[1] https://robotenomics.com/2016/01/11/the-facts-about-co-bot-r...
Baxter had two core features: its OS and its compliant joints, with the aim of it working next to humans both safely and easily reprogrammably.
They had to abandon the OS and switch to ROS which removed the point of being safe for use by naive people.
I worked at Rethink (previously named Heartland Robotics) as an intern in its very early days (2009, there were ~10 employees). Exciting times.