From: ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: New SUN's, Bad news for NeXT?
Date: 12 Nov 1992 23:49:38 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: world
Reply-To: ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar)
NNTP-Posting-Host: pundit.cithep.caltech.edu

In article <MS-C.721596652.1103527590.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM>  
mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM (Mark Crispin) writes:
> NeXT made a step in the right direction with NeXTSTEP/486, but IMHO going
> after the NT juggernaut is more for public relations than for profitability.
> NeXTSTEP/486 is simply too expensive and the market perception of NeXT as a
> company compared to Microsoft does not support a serious competition.

You're not paying attention.  NeXT doesn't have to destroy MicroSoft, only  
capture 10% of the market to be wildy succesfull.  Anyone who does a lot of  
Windows programming is eager for an alternative.  Most of NeXT's big corporate  
sales in the last couple of months has been running (successfully) against  
Microsoft, so it can be done.  MIS managers take NeXT seriously, even if  
Microsoft itself does not.

NeXT is also looking at its options:  dropping the price of NS '486,  
disregarding future hardware sales, etc.  They aren't blind to the obstacles.   
NeXT's corporate users and developers are getting better at beating NeXT over  
the head about htat.

> NeXT has still not done anything about the ``you can't run anything other  
than
> NeXTSTEP on a NeXT computer'' problem.  Screams of ``why would you want to do
> this'' aside, the fact is that NeXT withholds programming documentation about
> its hardware.  Porting or developing an alterate operating system to NeXT
> hardware is not feasible.

So who cares?  If you need to run DOS/Windows, buy NS '486.  If you need to run  
X, buy Co-Xist.  Otherwise, if you really need another OS, buy it from the  
vendor.  NeXT doesn't feel a need to sell its hardware.  They're perfectly  
happy selling thousands of copies of NeXTSTEP '486 instead.

> I hope NeXT sees the light.  NeXT is behaving a lot better than they were two
> years ago, but there's still a long way to go.  Somehow, going up again SUN 
> a vendor which is justifiably hated by lots of people -- doesn't inspire much
> confidence.
Huh?  Why does competing (and winning) against SUN (the largest workstation  
vendor) not inspire confidence?  And you seem to have already conscluded that  
NS '486 won't sell against Windows NT et al, despite much evidence to the  
contrary.  Would going up against Microsoft inspire your confidence? What do  
you want, anyway? (not sarcastic, just confused).

NeXT knows their future is in software - our local SE doesn't really care about  
selling black hardware.  They have realistic plans for how much they want to  
eat out of Microsofts market share, and they are seriously considering what  
they need to do (dropping prices, selling '486 boxes, bundling DOS/Windows  
support) to achieve that.

What exactly more do you want?  Adding other hardware ports is real nice, and  
some of NeXT customers may get together to underwrite a SPARC port.  But if you  
want a large base, '486+Pentium is the way to go, and NeXT is doing it.  They  
already connect to just about anything larger than an HP calculator.   They  
sell more machines (though probably with a smaller profit margins) than SGI,  
and even more desktop units than IBM.  They have an excellent chance of getting  
sales comparable to Windows NT.

Yes, NeXT will probably lose many sales to people looking for cheap Unix boxes  
(although something interesting may happen in the next month or so regarding  
that).  But that's small potatoes compared to what NeXT is really after.  Who  
cares if they lose a battle if they win the war?  NeXT has the right bait, and  
corporate America is biting.

- Ernie "NeXT Purity" Prabhakar

--
Ernest N. Prabhakar                  Caltech High Energy Physics
Member, League for Programming Freedom (league@prep.ai.mit.edu)
CaJUN President        NeXTMail:ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu
"...and ourselves, your servants for Jesus sake." - II Cor 4:5b
#import <std/disclaimer.h>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc