Introduction and Context:

Steve Jobs welcomes attendees to OpenStepDays at Object World, an event organized in collaboration with the Object Management Group (OMG). He highlights the day’s agenda, which includes multiple keynotes on OpenStep and WebObjects, and mentions a party for the next day.

Reflecting on the Past:

Jobs looks back at 1994, the first year his company operated solely as a software firm. The company achieved $50 million in revenues and became profitable, milestones met with enthusiasm, especially from shareholders in the audience.

Strategic Moves:

Beyond financial achievements, Jobs emphasizes the strategic importance of the company’s push into professional services. Recognizing that technology alone is insufficient for customer engagement, the company aims to facilitate technology transfer through these services.

Global Leadership:

Jobs proudly states that his company has become the largest object supplier in the world, showcasing its influence and positioning it as a significant player in the technology industry.

Forward-looking Statements:

He concludes by noting that the presentation will primarily focus on future projects and products, indicating an optimistic outlook for the company and setting the stage for upcoming announcements.

Current Business Performance:

Steve Jobs describes the company’s performance for the first half of 1995 as robust. Revenue and profit have exceeded expectations, although specific numbers are not disclosed as the company is not publicly traded.

Product Refresh:

The company has completely overhauled its product line, starting with the launch of Next Step 3.3 in December of the previous year. The refresh included support for multiple platforms and a significant update to their Enterprise Object Framework, which Jobs describes as profoundly new technology.

New Customer Acquisitions:

The company has successfully attracted high-profile customers, such as British Telecom, Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, NTT, and Walt Disney. Jobs notes that customer feedback is crucial for improving products and is highly valued by the company.

Consulting Business Growth:

The technology transfer consulting business has grown by 400% during the first half of the year. Jobs outlines the three pillars of professional services: training and education, support, and object experts. The object experts group has expanded from 4 to 21 people and is expected to grow substantially by year-end.

Industry Rankings:

Jobs concludes by sharing that Software Magazine ranked the company 67th among the world’s top 100 software companies, based on last year’s performance. Moreover, the company was recognized as the fastest-growing firm on this list.

Consultative Selling Strategy:

The company aims to follow a consultative selling model similar to Oracle, focusing on technology transfer. These professional services provide a direct link to engineering, ensuring that customers have access to the latest technology insights. This strategy is described as a key success factor for customer projects.

Focus on the Future:

Steve Jobs opens the segment by stating that the presentation will focus on the future, outlining three major directions the company is taking. He promises enlightening demonstrations if everything goes as planned.

Introduction to OpenStep:

Jobs talks about OpenStep, an initiative they had announced years before. OpenStep was created with the understanding that the company’s “real jewel” was its object layer, not the complete stack of hardware and operating systems. OpenStep aims to make this object layer available on popular operating systems, thus broadening its market reach.

Partnerships and Schedule:

OpenStep has various partners like Hewlett Packard, Sun, and Digital. Jobs shares that Sun will be shipping their OpenStep-related product by the end of the year or early next year, and other partners will announce their schedules soon.

OpenStep on Windows:

One of the most exciting developments is OpenStep’s compatibility with Windows NT and Windows 95. Jobs acknowledges that many had thought this to be “vaporware,” but assures the audience that OpenStep for Windows is indeed a reality.

Demo and Features:

Jobs provides a demo, running OpenStep software on a Hewlett Packard machine with Windows NT. He highlights that it has a Windows look and feel and is fully interoperable with Windows standards. The alpha release is slated for next quarter, with the beta release in Q1 of the next year and shipping by Q2.

Developer Tools:

He shows Interface Builder running, a development environment, and underscores that it is the same code running on Unix, thus providing a truly portable environment.

Importance of Windows Compatibility:

Jobs wraps up by emphasizing that being able to run OpenStep on Windows has not only allowed for a mixed environment between Unix and Windows but has also opened doors to projects they wouldn’t have been able to participate in otherwise. There is strong customer interest, and the company is optimistic about the product’s success.

Introduction of OpenStep:

Steve Jobs introduces OpenStep as a critical pillar of his company’s future development strategy. He mentions that OpenStep is on schedule and even slightly ahead. Partners for OpenStep include Hewlett Packard, Digital, and Sun Microsystems.

Ole and OpenStep for Windows:

OpenStep is being designed to integrate well with Windows through Ole objects, a framework for distributed objects. Jobs states that they developed technology to make OpenStep’s distributed objects look and function like Ole objects, aiming for seamless integration.

Distributed Ole Before Microsoft:

The OpenStep team realized they had effectively created a distributed Ole system two years before Microsoft had planned to do so. They decided to bring this product to market under the name D’Ole (Distributed Ole).

Distributed Object Model:

Jobs explains that NeXT has been shipping products with distributed objects for four to five years. This technology allows different systems to send messages to each other over a network, without needing to handle the complexities of network protocols. The architecture makes it easy to build multi-tier client-server applications.

D’Ole for Windows:

D’Ole is designed to run on Windows machines. Applications using D’Ole only need to make standard Ole calls, making it compatible with existing Windows development environments like Visual Basic and Visual C++. Jobs claims it makes writing client-server apps far easier, as Windows tools generally lack native distribution capabilities.

Demo and Use Cases:

Jobs demonstrates the capabilities of D’Ole through a couple of examples. In the first, he shows how one Windows NT machine can communicate with another to run Microsoft Excel and manipulate charts. In the second example, a Windows machine fetches data from an HP server using D’Ole, showcasing its utility in client-server applications.

Current Status and Future Plans:

D’Ole is in beta and expected to ship by the end of the year. The technology has garnered early interest from large customers, indicating its potential for widespread adoption.

Introduction of WebObjects:

Steve Jobs announces WebObjects, a new technology initiative by NeXT. Jobs highlights NeXT’s historical ties to the internet, emphasizing that Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, developed it on NeXTSTEP.

Internet Architecture:

Jobs describes the Internet as a mainframe architecture. He likens web browsers to “3270 terminals on multimedia steroids,” explaining that most computation and applications run on servers, not clients. This simplicity offers benefits but also presents opportunities for improvement.

Business Potential on Server-Side:

Jobs discusses where NeXT could add value. He dismisses the client side of the architecture as it is not profitable, focusing instead on the server side. He argues that servers, where applications run, need more development.

Four Server Activities:

Jobs begins to outline four activities people will want to do on web servers. He identifies the first as “static publishing,” which is the creation of web pages that don’t change unless manually updated. He observes that 99.9% of the web operates this way.

Static Web Pages and Profitability:

Jobs comments that although everyone is making static web pages, there is little money in it. He states that you don’t need to buy expensive web server software for static publishing as there are many free options available.

The segment serves as an introduction to NeXT’s focus on server-side solutions, pinpointing areas of the web that require technological advancement, primarily on the server side.

Web Development Landscape:

Steve Jobs outlines that the web landscape is primarily focused on static publishing, which constitutes about 99.9% of the web content. Static publishing does not offer much business value as it requires no specialized server software.

Dynamic Database Publishing:

Jobs predicts the rise of dynamic database publishing, where data is fetched from multiple databases in real-time to create web pages on the fly. He cites the Federal Express package tracking service as an example. This approach is more interactive and can offer more value to businesses and consumers alike.

Web Commerce:

E-commerce is identified as the next frontier but is complicated due to the need to integrate with existing order management systems. Jobs points out that the real hurdle is not payment systems but the synchronization of inventory and order management, as each company’s system is custom-made.

Internal Web Usage:

Jobs also discusses the growth in internal web usage for creating custom applications. He suggests that internal apps can be developed more efficiently for the web, bypassing the need for platform-specific versions. This would be particularly beneficial for larger organizations with multiple locations.

Four Web Usage Categories:

Steve Jobs identifies four key areas of web development for the future: Static Publishing, Dynamic Database Publishing, Commerce, and Internal Custom Apps. Of these, three would require custom applications, suggesting a significant market for specialized software solutions.

WebObjects Introduction:

Finally, Jobs introduces WebObjects, a software framework designed to make web application development simpler and faster. It is built on PDO (Portable Distributed Objects) and the Enterprise Objects Framework, allowing for portable products and easy interaction with SQL databases, streamlining the application development process.

WebObjects Framework:

Steve Jobs introduces the WebObjects Framework (WOF), an extension of the Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF). It handles web functionalities similar to how EOF manages databases. The new framework automates parsing of HTML and creates dynamic web pages, significantly reducing the complexity of web development tasks.

Developer Convenience:

WOF is designed to free the developer from worrying about SQL or web specifics. Jobs emphasizes that developers only need to focus on business logic. By dropping their objects into this framework, the complex underlying operations are handled automatically.

Technological Features:

Objects in WOF are not required to know about web technologies like HTML or HTTP or SQL relational databases. Moreover, due to PDO (Platform Data Objects), objects don’t even need to know their location. Jobs notes that the objects can be distributed across multiple machines to handle increasing web traffic.

Product Lifecycle:

WOF is in the alpha stage, with a beta version planned for Q4 and a full release in Q1. Jobs assures that the majority of technology used is existing, mature, and robust, as PDO and EOF have been shipping for a long time.

Live Demonstration:

Jobs conducts a live demo using an industry-standard Netscape browser on Windows NT. The demo features a web application built in just two days. The application is a Dodge virtual showroom, where users can filter and select cars, their specifications, and even calculate loan amounts. He stresses that all pages are dynamically created on-the-fly based on user input.

Interoperability and Distributed Systems:

The demonstration also showcases complex operations involving multiple servers. For example, a loan calculation is executed on a separate NT machine and then sent back to the main server, emphasizing the framework’s capability for full Ole interoperability and distributed computing.

The presentation paints WOF as a ground-breaking framework, simplifying complex tasks and making web development more efficient and scalable.

WebObjects Framework:

Steve Jobs introduces WebObjects Framework as a highly advanced web server software. It’s in its alpha stage, with a beta release planned for Q4 and a full release in Q1. The framework extends the capabilities of existing technologies like the Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF) and the Portable Distributed Objects (PDO), offering robust, mature technology.

Dynamic Web Pages:

WebObjects dynamically creates web pages from objects, eliminating the need for developers to write SQL or manage web-related tasks. Pages aren’t stored but are computed on the fly, based on user interactions. This feature was showcased through a Dodge car showroom demo application.

Server and Platform Interoperability:

WebObjects operates on a Unix server and has full Ole interoperability, allowing it to communicate seamlessly with an NT machine to carry out calculations. It operates across all platforms that support PDO, making it highly versatile.

Real-world Application:

The Dodge virtual showroom demo application demonstrated the ability of WebObjects to query an SQL database, sort and filter car models dynamically, and even calculate financing options on-the-fly. This was done using three separate machines running different software and operating systems, highlighting the framework’s cross-platform capabilities.

Release and Anticipation:

Jobs expresses confidence that WebObjects will be the most powerful advanced web server software available. He anticipates significant corporate interest in the framework, as it allows the rapid building of web applications that can quickly bring new products and services to customers.

Unique Offering:

Jobs closes by stating that WebObjects is unparalleled in what it can do, emphasizing its capability to perform complex operations and create dynamic, real-time web experiences. He believes that there is nothing else even close to its potential in the current market.

Common Vision:

Steve Jobs outlines that OpenStep, Dole, and WebObjects are not separate, random products, but are driven by a common vision of leveraging objects to revolutionize software creation. He states that this object-oriented approach can enhance software development by an order of magnitude.

Importance of Infrastructure:

Jobs emphasizes that while objects are crucial, the company has invested significant effort in building robust infrastructure platforms like Enterprise Objects Framework and WebObjects Framework. The goal is to provide a stable environment where objects can function efficiently and at scale.

Scalability:

A critical aspect of their infrastructure is its scalability, designed to support up to 10,000 seats or more. Jobs mentions the Portable Distributed Objects (PDO) as the underlying technology that enables this scalability.

Application Development:

Jobs explains that writing applications now primarily involves architecting ‘enterprise objects’ within these infrastructure frameworks. This is where developers spend most of their time.

Flexibility in Front-End Development:

The architecture allows for flexibility in developing front-end applications. Developers can write OpenStep front ends that run on Unix or Windows. Alternatively, using the same enterprise objects and infrastructure, front ends can be developed using Visual Basic, Visual C++, or Delphi through Dole (Ole). Additionally, the same enterprise objects can be used to build web front ends using WebObjects.

Real-World Application:

Jobs cites an example of customers developing a reservation and guest management system with NextStep. They initially thought it would take six to nine months to offer some functionalities on the web. However, because of the synergies between their products, it would take only a week.

Integration with Industry Standards:

Lastly, Jobs hints at the integration with industry standards like Korba 2, underscoring the object-oriented nature of the products and their compliance with Object Management Group (OMG) guidelines. This integration further enhances the platform’s versatility and adoption prospects.

Distributed Object System:

Steve Jobs claims that his company’s product is the only distributed object system in production. They’ve updated it to be fully compatible with Ole, enhancing the ease of creating Ole services via Next Step.

Interoperability and PDO:

He states that the technology developed for Ole will be applied to Corba 2, making PDO (Portable Distributed Objects) a ‘universal orb.’ This orb would support PDO, Ole, and Corba protocols, serving as a bridge between popular and emerging industry standards.

Demonstration Setup:

Jobs outlines a planned demo involving a Corba 2 server, set up by OMG, that hosts a simple game. The goal is to show how apps can connect to this server using different technologies, including Ole and Corba 2 to PDO.

Game Demo:

He demonstrates playing the game using Ole connected to a Corba 2 server via an Excel spreadsheet. Jobs shows the ease of registration and gameplay, despite some usability issues, illustrating the seamless integration between Ole and Corba.

Web Integration:

In addition to playing the game through Ole, Jobs shows how the game can also be accessed via the Web. The Web Objects framework is used to make this possible, highlighting the product’s ability to run Netscape on an NT box while communicating with the Corba 2 server.

Universal Orb:

Jobs emphasizes that the next major release of PDO will include these capabilities, making it the world’s first universal orb. This orb will offer full integration with Ole and Corba, leveraging the infrastructure built over a decade.

The presentation not only showcases the technology but also serves as a practical demonstration of its capabilities, suggesting a significant leap in distributed object systems.