From: curt@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Curt Welch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: Stability of Next as a company
Date: 2 Sep 92 20:52:21 GMT
Reply-To: curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch)
Organization: KCW Consulting

In comp.sys.next.misc, jcb (Jim Becker) writes:
>i'm  not  flaming  the NeXT, personally i think it's the best computer
>i've seen (in twenty years).  however i was also involved heavily with
>the  Amiga,  which teaches one that there are marketplace rules beyond
>"mere"  technology.   this  is  unfortunate,  as  technically superior
>products fall by the wayside and those  that  win  out  normally  lack
>technical innovativeness and "spirit".

The NeXT may look like it's has some of the same market problems that
the Amiga has had (better machine but not what the people wanted to
buy), but the NeXT has many advantages over the Amiga.  NeXT will not
only survive, but they will become one of the major players in the
computer market.

The Amiga always struck me as a sophisticated toy - a video game
computer with an operating system.  It's graphics and icons just made
the machine look like a video game - not a professional tool.  It was
too expensive to buy just as a video game machine, but didn't really
appeal to anyone other than the techno types that could understand it's
technical merit.  It's NTSC video compatibility has given it a life in
the video business, but other that that, it's only real market seemed to
be as a home computer for hackers.

The NeXT is also becoming a home computer for programmers (ones that
have a small ton of money to blow), but it won't be stuck in that
market.  The NeXT is a professional tool.  And the NeXT sells well in
the business market.  It won't ever win out in the low end commodity PC
market, but it will, and is, winning in the high end PC and Mac market
and the low end Sun market.

The NeXT is the only system I've seen that makes a Unix system as easy
to use as a Mac (well almost).  Unix was designed for programmers, not
for your average office worker.  Many companies have tried to sell Unix
systems to office workers, and failed.  Most of them are out of
business now.  They tried to hide Unix under menu systems and end-user
applications, but they never quite made it work.  For example, the
systems would still panic if you pulled the floppy disk out without
unmounting it first.  Or if you mounted a floppy before running newfs
on it.

The Unix companies that survived are the ones that sold their systems
to programmers, engineers, and VARS.  Sun is a great engineering
workstation.  But it sucks as an office automation system.  And this
isn't something Sun can change overnight by adding a windowing system.
The whole company and all the users would have to change.  Sun's sales
force is used to dealing with engineers.  Their sales lit is written
for engineers.  Their manuals are written for engineers.  The third
party apps were written with the assumption that they would be
installed and run by engineers.  All this will have to change if Sun
wants to compete with NeXT in the office environment.

The NeXT was designed from the ground up to work in the office
environment.  No software install procedures.  Just plug your computer
in the wall and start working.  The manuals don't assume you are a
computer expert.  The third party apps are easier to install than most
DOS packages.  And the user interface is as simple as the Mac.  But
unlike the Mac, the NeXT isn't just a pretty face.  It has a brain
too.

The NeXT is the best high end office workstation on the market.  It's
positioned to becoming the perfect office business tool.  What does
every office worker have these days?  A desk full of paper, a telephone,
a computer, laser printer, copier, and fax machine (for generating
all that paper).  These are the basic tools of the office worker today.

The NeXT will be the first platform that will be do a good job of
integrating these functions.  You can use DOS to make a computer act as
smart typewriter, but to make it function as a phone, a fax machine,
and a smart typewriter at the same time, you need a real operating
system underneath the hood.  The NeXT is the only computer available
today that has both the power, and ease of use, required to take over
this market.  The PCs and Mac's are stuck with their toy operating
systems.  They are fighting to replace them, but it will take years.
The Sun's and HP's of the world have the operating system and computer
power, but don't have the ease of use required to compete in this new
high end office market.

ISDN will make office phones digital in the next few years.  It will
give the office Group 4 fax which can deliver a fax that looks as good
as a xerox copy at about the same cost as a fine mode fax today.  And
it will bring cheap high speed networking to everyone's desk.  The
complexity of modems, and the simplicity of the fax, has limited the
usefulness of modems and data transfer in the business world.  But once
the phone system turns digital, it will be natural to connect your
phone to the computer.  Your office computer will become the standard
office super-phone of the future.  It will replace the phone just like
it replaced the typewriter.  And the NeXT will be one of the first
computers to really take advantage of this new market with the PhoneKit
and the Hayes ISDN Extender (but there's still a lot of software to be
developed in this area.)

I think NeXT will become the dominant player in this high end office
workstation market in the next few years.  The mision critical app game
they are currently playing isn't their real strong point.  It's just the
trick they are using to get their foot in the door.  It's the one clear
advantage they can use to sell systems today.  They have to do this to
survive.

Don't think that NeXT is having problems because a retail store like
Computer Attic is loosing interest in the machine.  NeXT machines just
don't sell well through retail stores like that.  They might one day,
but not now.  I'm sure there are still plenty of NeXTs being sold
through their direct market channels.  Didn't I just read somewhere that
NeXT was getting ready to double its sales force?  You don't do this
if you are having problems selling your merchandise.

Once NeXT gets it foot in enough doors, it will really start to take off.
There are still far too many people in the world that have never heard
of NeXT.  And far too many others that know about NeXT but have never
seen or used one.  They just don't know what they're missing until they
see it.  But I think NeXT will overcome this problem in time.

And when the front office is filled with NeXTs, then Sun will start
having problems selling their systems to the engineers.  Why buy a Sun
system when a NeXT is just as good and the rest of the admin staff,
sales force, and the MIS people all use NeXTs?

NeXT's big markets right now are the computer professionals and the
mision critical app customers - and that alone will be enough to keep
NeXT healthy (but small) for many years.  But I think NeXT will also
become the de facto high end office computer in the next few years, and
they will end up stealing the desktop publishing business away from Apple.
In 5 years, NeXT won't be a little start-up company.  They will be
the NeXT Apple.

Curt Welch

(And I thought this was going to be a short article when I started
 writing it!)