(1) A computer company that became a software company and then merged into Apple. NeXT Computer was founded in Redwood City, California, in 1985 by Steven Jobs, co-founder of Apple. In 1988, it introduced a high-resolution workstation housed in a black cube that used the Motorola 68K CPU and ran under the NextStep operating system.

The computer was discontinued in 1993, at which time NexT became NeXT Software and focused on OpenStep, the object-oriented development environment of NextStep, which was made available on x86, Sun and HP machines. In 1996, NeXT Software was acquired by Apple and Steve Jobs returned to the company he helped create.

(2) (NEXT) (Near End Cross(X) Talk) A measurement of crosstalk between two wire pairs. It is the difference in signal strength between the interfering pair and the interfered pair. The higher the number, the less crosstalk. See FEXT and PSNEXT.