Next was profitable? Do you have a source for that? They raised hundreds of millions of dollars and sold 50,000 units. In '93, Canon plowed a second investment in to keep them afloat. Even with the new $, they laid off 300 of 540 employees. They couldn't sell their hardware operations and went pure software. I'm not saying they toss out all of the tech, but calling NeXT profitable is just plain false. It was a failed company with great leadership. Certainly there was some technical value in the deal, but much of the $429M paid was for Jobs and the people he had working with him.