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The History of Objective-C

20 bytes removed, 15:54, 17 November 2009
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In the 1980s Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer. After many years of success, Steve Jobs hired a marketing wizard from PepsiCo called John Sculley to help take Apple to the next level of business success. To cut a long story short, a boardroom battle ensued and Steve Jobs got pushed out of the company (for the long version of the story pick up a used copy of John Sculley's book ''Odyssey: From Pepsi to Apple'') leaving John Sculley in charge.
After leaving Apple, Jobs started a new company called NeXT to design an entirely new generation of computer system. The operating system developed by NeXT to run on these computers was called NeXTstep. In order to develop NeXTstep, NeXT licensed Objective-C. NeXT subsequently joined forces with Sun Microsystems (now part of Oracle) to create a standardized version of NeXTstep named OPENstep which the Free Software Foundation then adopted as GNUstep.
During the 1990s, John Sculley left Apple and a procession of new CEOs came and went. During this time, Apple had been losing market share and struggling to come out with a new operating system to replace the aging MacOS. After a number of failed attempts and partnerships, it was eventually decided that rather than try to write a new operating system, Apple should acquire a company that already had one. During Gil Amelio's brief reign as CEO, a shortlist of two companies was drawn up. One was a company called Be, Inc. founded by a former Apple employee named Jean-Louis Gassée, and the other was NeXT.
Ultimately, NeXT was selected and Steve Jobs once again joined Apple. In another boardroom struggle (another long story as outlined in Gil AmemioAmelio's book ''On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple'') Steve Jobs pushed out Gil Amelio and once again became CEO of the company he had founded all those years ago.
The rest, as they say, is history. NeXTStep formed the foundation of what became Mac OS X, bringing with it Objective-C. Mac OS X was subsequently modified to provide the operating system for the spectacularly successful iPhone.