From: rpomeroy@aunext1.amd.com (Ron Pomeroy x(Coop))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXT may not be doomed yet, but I sure have a lot of goose-bumps.
Date: 5 Jan 93 00:34:34 GMT
Reply-To: rpomeroy@aunext1.amd.com
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.; Austin, Texas

In article <MCGLK.93Jan4041118@yang.cpac.washington.edu>  
mcglk@cpac.washington.edu (Ken McGlothlen) writes:
>>I'm not the kind of person to jump on a bandwagon easily.  At least, not
>>anymore.  Let's face it:  the computer market isn't easy on visionaries.
>>
>>So I've been fairly skeptical of new offerings touting themselves as the
>>end-all-be-all of computers.  *Everybody* says that, and most of the time,
>>they're wrong, due to unforeseen circumstances, simple screwups, or bad  
timing.
>>
>>Take the Amiga.  Originally, it was a fine piece of hardware, and for its  
first
>>version, wasn't all *that* buggy.  I thought it had a nice two-tiered  
approach,
>>and had a lot of the right ideas.  It was fun.  And then, Commodore bought  
it,
>>and it gradually became---well, dull.  Uninspiring.  Innovation for the Amiga
>>eventually died as Commodore screwed up its marketing, product support,  
upgrade
>>schedule, and its *vision*.  I still like the idea of the Amiga, but I
>>couldn't, in good conscience, buy one now and commit a lot of myself to it.
>>

Agree 100%.  I did the Amiga 1000. 2000. 2500 thing...It was a fun/bumpy ride.

>>So I was fairly skeptical of NeXT.  Steve Jobs has a very strange management
>>style, and seems to have some very strange priorities as far as his vision
>>goes, such as his seeming disdain of networking, 

err...I don't follow you here.  NeXTs and NeXTstep are both very network
oriented.  Let's list a few features:

	NFS		*Network* File System
	Novell		Novell *network*ing
	EtherTalk	Apple *network*ing
	TCP/IP		Inter*network*ing
	NeXTmail	*Network* mail
	RemoteObjects	the coolest kinda' *network*ing
	  
>>or his apparent inability to
>>see things from outside his own little multimillion-dollar world, where some  
of
>>us have to really scrounge to buy a Nifty Box that we just can't live  
without.

Talk to Sam Goldberger at Spherical Solutions - bids start at $1995.00
Which is pretty reasonable for a 68040 machine - of any kind (at least 
for the next few months :-)

>>Sure, he tries to come out with something nifty, but most of the time, the  
box
>>that eventually comes out is often crippled by some fatal oversight (unless  
his
>>engineers slip something in without his knowledge, as they did with the
>>original 128K Mac).  So I didn't have high hopes---I feared that I'd just be
>>running into a lot of hype, and quite honestly, sitting down with a NeXT
>>running 1.0 was *not* an exercise for the impatient.  ("Okay, here we---wait,
>>what just happened?  Did we crash?  What's *this*?")
>>
>>Now, I'll be honest with you:  I think the NeXT is one of the neatest, most
>>promising combinations of hardware and software that there are on the market,
>>one of the prettiest combinations *ever* in the history of computing.  But  
it's
>>only been in the last year that I'd admit this.  Between NeXTStep 3.0 and
>>DBkit, it's an impossible machine to ignore.  I want one.  It would be the
>>first computer that I'd really invest significantly in.
>>

Well then do it...come on!...Don't be shy!

>>So why do I feel that familiar feeling?  Why does part of my brain faintly
>>hear, somewhere in the back of my head, in a radio announcer's manic voice:
>>"NeXT:  The Amiga of the '90s!"?
>>
Not!
Never!
No way!
Why? Look...the Amiga was cool.  But as much as Commodore tried to convince
us it was a *serious* machine...it wasn't.  It was (is) a computer made
primarily for doing video graphics work (and it does it pretty well). There 
is no way on earth you're gonna' convince your IS managers to put Amigas 
on their programmers desks.  Put simply, Amigas and Commodore never gained
acceptance from the BUSINESS community (O.K. - excluding video studios).  NeXT
on the other hand is making it big in business, government (DARPA, NSA, 
etc), and higher ed.  Hell, even Apple has had to invest big bucks in 
marketing to gain moderate acceptance in the business place.

>>I'm afraid of investing a lot of my loyalty in a company which may screw up
>>rather badly.  And I haven't seen a lot of signs that NeXT is really going to
>>get past this fragile stage.  I'm a little afraid that I'll start to feel  
about
>>NeXT the way I currently feel about Apple---which is Not Pretty.
>>
>>For example, NeXT had half the right idea at first, targeting educational
>>institutions.  If you want to capture the imagination of the computer world,
>>get the young ones addicted early.  If you can get college graduates going  
out
>>into the world with a degree and a strong addiction for your computer,  
they're
>>gonna' buy one, or convince their employer to buy them one.  

NeXT is still growing at a healthy pace in the higher ed market.  Countless
schools are setting up freshman calculus courses using Mathematica running on 
networks of NeXTs (almost makes me wanna' take it again...almost!)

>>But NeXT seemed to
>>be totally ignoring the corporate world at the time, which was a major
>>financial mistake.  You don't get your money from universities.  But NeXT has
>>now largely abandoned the educational market, which is an equally silly
>>mistake.

This is perception, not reality.
  
>>NeXT *needs* to adapt an aggressive two-tiered approach, simply to
>>become as visible as its contenders.  If it were as visible, there would be  
no
>>contest---IBM, Apple and Sun would start getting buried in short order.
>>

Takes time and money (Rome wasn't conquered...)

>>Another thing:  Where's the high end?  Where's the low end?  Hello?
>>
>>NeXT's technological range at the moment is single-CPU '030s and '040s  
running
>>at between 25 and 33MHz.  We're talking 40 MIPS machines *maximum*, even with  
a
>>cube with an '030 dedicated to print stuff.  Whatever happened to that  
four-CPU
>>M88k NeXT they were talking about, the one that would pull around 100 MIPS?   
Is
>>NeXT serious about NeXTStep-486, and are they thinking about coming out with  
a
>>NeXT based around the Intel chip rather than the 68K?  Are they thinking  
about
>>the Pentium?  Is NeXT actively trying to cut the costs of its low-end boxes
>>while trying to push the envelope of its high end a bit?  Are they  
considering
>>making some of the functions of the NeXTdimension more affordable?  I'm not
>>*even* going to mention a portable NeXT. . . .  :)
>>
>>I have to confess that it sure looks as though the NeXT is a bit stagnant  
right

If history is any indication, NeXT's next NeXT will knock everyone's socks
off.  

>>now.  Prices haven't changed all that much, very few advances are being made.
>>It looks like NeXT is *mostly* trying to find corporate sales, and not that
>>concerned about making itself more appealing with a wider range of products,  
>>or more affordable products.

Small companies need to focus on those markets in which they do well...let 
the market *pull* them (read: market driven = success) instead of trying
to *push* their products on companies that may not need them.


>>
>>NeXT also seems to have forgotten one of its most important resources:  its
>>volunteer evangelists.  Hard information from NeXT is difficult to get.  I've
>>been listening for some time, but I hear *nothing* firm on what NeXT's R&D
>>department is doing at the moment, and so how can I say good things about
>>NeXT's future?  I'd *love* to be able to say, "You think *this* is neat?   
>>Wait
>>a few months---these guys are going to come out with a machine five times
>>faster!"
>>

Hey, it's like a game of football.  You don't want your quarterback
telling the opposing teams defense what play he's about to call. Capish? (sp)

>>NeXT also seems confused about its place in the market.  

They didn't quite know what they had

>>They can hardly be
>>blamed for that, though---they're in a unique position.  This is the first  
time
>>that high-end PCs have been priced *higher* than a very powerful, wonderful
>>multiuser graphical-interfaced box.  NeXT needs to not only go after Sun, but
>>it needs to show that it's more capable than either IBMisms or Appleisms at a
>>comparable price.  And they could.
>>
>>Of course, it would require some cooperation with some of the software  
vendors.
>>It's hard to find software for the NeXT which doesn't run under $200.  C'mon,
	
I see the edu in your sig. So here it goes.

	3DReality	$99
	Concurrence	$64
	Diagram!	$25
	SoftPC		$179 (Texas A&M MicroCenter student price)
	WriteNow2.1	$99 ($159 from NeXTConnection)
	Create		$99
	DataPhile	$99
	WordPerfect	$150 (Texas A&M MicroCenter student price)

**Prices may vary.  See your dealer for details
 
>>people, it can't be *that* hard for you to write programs on the NeXT.  If  
you
>>folks would cooperate a bit, and bring those prices down to the range of  
prices
>>that you see in the PC world (or slightly lower), you might convince more and
>>more people to use that platform, which would only be *good* for you.  Right?
>>
>>I fear that if NeXT goes down for the count, greed will be one of the major
>>factors.
>>

Price/performance wise NeXT is still competitive with Suns.  Factor in 
software and it kicks Suns ass.  HP's got the highest price/performance
ratio (this week) but you end up using X11 - no thanks!  Again, factor in 
software and NeXT still looks pretty good (especially as a client in 
a client/server world.  HP's for the servers)

>>C'mon, NeXT.  I want to believe in you.  I love your machine.  I want one of
>>your machines in my computer room.  I want to develop on your wonderful
>>hardware and software.  I really, really, really want you to succeed, to take
>>the market by storm, to make the planet a slightly better place overall, if
>>only by sending Apple and IBM into fearful quivering.
>>
>>Please don't screw up.  *Please*.
>>
>>				---Ken McGlothlen
>>				   mcglk@cpac.washington.edu
>>				   mcglk@cpac.bitnet

I can sympathize with what your saying (feeling).  But in all honesty
I have to say that my decision to buy a NeXT (Dec 14, 1990) was one of the 
best decisions I've ever made.  It:
	1) has opened my eyes to object-oriented technologies
	   (I didn't stop with Obj-C though)
	2) brought me opportunites that otherwise would not have been
	   (Personally and professionally)
	3) brought me closer a community of incredibly talented and 
	   creative engineers, programmers, students and individuals.
	4) has made this EE seriously think about goin' CS.

Hey.  I didn't ask for all this when I got my NeXT (truth is, I just 
wanted a good C environment and Mma)

My advise is: 
	1) Take a couple steps back.
	2) Take a deep breath.
	3) run forward and dive in!

Come on.  The water's fine :-)

--
Ronald Pomeroy		geez...I need a new sig
Advanced Micro Devices
CAM Applications Group
rpomeroy@aunext1.amd.com (NeXTmail preferred)