An example, NeXT may not be the biggest computer company, but it does have the largest and most impressive research lab of all: Higher Education.

It was our alliance with the leaders in academia that helped NeXT develop a vision of what a new-generation computer could be.  Even before its general release, the NeXT Computer was alive and functioning on campuses nationwide - in science labs, in engineering labs, on professors' desks and in students' hands.

What we learned there, from uses as diverse as the university community itself, has helped make the NeXT Computer as powerful and usable as it is today.  Further, our collaboration with academia has encouraged some of the nation's most adventurous minds to begin developing applications for the NeXT System.  As this relationship flourishes, NeXT will continue to provide innovative products for universities - many of which will have an impact far beyond the campus boundaries.

To make our technology available across the country, NeXT has formed another important partnership - with Businessland.  This organization maintains a sales force of over 700 people to meet the computing needs of the Fortune 1000.  It also maintains over 150 locations nationwide.

One particular strength of Business is its experience in the area of networking.  Having successfully connected more desktops than anyone in the industry, Businessland has the expertise to ensure that NeXT Computer fits into any environment, and works well with existing equipment.

Businessland has achieved its success largely because of its commitment to helping customers after the sale.  They can provide full training, along with complete technical support.  As an indication of the importance Businessland attaches to its customers' post-purchase success, the company employees more system engineers than it does salespeople.

Businessland is NeXT's exclusive authorized dealer.

Of course, there is another partnership that's absolutely critical to providing a useful product: NeXT and the software industry - something that should be immediately apparent in the unprecedented amount of software bundled with the system.

There's WriteNow, for word processing.  A powerful SQL Database Server from Sybase.  Mathematica, a symbolic mathematics program.  Objective-C, a programming language.  Allegro CL Common Lisp, for development of artificial intelligence applications.  And NeXT's own Digital Library, Mail and NextStep, complete with programming kits for sounds and music.

In addition, many of the major developers have already announced their plans to create software for the NeXT System.  Ashton-Tate, Lotus and Aldus all expect to ship exciting new products.  Informix will deliver their innovative graphic spreadsheet, Wingz, integrated with Informix-SQL, a high-performance relational database.

Adobe is preparing Illustrator, which harnesses the power of Display PostScript to create camera-ready art.  Frame Technology will offer FrameMaker, a feature-laden professional publishing package.  And Media Logic is developing Artisan, an advanced high-resolution grayscale painting, drawing and image processing system.

Hardware developers are working with NeXT as well. Cayman Systems will be producing GatorBox, a gateway to link Macintosh to NeXT and vie versa.  And Dayna Communications is working on DaynaFILE, an external SCSI disk drive that can read and write standard UNIX disks, as well as disks created in MS-DOS and Macintosh environments. (in either 5.25" or 3.5" disk sizes).

The partnerships established by NeXT have resulted in a machine that is poised for the future, but quite functional today.  Those who have committed themselves to NeXT technology have done so with a vengeance, and the enthusiasm as been gratifying.  Of course, we continue to cultivate new partnerships.  Because as powerful as our engineers made the NeXT Computer, these partnerships make it more powerful still.