From: mcglk@cpac.washington.edu (Ken McGlothlen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: NeXT may not be doomed yet, but I sure have a lot of goose-bumps.
Date: 4 Jan 93 12:11:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: yang.MCGLK.93Jan4041118
Distribution: world
Organization: Dubious.
NNTP-Posting-Host: yang.cpac.washington.edu

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.

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, 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.
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.

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!"?

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.  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.  NeXT *needs* to adapt an agressive 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.

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
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.

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!"

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

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
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy