From: halpin@vsg1.dsg.dec.com (Stephen E. Halpin)
Subject: Re: NT: please define vapor.
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 01:32:22 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.203008.9838@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer) writes:
>Jeff Henshaw writes
>
>> Everyone wants their familiar OS and UI.
>
>Naw, I think most want a UI that they can deal with.  It's a lot looser
>definition, because most people won't want to go back to the Windows
>UI once they try NeXTSTEP or Motif or OpenLook.  A few will.
>
>> Please refrain, though, because I like NeXTSTEP, too, though there
>> are 10,000,000 people who might think differently out there.
>
>Keep the numbers games out of here.  10M is such a gross overinflation
>that even MicroSoft admits it.  And many (not all, but most) who
>currently use Windows only do so because there is no other UI choice
>currently available.  That changes very quickly over the next few
>months.

Im curious where Microsoft admits this.  Sales are approaching a million
copies a month.  The Macintosh has an installed base of around 10 million
users as well.  New seat desktop sales run at 80% Windows, 18% Macintosh,
1% UNIX, and then the rest.  Saying no users will go to Windows from MOTIF
is absurd, given how closely related they are.  I have yet to use a MOTIF
or OpenLook application that would win "best in class."  And yes, a UI
is a hell of a lot more than the shape of the buttons.

>> First of all, you *really* need to define what "vapor" is if you're
>> going to reference products in relation to it.  If you mean that
>> "vapor" is a product that has been announced, but is not yet being
>> distributed to the general public in a release form, then yes (listen
>> to the Microsoft employee say this :-), NT is vapor.
>
>Yup.  Exactly.  Because who you quoted (you didn't attribute the quote,
>fix your news poster please :-) said that you can't tell features and
>how well they work until release - and that is true.  And as long as
>something is vapor, it *is* the greatest, best, fastest, whatever the
>FUD Marketeers can make it out to be.  To see what something *really*
>is takes a release version.  OS/2 2.0 was a dog speed-wise until it's
>final release, for example, and buggy as hell.  NS3.0PR1 was a dog,
>PR2 was much better, and the release is faster yet.  And the difference
>in bugginess is enourmous.  An annouced but not-yet-shipping *product*
>(not developers version) is vapor for the purpose of trying to peer
>through the marketing fog and see 'what the heck is this thing?'.

Vapor?  How many units did NeXT sell in its first two months?  Microsoft
has sold 10,000 Windows NT Developer Kits, and it hasnt even hit beta
stage yet.  Id argue its the best time to get past the marketing fog,
because you can study the framework before its wrapped up and hidden
away by mass market sales hype (and no, the imaging model is not as nice
as DPS :-)

>Now, NT is going to be a good operating system.  Anyone that doesn't
>think that better wake up now.  In a way, that's good news.  It's time
>a mass-market OS with a reasonable amount of power was available to
>mass-market PCs.  And NT is going to be one of those, along with NS486
>and DESTiny.  

See the marketing breakdown above.

>It's just sad that a good operating system will be handicapped with
>such a bad UI as Windows.  If I'm mistaken in that, please let me know
>what will be used instead - I'd be very happy to hear it.

What are you refering to when you talk about the UI?  A menu is a menu,
a button is a button, etc...  Once youve launched an application you can
safely ignore the "desktop", at which point youre at the mercy of the
application designer.  If the designer has layed out dialog boxes correctly,
given the user an appropriate amount of direct control over the data s/he
is working with, and done some decent graphics design you have a good UI
that will work over almost any imaging model.  This has nothing to do with
Microsoft or Windows.

>But what is also true is that it *won't* be the end-all-be-all of PC
>OSs.  It's also true that it would be more damaging to the PC indutry
>than not the have one dominant OS anymore - having DOS/Windows as the
>only significant choice has handicapped the PCs to the point where it
>is the last place to find new, wonderful UI features.  Which is
>backwards, because such a large installed machine base should be able
>to support research into new UI features.
>
>Instead, all those UI features that make life easily are hidden away
>in that great little secret known as NeXTSTEP.  Hopefully, NS486 will
>help us bring all that great functionality out of the closet.

Its a great system.  I REALLY hope it can grow to significance in the
mass market.  Getting on the 486 and later on the P5 will help considerably.
If the 88110 is the end of the line, buying into it will only hurt NeXT
(just ask owners of the original optical drive :-), especially if they
ultimately settle on a little endian RISC architecture.  As it is processing
binary files on NS and NS486 will be, well, challenging.

>--
>Scott Byer                             NeXTMail: byer@mv.us.adobe.com
>Adobe Systems Incorporated               These are *my* opinions, and  
>1585 Charleston Road, P.O. Box 7900        do not necessarily reflect
>Mountain View, CA 94039-7900             the opinions of my employer.
>---------------------------------------------------------------------

-Steve
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stephen E. Halpin                halpin@vsg1.dsg.dec.com
                                 My views are mine because no one else
                                 would take them.