From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: NeXTStep 486 should cost $250
Date: 10 Apr 92 00:20:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.bf7H1pbm6
Organization: Penn State Computer Science


In article <3526@rosie.NeXT.COM> Lyle_Scheer@NeXT.com (Lyle Scheer) writes:

   In other words, I don't think $250 would cover OUR costs.  We'd be selling it  
   at a loss.  Not a good thing to do.

   I bet we also will be paying royalties for Renderman (just thought of it)

   As has been said before in this newsgroup, if you look at all the stuff that  
   NeXT sells to EVERY NeXTStep user, a comparible package for ANY other computer  
   would run well over $5,000.  I'm of the impression that the price we've set is  
   extremely cheap for what you get.

No one will dispute the fact that NeXT offers a lot for the money. It
doesn't look as good since Apple has dropped their prices.  However,
at the current prices NeXT will take a decade before it gains
acceptance.  The problem with this, of course, is that most software
developers will not write for the NeXT, and those that do will charge
more for their products.  If you buy a NeXT today, you might be able
to buy a decent paint program before the machine becomes obsolete.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world moves forward too.  I guarantee that
NeXT will not have the best price/performance for the money in 10
months.  People who buy X workstations will continue to do so, and PC
users will be content with Windows, OS/2 2.0 or Windows NT, which runs
25,000 PC applications.  If those boneheads waited this long for OS/2
2.0, they'll wait several more years until IBM has what NeXT offers
today.

OS/2 2.0, for example, sold 50,000 copies in the first 8 days after
its introduction, and the market for OS/2 2.0 specific applications
will be 10 times larger than the NeXT market within 60 days.  NeXT now
has to explain to the world why NeXTstep is better than OS/2, which
has VM, memory protection, multiprocessing, threads, 512MB/process,
drag and drop capabilities, IPC, ..., which can be purchased for $200,
and which will run 25,000 PC programs.  The NeXT Appkit is great but
at least 100 developers will offer CASE, OOP languages, IBs, and other
tools for Windows and OS/2.  The applications that people develop
under OS/2 will run on $1000 computers or $10K computers that are
faster than the NeXT.  I've noticed that the words "mission critical"
and OS/2 are often used together.

In short, I think appealing to the basic human instinct of greed will
get NeXT a lot farther.  Very few people will spend $5K on a computer,
and NeXT doesn't even sell a standalone computer $5K.  Those that will
don't want to spend money on high priced RAM to expand their machines
and ISO keyboards -- my fingers already hurt like hell without dealing
with the new keyboards.  "Just stick 16MB SIMMs in your machine if you
want more than 16MB of memory."  I've seen 16MB Cubes with 8MB NDs
swap if you looked at them the wrong way.  Try to do some real work
and you might as well take a coffee break.

Sorry for that little bit of gloom and doom, but sometimes you've got
to wonder if NeXT isn't playing it day to day.  Maybe I'm
overreacting.  Where are those sales figures for the Q1?

-Mike

Btw, I hope Glenn Reid doesn't find these marketing comments and
flames by another college student too boring.  It would just be a
shame to see history repeat itself and NeXT fall like Apple computer.
"Windows is a joke.  We're much better than Windows."  Well, Apple was
right, but they still lost.  Sculley does seem pretty happy with his
personal computer gadget and his $18 mil. a year, though.