From: davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.unix.sys5.r4
Subject: Re: It's Time for a Shakedown (was Re: A few answers to Dell Unix FAQ)
Date: 6 Jan 93 14:36:44 GMT
Reply-To: davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center, Schenectady NY

In article <2B4A5D07.3C71@telly.on.ca>, evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:

| Not one company in the bunch has shown a true commitment to work with
| 
| - The most current USL release
| *AND*
| - As much third-party hardware and software as possible
| *AND*
| - Reasonable prices
| *AND*
| - Reasonable VAR/reseller support
| *AND*
| - Reasonable end-user support
| *AND*
| - Stability and certainty based on past performance and future direction.
| 
| Not one of the players so far supports more than two of the above
| criteria. Each has their own little niche, while none has even bothered
| to address the full job.

  That's the bad thing about capatalism, consumers have to make choices.
And they have chosen to support all of the vendors, each picking the one
who provides the best mix of features.

| As many of you may remember, Intel even purchased Bell Technologies with
| the intent of using its resources to produce a definitive R4. In
| retrospect, I wish they had stuck to it a bit longer. They eventually sold
| out to Interactive, which itself was sold to first Kodak and later Sun
| (another company helping to fragment the market, but big enough not to
| care).
| 
| Where is this leading?
| 
| In my opinion, this market will not realize its potential until there is
| a massive shakedown. Almost all of the existing R4 vendors will have to
| merge or fold. A single company doing all the business of the existing
| R4 vendors *might* have the clout and installed base to provide the
| resources necessary to being all of the above features I mentioned into
| a single, stable company.

  This seems highly at variance to your next staement.

| Univel's startup has been rough, but then so has every other R4 vendor's.
| Its product is pricey, but then high pricing and margins have done pretty
| well to date for Novell, Apple and others. It's likely that a low-end leader
| like Consensys or MST can make a go of the market by riding on the coattails
| of a definitive R4, by making sure it's 100% compatible, and offering a low
| enough cost to keep the high-priced spread honest.

  It sounds like reasonable price has just become optional.
| 
| Other low-cost options like Linux, if they're compatible and stable
| enough, will also keep downwards pressure on the price of USL's stuff.

  It's not clear (to me) if USL is going to drop the price of UNIX to
compete with the $69 WindowsNT, or if they're going to raise it to match
the Netware prices. Someone told me the server license was $20k, but I
hope that's source, since I can't imagine anyone paying it otherwise.

  If USL drops the runtime+net price of UNIX to <$100 they will start
selling in volume. At current prices you don't get people buying UNIX to
try it, they only buy it because they need it.
| 
| Then again, I have no great loyalty to Univel. If a different company can
| come out of a shakedown as a leader in the industry, I'll work with it.
| But Univel seems the only R4 vendor with the budget and resources behind
| it enough to emerge unharmed.

  They control the price of all other vendors, too, which is a nice
marketing position. They could simply raise prices and put all other
vendors out of the market, other than those with locked in prices on old
versions. Then everyone would come out with horible hacks on old code,
like SCO-ODT, AIX, etc.

  USL could standardise the market in a year if they chose, by dropping
the license fees. If it cost less to sell V.4.2 than the current
product, all vendors would jump on the bandwagon, dropping the retail
price a little and putting the rest in their pocket.

  They control the price of all other vendors, too, which is a nice
marketing position. They could simply raise prices and put all other
vendors out of the market, other than those with locked in prices on old
versions. Then everyone would come out with horible hacks on old code,  
like SCO-ODT, AIX, etc.

-- 
bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
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