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Yeah, Be Inc. made no sense at all for its own purposes. The reason it existed is that Apple (yes, that one) had fired one of its executives - Jean-Louis Gassée often abbreviated to "JLG" - and he wanted to show they were wrong.

AIUI the intended exit was either an acquihire (Apple gets JLG back and the Be Inc. "journey" ends once people tidy up) or maybe Apple's software side fully embraces Be Inc. (after all JLG is sure he's correct about what Apple should do) and absorbs the entire entity as Be's operating system BeOS becomes the new Apple OS.

That part isn't crazy, it's the early 1990s, affordable CPUs have virtual memory support, the physical size limit is looming, software reliability is worsening, Apple's 1980s co-operative multi-tasking operating system is not up to the job. If you understand the big picture it's obvious that you want something closer in principle to a Unix. You could hire somebody to build one (as Microsoft had for "Windows NT") or some people might build one in their bedrooms (Linux) or you could buy one which already exists, so, that's what Be Inc. set out to be.

In the end Apple decided that if they're going to re-hire an executive who they have fired previously it should be Steve Jobs. The moment they've made that decision, Be Inc. was superfluous -- JLG knows Steve isn't going to hire him, Steve hates him, so next the priority now is to help the money get out so that investors will continue talking to JLG. Fortunately the Dot Com bubble happened, Be floated on typical bubble era nonsense, about how their system is somehow perfect for the Internet, and that was enough for the big money to get out, leaving the wreck for the poor Be fans who were still buying even after the last dregs were gone.

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jlg posts here occasionally!

im pretty grateful to beos for proving a young me with an offramp from MS architecture that got me using cli, understanding api architectures, making it easy to tinker, etc.

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OS/2 Warp was out before Windows 95, and better.
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I ran OS/2 Warp and was a fan of it... But to say that it was simply "better" than Windows 95 is a bridge too far. It had its strengths (rock solid multitasking) but also plenty of rough edges.
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Honestly any OS with real multi-tasking, real security, and real memory protection was better than Windows 95 (and 98).

OS/2 was better. BeOS was better. Linux was better. Windows NT was better.

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If we ignore the fact that it required 1000 euros more in additional hardware, thus most folks went with DOS/Windows 3.x instead, and when Windows 95 came around it was already too late for adoption.
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To pick a nit, I highly doubt you bought your OS/2 hardware with euros. :D
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If I used Escudos it would be useless for the folks reading my comment.
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Not so, now I know the pre-EU denomination of Portguese currency
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It’s ok. The pedantry was unavoidable.
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