Steve Jobs at Internet World Spring 1996

199629:30English

Transcript

Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.

For last, the gentleman I'm about to introduce needs no introduction.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Corporation, now the chairman and CEO of Next Software Corporation,
is going to talk to us about the future of the World Wide Web.
Please join me in welcoming a true pioneer in our industry, Stephen Jobs.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Is this mic working here?
Yeah, great.
We get to spend a little under an hour together today.
I really appreciate the opportunity to tell you about what we're doing.
And at Next, we've been around for our 10th year, and we've built about a $60 million
dollar software company, a medium-sized profitable software company, off client-server software
helping people do mission-critical enterprise applications. And the web has come along,
and like everyone else, we looked at it at first and didn't know what to think, but when
we finally grokked it, we jumped on it and found that a lot of our technology and a lot
of our know-how in building enterprise apps work perfectly on the web. And we've come
out with some products called WebObjects that are doing really well. And I wanted to go
go through them a little bit with you tonight,
and try and give you our perspective on the web
that has led to these products and the kinds of things
that we're doing with them and some of the customers
we're doing them with.
Now, the first thing is we started off
with a radical pricing philosophy on web objects,
for our company anyway.
We followed the Netscape model, and now the Microsoft model,
and many other models.
We're giving away free versions of a product that
is surprisingly powerful, and then
trying to sell even more powerful versions on top of that.
It's working really well.
As a matter of fact, we've given away over 20,000 copies
have been downloaded off our website.
Now, this is server software, remember.
It's not client software.
It's server software.
And that's a lot of copies.
And as you notice up there, Windows NT
is about almost 12,000 of those 20,000 copies.
So that seems to be our most popular customer base.
So let me start off by giving you our perspective on the web.
We believe that act one of the web
has been the browser in static publishing.
Most of the things we hear about and read about on the web
have to do with something new happening on the browser.
And that's wonderful, because it needs lots of improvement.
And these are some examples of just some static pages
that you can view with a browser.
Static pages meaning that some human being
creates these pages with some web publishing tool.
They put them on their server, and they don't change
until another human being comes and changes them.
Most of the pages on the web are like that.
Here's Microsoft's home page as an example.
Here's Intel's home page.
And this is the way most pages are on the web.
Here's one of my favorites.
And until human beings come and change these pages,
they don't change.
Now, most of the action on the browser
has to do with enhancing its user interface.
If you said the user interface of Windows is this big,
is a square this big, then the user interface of the web
is a square this big in its capabilities,
substantially less powerful than the UI of, let's say,
Windows today.
And what most of the activity on the web is,
such as plugins or such as Java or ActiveX,
is to expand the UI of the web browser
to be as powerful as that of, let's say, Windows.
And we're making a lot of progress.
And it's really exciting.
But most of the news we hear about the web
has to do with this.
And so that's what's happening on the browser
and will continue to happen.
And we'll see Netscape and Microsoft duke it out
to see who can expand it the best and the fastest.
And that'll be fun to watch.
But we believe that act two of the web
adds something very big to the browser.
It adds the server and dynamic services.
We believe the server will be the epicenter of the web act
two, because as you recall, the apps reside on the server.
And dynamic services are going to be the next logical extension
of just static publishing.
So let's explore what that is.
What is this stuff on the server?
If enhancing user interface is what's happening on the browser,
what's happening on the server?
Well, typically, again, in static publishing,
what we've seen is you could metaphorically take a book
can rip it into pages or construct those pages individually
and put them on an HTTP server.
And anyone who asks for them gets them.
And that's what we have today with 99.9% of our pages out
there.
What happens if the page you want doesn't exist?
Now, how could that be, you might say?
Well, let me give you an example.
Federal Express has a cool website, the package tracking website, right?
Probably most of you have been to that.
Track the package, you type in your package number,
it goes to four mainframes, finds out where your package is,
gets all this data.
What does it do?
It does not give it to a bunch of gnomes who then handcraft a page for you.
The computer builds the page for you and sends it out.
It has to do that because, obviously, the page to tell you where your package is
didn't exist before you sent the package.
So the page has to be built on the fly.
It took them four months to build that app,
and it's a very simple app, but it's a dynamic app.
It's built on the fly.
And you can start to think of hundreds of examples
about pages you want that don't exist.
You may not want to view a whole catalog.
You may want to answer five questions at the beginning
and only see 10% of the catalog that you're interested in.
But every permutation of every item in the catalog

Transcript

Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.

For last, the gentleman I'm about to introduce needs no introduction.

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Corporation, now the chairman and CEO of Next Software Corporation,

is going to talk to us about the future of the World Wide Web.

Please join me in welcoming a true pioneer in our industry, Stephen Jobs.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Is this mic working here?

Yeah, great.

We get to spend a little under an hour together today.

I really appreciate the opportunity to tell you about what we're doing.

And at Next, we've been around for our 10th year, and we've built about a $60 million

dollar software company, a medium-sized profitable software company, off client-server software

helping people do mission-critical enterprise applications. And the web has come along,

and like everyone else, we looked at it at first and didn't know what to think, but when

we finally grokked it, we jumped on it and found that a lot of our technology and a lot

of our know-how in building enterprise apps work perfectly on the web. And we've come

out with some products called WebObjects that are doing really well. And I wanted to go

go through them a little bit with you tonight,

and try and give you our perspective on the web

that has led to these products and the kinds of things

that we're doing with them and some of the customers

we're doing them with.

Now, the first thing is we started off

with a radical pricing philosophy on web objects,

for our company anyway.

We followed the Netscape model, and now the Microsoft model,

and many other models.

We're giving away free versions of a product that

is surprisingly powerful, and then

trying to sell even more powerful versions on top of that.

It's working really well.

As a matter of fact, we've given away over 20,000 copies

have been downloaded off our website.

Now, this is server software, remember.

It's not client software.

It's server software.

And that's a lot of copies.

And as you notice up there, Windows NT

is about almost 12,000 of those 20,000 copies.

So that seems to be our most popular customer base.

So let me start off by giving you our perspective on the web.

We believe that act one of the web

has been the browser in static publishing.

Most of the things we hear about and read about on the web

have to do with something new happening on the browser.

And that's wonderful, because it needs lots of improvement.

And these are some examples of just some static pages

that you can view with a browser.

Static pages meaning that some human being

creates these pages with some web publishing tool.

They put them on their server, and they don't change

until another human being comes and changes them.

Most of the pages on the web are like that.

Here's Microsoft's home page as an example.

Here's Intel's home page.

And this is the way most pages are on the web.

Here's one of my favorites.

And until human beings come and change these pages,

they don't change.

Now, most of the action on the browser

has to do with enhancing its user interface.

If you said the user interface of Windows is this big,

is a square this big, then the user interface of the web

is a square this big in its capabilities,

substantially less powerful than the UI of, let's say,

Windows today.

And what most of the activity on the web is,

such as plugins or such as Java or ActiveX,

is to expand the UI of the web browser

to be as powerful as that of, let's say, Windows.

And we're making a lot of progress.

And it's really exciting.

But most of the news we hear about the web

has to do with this.

And so that's what's happening on the browser

and will continue to happen.

And we'll see Netscape and Microsoft duke it out

to see who can expand it the best and the fastest.

And that'll be fun to watch.

But we believe that act two of the web

adds something very big to the browser.

It adds the server and dynamic services.

We believe the server will be the epicenter of the web act

two, because as you recall, the apps reside on the server.

And dynamic services are going to be the next logical extension

of just static publishing.

So let's explore what that is.

What is this stuff on the server?

If enhancing user interface is what's happening on the browser,

what's happening on the server?

Well, typically, again, in static publishing,

what we've seen is you could metaphorically take a book

can rip it into pages or construct those pages individually

and put them on an HTTP server.

And anyone who asks for them gets them.

And that's what we have today with 99.9% of our pages out

there.

What happens if the page you want doesn't exist?

Now, how could that be, you might say?

Well, let me give you an example.

Federal Express has a cool website, the package tracking website, right?

Probably most of you have been to that.

Track the package, you type in your package number,

it goes to four mainframes, finds out where your package is,

gets all this data.

What does it do?

It does not give it to a bunch of gnomes who then handcraft a page for you.

The computer builds the page for you and sends it out.

It has to do that because, obviously, the page to tell you where your package is

didn't exist before you sent the package.

So the page has to be built on the fly.

It took them four months to build that app,

and it's a very simple app, but it's a dynamic app.

It's built on the fly.

And you can start to think of hundreds of examples

about pages you want that don't exist.

You may not want to view a whole catalog.

You may want to answer five questions at the beginning

and only see 10% of the catalog that you're interested in.

But every permutation of every item in the catalog