From: rick@digibd.com (Rick Richardson)
Subject: Re: Destiny vs ODT vs Dell vs ESIX
Organization: DigiBoard Incorporated, Eden Prairie, MN
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 1992 12:20:23 GMT
Keywords: Destiny ODT SCO Dell ESIX

philipr@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Philip Rhoades) writes:
>The question is: If Destiny retails for about US$300 will it not
>undercut a lot of the debate about bundling/unbundling? I have 
>been frustrated by not having the ODT Dev Sys. It looks as though
>Destiny is the all singing, all dancing solution to just about
>everyone's needs - no?

>Will Destiny be a real mass market product?

Destiny (SVR4.2) competes with ODT 2.0.  I think USL also believes
that it competes with Windows/NT, but I'm not convinced of that.
All three are clearly being marketed as Mac-like desktops for use
by the computer-phobic (i.e. mask market products).

Technically speaking, Destiny has the best underlying UNIX implementation
I've seen yet from USL.  All the good BSD/Sun stuff, loadable device
drivers, shared libraries that mostly work the "right way", a
filesystem that survives "the big red switch" and doesn't take
hours to fsck (since you don't fsck it), X11R5 libraries and
clients, excellent networking capabilities (at least, in the only
end-user version I've laid hands on - Univel's UnixWare), etc., etc.,
etc.  ODT can't hold a candle to this resume.  Windows/NT has a much
cleaner design (being uKernel and brand new), but still has a long way
to go before it grows up to meet Destiny feature for feature (multiuser
and networking being its main weak points).  SCO, well, its SVR3.2
with symlinks and long file names - 'nuff said.

Now, SCO and USL take their respective UNIX technologies, slap a
desktop on it, and make it damn difficult to even get near
the login: prompt.  Thus branding them as a single user desktop
solution.  This limits their market to perhaps 10% of the
potential UNIX user "seats", but, this is important, means that
they sell one copy "per seat", rather than one copy "per computer".
Since we typically see way more than 10 users per computer these
days, this results in a net increase in sales (assuming you get
people to buy all those computers...).

The desktop user doesn't care much about the underlying UNIX technology.
Presumably, you use a desktop metaphor because you want to run some
applications and you are too feeble minded to remember file names.
So USL's big technology advantage is no longer a big selling point.
What is important is the desktop metaphor that is provided.

(Please keep in mind, a desktop metaphor is yet another layer
added on top of X window and whatever window manager you use).

And here's where USL really blows it.  Instead of going with a really
decent Desktop Manager, USL (apparently) rolls their own.  But it
is vastly inferior to SCO's IXI-provided desktop (details on request).
As these desktop thingies go, anyway.

So, IMHO, if you buy into this UNIX desktop stuff, I think SCO still
has the solution.  If you don't buy into the desktop stuff and
are really looking for "the best multiuser solution", then Destiny
still has the best stuff.  You just have to ignore the desktop
as just so much extra wasted disk space.

As for competing with Windows/NT, bah!  Windows/NT isn't multiuser,
so Windows/NT leaves that market segment completely to UNIX.
And as far as desktop metaphors go, Windows/NT wins hands down
compared to either SCO or Destiny.  The NT desktop is decent,
NT doesn't require anywhere near the amount of RAM or disk that
UNIX does, NT has quicker desktop response on the same hardware,
NT takes less than half a day to get going, etc.  The comparison
is so ludicrous that I have to say "ODT and Destiny aren't
desktops so they leave that market segment entirely to NT."

In either case, the vast majority of people will stick with their
non-desktop, whether it be DOS, or a terminal connected to UNIX,
running the one or two applications that they always ran.  And
they'll upgrade to "the latest version" of the operating system
about 2 years after all of us technophiles get done wetting
our pants over it.

I don't believe it is necessary to compete with NT, but people
seem to want to do it anyway.  So here's my formula:  take
UnixWare, toss the USL desktop, add the IXI desktop.  Get the
system to run without paging in 8 MB's of RAM.  For *every single
ascii or binary configuration database file* that exists on the system, 
determine if the file is necessary, and if so, make sure that
there is a *tool on the desktop* for maintaining it.  Make sure
that the system can be loaded on a new computer by a moron in no
more than 60 minutes and no more than 30 minutes by an expert.
I'm talking from turning on the power for the first time to clicking
on the first icon.

If you did all this, you would really have a system that sings
and dances for every possible need.  Assuming, of course, that
this is a desireable goal.  Be careful, though, for what you
wish.  Because you just might get it.  Its not hard to
see that a Windows/NT that supports multiuser character and
graphics logins is probably easier to achieve than is turning
UNIX into a desktop system.

Oh yeah, this is all my opinion, and not DigiBoards.
-- 
Rick Richardson		Email: rick@digibd.com	This space intentionally
Senior Staff Engineer	Fax:   (612) 943-0803	blank until 1996 elections.
DigiBoard, Inc.		Tel:   (612) 943-5383
Eden Prairie, MN	Radio: N0NMY
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386