybe the ARM platform will finally help break MS's stranglehold and cut Intel's market share in general-purpose PCs. It's David fighting two Goliaths though. We'll see.

Cheers,
Scott.