From: Steve.Johnson@math.tamu.edu (Steve Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc,comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: The Future of Next, Inc.
Date: 27 Dec 1992 03:06:48 GMT
Organization: Dept of Mathematics, Texas A&M University
NNTP-Posting-Host: math.tamu.edu
Originator: steve@math

Note: cross-posting to comp.sys.next.misc and comp.sys.next.advocacy.
Original from comp.sys.next.misc.
In article <1992Dec27.015305.27995@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
> [stuff deleted]
>I just read the status of Next, Inc. in the latest issue of the
>Economist.  The line in the 1st paragraph reads, approximately,
>
>         "Next, Inc. has yet to turn a profit".

It would be interesting to see NeXT's books.

>At the end of the article, it notes that a high-ranked official had
>jumped ship and moved to Sun Microsystems.  Mr. Job laments that
>Sun may yet crush the daylights out of his company.

I'm not quite sure if NeXT should go public.  It would certainly
raise my confidence in the company.  The big bankroll from Canon did
nothing for my confidence.

>So, if Mr. Jobs is reading this, I wish him well and again offer the same
>advice.  Keep R & D in the USA but move _all_ manufacturing facilities
>to Thailand.  For crying out loud, use the Matsushita-designed 64-bit
>SPARC chip.  So, what do you care if people laugh because you chose
>the SPARC chip?  You will earn enough money to _burn_.

I'm not particular about the processor, but the '040 has got to go.
The turbo was a real yawn of an announcement.  The R4000, Sparc Viking,
PA-RISC, and others are incredibly fast.  The microSparc certainly has
some impressive price/performance numbers.  Any of these would make
me happy.

The foreign manufacturing may or may not solve the money problems.
If quality control can be maintained, NeXT wouldn't lose on the warranty.
This would be a plus.  On the other hand, the 'buy American' theme may hurt
US sales.  Tough call.

Given the vast array of Unix OS's around (Solaris, AIX, IRIX, RISCos, UTS,
and so on), it would be nice to see a truly unified OS running on multiple
platforms.  This could be quite profitable for NeXT, if they can round up
enough programming man-hours to do the ports.  Of course, a couple of
additions to NextStep would help: POSIX & C2 or B1 security, for example.

Out on a limb for 1993:
1)	NeXT sales will slump. Without new hardware, NeXT could very well be
	crushed by Sun.
2)	NextStep 486 won't sell due to its high pricetag.  I don't think
	Solaris for 486 will fare too well, either.
3)	Don't expect timely upgrades for some of your favorite software.
	Vendors will be taking a second look at NeXT.
4)	If new NeXT hardware is announced, we'll probably be disappointed
	by the (lack of) upgrade paths.  However, it could bring NeXT
	up to the performance levels of its competition (whoever that is).
5)	If there is a NS 3.1, it will make a lot of people happy, and
	I'll probably even upgrade.

As you can tell, I'm not a big fan of the NeXT hardware. So if it
went away, I'll live.  I'd just like to see the NeXT software
mature and develop into a multi-platform OS for the mid-90's.

Standard disclaimers apply.
///////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
  Steve Johnson                         E-mail: Steve.Johnson@math.tamu.edu
  Unix Systems Manager                  Phone: (409) 845-0906
  Dept of Mathematics                   FAX:   (409) 845-6028
  Texas A&M University
  College Station, TX 77843-3368
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\////////////////////////////////////////
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc