From: jfr@glitter.RedBrick.COM ()
Subject: Re:  Nextstep on NT
Organization: Red Brick Systems, Los Gatos, CA
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 16:14:09 GMT

In article <dillon.0nhp@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep08.160141.104952@lexmark.com> songer@lexmark.com (Christopher Songer) writes:
>>jbone@splat.dell.com (Jeff Bone) writes:
>>>
>>[Lots of UNIX romps on NT stuff. :) ]
>>
>>My feeling is that NT offers enough of the functionality of UNIX
>>to destroy UNIX's bid for the desktop. NT will never replace UNIX -- no
>>proprietary system could do that, but it could relgate UNIX to the role
>>of a niche player.

  I have heard this opinion expressed by enough people who I consider
  to be extremely well connected to the industry that I am worried.
  This indeed would be sad, but probably reasonably likely.
  Although I think UNIX is its own worst enemy in many ways (and
  the people who continue to keep it mired in cryptic, mystic jargon
  and incantations instead of simple explicable terminology and
  usage).  

>>To bring the topic back to nexts... There is no question that NT is a
>>monumental improvement over the current OS being used by the majority
>>of PC users. NT will probably have good sales, and completely independent
>>of its technical merits, will probably garner a large market share. The
>>mere fact that it is from MicroSoft, offers all the networking of UNIX,
>>offers the OS functionality of UNIX and requires fewer system resources
>>dictates this. One would almost wonder if in the first year it will
>>exceed UNIX's market share.
>>
>>Also worth mentioning is that NT seems to offer an OS base that provides
>>much of the functionalty Nextstep requires. (If can be ported to AIX,
>>it can be proted anywhere :)
>>
>>So the question is NeXT should port to NT? Certainly if they want to go for
>
>    NT is a piece of crap...

  Have you seen it?  If you have, I would have to consider your opinoin
  either ill-informed or just sour grapes.  It is indeed NOT crap.  It
  is certainly not something I would want to use, but it is NOT crap.

 MicroSoft's sole purpose in life is to develop
>    proprietary software, hook everyone, then leave them hanging.  They did
>    that with MS-DOS and they are doing that with MS Windows.  Their only
>    interest in the matter is greed.  Microsoft had a thousand chances to
>    put together something really good and decided not to.  Multitasking
>    may be new to the PC world but it isn't to everyone else.  Why then,
>    didn't Microsoft develop a proper multitasking core right off in MS
>    1.0?  Hell, they OWN a huge chunk of SCO and ignore it.  How many
>    releases will they have gone through to get the most basic multitasking
>    that NT is to provide?  How many more before the OS is stable?  How
>    many more before processes stop crashing the machine?
 
  This is just riddles with rambling unsubstantiated opinion and some
  significant errors, it begs for rebuttal.  Microsoft didn't develop 
  a multitasking core in MS DOS 1.0 for lots of reasons, the most important
  is that they didn't develop it at all.  Seattle Computer Products did 
  and Microsoft just bought it.  IBM wanted them to create an OS that
  was compatible with CP/M.  So they did.  It is hard to criticize Microsoft
  for doing what, in 1980, probably looked like a pretty reasonable and
  lucrative thing.  How were they to know that 10 zillion people would
  start using it and make BG a billionaire?  An 8086 PC was hardly a
  platform to try and build a multitasking core on (I tried, it was 
  hard and SLOW).  They didn't own SCO then.  And I don't think I would
  have wanted them to use anything from SCO anyway (most of it sucks).
  Upward compatibility is a HARD thing to do.  It you have ever tried it
  (i.e., to build three or more generations of a product and both add
  major new functionality and keep it totally upward compatible) you
  would realize that Microsoft had serious problems and addressed
  them the best way they knew how.

  And do you REALLY think they intenionally "decided not to" put 
  something "great" together?  You really think people at Microsoft
  sit around rumbling: "Okay, how can we spend millions of bucks on
  development and make something that is really crappy and will still
  get bazillions of people to buy it? HAH! What fun that will be!"
  Jeez, what a dumb and naive view of the world and business.  I would
  bet that everyone at Microsoft thinks that NT is the next best thing
  to sliced bread and thinks you should feel the same way.  I am SURE
  they are greedy, but I am sure the try to do things right.  Maybe
  they don't succeed, so attack them for being poor visionaries or
  implementors.  But don't suggest that they do this stuff intentionally,
  to screw up the world or something.  

  And as far as proprietariness, so what?  The openness of Unix hasn't
  made it THAT GREAT, in my mind.  It is adequate.  NeXT is propietary
  as HELL.  I don't see you complaining about that.

>    To me, it really doesn't matter how well Windows performs relative to
>    MS-DOS, I absolutely refuse to cater to Microsoft's priorities which
>    are (1) make money, (2) market software whether it works or not, (3)
>    make even more money by providing software updates with only small
>    incremental improvements, and, (4) delegate everything else to the 'not
>    important' folder.
>
>    If NeXT is interesting in breaking MS's choke hold on the market with
>    NS-486 they are going to have to sell it in the $50-$100 range and have
>    a large number of NeXT applications available for it at introduction,
>    as well as hire the SoftPC people to put together a PC-emulator (not
>    too hard on a PC platform!) to give people a jumping board.
>
>    If NeXT doesn't do this then their NS-486 will be a failure.  NeXT, if
>    you can break Microsoft I would be really happy!
 
  It is still not clear to me that NeXT (or at least Steve Jobs) wants to
  even TRY to break Microsoft.  They want to sell hardware and selling
  cheapo operating systems is not going to further than aim.  Don't
  hold your breath on this one.

  Jon Rosen
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy