From: yf5990@u.cc.utah.edu (Yan Fang/Humanities)
Subject: Re: Mac vs. NeXT (was Mac Multitasking?)
Organization: University of Utah Computer Center Student Mail Machine
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 05:45:08 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.231636.522@athena.mit.edu> mflafeer@athena.mit.edu (Mohamed F. Lafeer) writes:
>I don't want you NeXT guys to think that I don't understand that there are
>advantages to NeXTstep. It does have some really neat features. But those
>features are not as dramatic as the advantage that Mac had over MS-DOS in
>1987-88 that made the Mac as accepted as it is today.

Yes, they are. They're just not where you're looking. 

The hugest advantage NeXT has over any other platform _isn't_ interface
design etc., but custom application development. It really is two to
nine times faster to write apps for NeXTSTEP than the next best platform,
whatever that is. Jobs was right: when NeXT suits up against Sun, the "next
best," NeXT wins nine times out of ten.


>
>I agree that the NeXT is great. But now that I am going into the real world
>I have to make decisions based on more than just "get the best." 
>
>Buying a Mac and buying/developing Mac software means more flexibility than
>NeXT. Mac software runs on cheap computers, computers with big monitors and
>68040s, and computers that weigh 4lbs and fit in a briefcase.

Right. Get "the best" for "what you want." NeXTs are not a Mac
replacement, no matter what my zealous compatriots may claim. But Macs (and
everything else) are merely a band-aid fix when it comes to writing
really good apps fast.

>The Mac market is large. It is fed by hundreds of companies. It is not as
>large as the PC market, but it is large enough to be stable and trustworthy.
>Macs are not just found in advertising firms any more, they have found a 
>place in every segment of the computer industry. 

>If NS486 is everything you say it is, and if NS486 sells a million copies, 
>then I'll look at NeXT and think about investing in it. 
>
>NeXT is a small privately owned company. It does not have any significant
>partners. Apple is a large, publicly-held company with a known stable financial
>situation. Apple has significant dealings with another pair of large, stable,
>publicly held companies, Motorola and IBM.

Eric answered this one. That's a silly assumption to make, but
forgivable--almost everyone thinks twice about NeXT when they hear Canon
and Perot mentioned concurrently with Steve Jobs. NeXT will certainly not
shrivel up for lack of support or big name investors. 

>Who knows exactly what will happen in the computer market in the next few
>years? All of this talk about NS486 sales, PowerOPEN, and Taligent are purely
>speculation. The bottom line is that I need to solve certain business needs
>for a certain set of small companies. Buying a Quadra to develop software
>for a network of smaller, cheaper, Macintoshes makes sense for our company.
>And it seems to me that Macs (and to an even greater degree PC's) make more
>sense for more companies than buying a network of $6000 - $7000 NeXT machines.

Think about it: hardware is often the smallest part of firm's investment
in information technology. NeXT pays off big time for firms who spend
millions on software development and maintenance, which NeXTSTEP cuts
drastically. NeXT might pay off averagely for small businesses for certain
applications, but until the relatively high price drops it's a hit or miss
proposition for a small business to buy NeXTs instead of PCs or Macs. 

>In summary, I do not share your optimism about the future of NeXT in the
>mainstream of computer users and purchasers. I think that MS-DOS, Windows, and
>MacOS, and future derivatives of these systems are the present and future
>mainstream. This is not to say that these OSes are better than NeXT or even
>as good as NeXT. These are just market realities.
>.
>
>-Firoze

Well, in times of great upheaval (e.g., when DOS hits the ropes), a small
event can alter the course of a nation; maybe soon NeXT will become a
horizontal OS and surprise us all. And if I can borrow your time machine, I'll
find out and let you know. <8->

Kris Magnusson
Alpine Computing



-- 
Yan Fang-Magnusson
Ph.D. candidate, philosophy, University of Utah
yf5990@u.cc.utah.edu
yanfang@cc.utah.edu (NeXTmail)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.hardware,comp.sys.mac.system