From: jfr@RedBrick.COM ()
Subject: Re: New SPARC Classic
Keywords: sun, classic, sparc
Organization: Red Brick Systems, Los Gatos, CA
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 02:14:08 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.230438.21819@reed.edu> rseymour@reed.edu writes:
>[munched various discussions of the Sparc Classic
>	The price is $4295 (with the 15" color display and ~250MB hard drive  
>display) for any quantity other than multiples of 12. So if you buy 15, it 12  
>at $3995 and 3 at $4295. In addition there will be no educational disounting.  
>I hope NeXT never sinks to this level of marketing. However it is a low price  
>for the amount of power you get (I've heard around 25 SPEC89s, as compared to  
>the $8,000 Turbo Color's paltry 14.6 [and it doesn't have the awful problems  
>with disk acess that the NeXT does {did you see UNIX Review's review of the  
>Turbo Color?}), though the Solaris user interface is awful (and it only runs  
>version 2.1). I'd like to see NeXT make a decision on its future, so that  
>I can decide which system to go with (NeXT, Mac, Sun, IBM, or other).

  I don't know what you mean you "hope NeXT never sinks to this level of
  marketing".  Are you suggesting that the lack of educational discounting
  is a some kind of low-life level of marketing?  Why is that?

  You yourself say that a Sparc with 15" color and 250Mb drive is a good buy.
  It is, IMHO, an excellent buy, especially if the 25 Specs is true.  

  If Sun can sell this machine at a low profit at this price, but not at any
  lower price, then there are only two ways I can interpret your argument.     

    1) Sun should be selling the machine at an educational discount beyond
       the already low $3995 price, even if it is at a loss.  OR

    2) Sun should be selling the machine at a higher price to those of
       us who aren't *blessed* with access to educational discounts.

  I find both arguments extremely hard to stomach.  I agree that companies
  should try and reduce their margins on educational sales if they have
  fairly high margins on regular sales, for several reasons.  Educational
  usage will help the future by seeding the world with lots of people
  who are exposed to the machine.   It also helps the present by getting
  a critical mass of software developers working on the machine who are
  in a position to build stuff without a massive capital investment (they
  are already being supported through school by their parents/school/
  state/federal govt (pick all that apply :-)).  

  But if the company chooses to reduce its margins to the bare minimum
  and sell a product at a very small markup to everyone, I don't
  see why they should be expected to offer educational discounts.

  And I don't see why being in school should somehow magically entitle
  you to own a machine at a lower price than me, just because you are
  in school.  And I also fail to see how this is a "low" level of 
  marketing.   

  BTW, most products are NOT offered at significant educational discounts.
  For instance, cars, stereos, video cameras, appliances, etc.  Why are
  computers somehow "different"?  If it is in the vendor's interest to
  offer a discount, I have no problem with that.  But I fail to see why
  discounts should somehow be mandated.  I would prefer to see low-margin
  prices on everything to everybody.

  Jon Rosen
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware