system: You are Neeti Ray, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Unix message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to Yousuf Khan about "cheaper systems".

They wrote:
YK>YK>Somehow the concept of Unix and cheaper systems seems oxymoronic. The
YK>
YK>>    Depends on how you look at it.  I've seen VAR's try to package a
YK>>half- dozen Windoze PC's w/ 8megs each and a NT server to run some
YK>>company's big database.
YK>
YK>> Write that same app on a Unix multi-user box and *much* cheaper
YK>>terminals and voila, a big cost savings and the whole thing will
YK>>probably be more crash proof, secure and probably faster too.
YK>
YK>Nobody is going to put up with textual terminals these days. Whatever
YK>client/server solution you come up with nowadays will have to be on
YK>graphical clients. Now you may say, "If they are going to be graphical
YK>clients, then obviously we are talking about an X Windows solution,
YK>since the server will be Unix". But if they are going to be making the
YK>frontend clients graphical anyways, then they may as well be MS Windows
YK>rather than X Windows, because Windows is so much more common than X
YK>Windows; there are all kinds of SQL database query tools available for
YK>MSWin like PowerBuilder, VisualBasic, etc.; X Windows becomes no longer
YK>necessary because Windows can access Unix.
YK>So basically for that above mentioned big database, you will still need
YK>the half-dozen Windows PCs w/ 8MB each and the server will be a much
YK>more expensive Unix box rather than an NT box. Even if you run it on a
YK>PC-based Unix, you will still have a slightly more costly machine. And
YK>likely, it will cost more per year to maintain the Unix than it would to
YK>maintain the NT.
YK>>What really kills me is seeing a Windows box running POS software.
YK>
YK>Have no idea what "POS" software means. There are a few nasty things
YK>that come to mind, but I assume you're being serious here.
YK>As I said, nobody is going to put up with textual terminals nowadays, so
YK>a 3270 emulator on a PC is by far the more popular way to access the
YK>mainframes nowadays. And you can actually do other things with your PC
YK>while you're not using it to access the mainframe.
YK>But anyways, I digress; this subject was really about those dedicated
YK>Internet boxes that so many companies think will replace a PC. I
YK>personally don't feel anyone would be very enthusiastic about having to
YK>pay license fees every month just to use their programs and to store
YK>their data and where their activity can be monitored. That's several
YK>steps backwards in time to the days of the mainframe. Sorry Sun, sorry
YK>Oracle, try again... you got a really dumb idea there.
YK>>    I see Netware's problem as being _just_ a fileserver.  Sure you can
YK>>use NLM's, but Netware isn't quite the robust OS for app's.  Any NLM can
YK>>bring the server to a grinding halt, that and rising importance of the
YK>>Net and tcp/ip ($5000- per Netware server I believe) puts it at a
YK>>*severe* disadvantage.
YK>
YK>That price keeps coming down obviously. I do believe that Novell was
YK>seriously into the process of replacing its IPX network protocol suite
YK>with the TCP/IP protocol suite back when it owned the Unix business.
YK>Even though it is no longer in the Unix business, I believe it is still
YK>progressing towards TCP/IP, and it may eventually just run Netware off
YK>of TCP/IP by default. It still has its foot in the Unix business,
YK>because it has an agreement from the new owners (SCO and HP) to
YK>integrate Novell's NDS domain name services onto Unix within a specified
YK>period of time.

Write your reply.

assistant: Yousuf on 02/12/96 said to Neeti,
    Right!  And you're going to teach the receptionist how to use a SQL query
tool :).  The front end still needs to be stable, and I can't call MS-Win
stations stable.  Graphical solutions are still a joke, as far as business
sense is concerned.  Tell a small company you have a solution for their
sales/order/invoicing/inventory requirements, $10k+ for a "graphical
solution"
and a <$4k solution... guess which one they'll take.  BTW, this actually
happened w/ someone I know.
    Not likely.  NT requires much more hardware than most Unices, and is less
efficient.  The cost of NT server is about the same as SCO, and you can't
even
*compare* w/ Linux or FreeBSD.
    Point Of Sale.
    I run into people all the time who complain not being able to
computerized
a certain part of their work because of the *supposed* cost.  They don't even
realize that simple text terminals will work just fine for their purposes.
    Depends... most (l)users do a lousy job of administrating their own
machines.  Same guys also take a hyper-fit when they see the pricetag for
Word
or Excel, and then there are the upgrades etc.  If you price a $500- box w/
the
right features, and make the connection charges reasonable, then you have
quite
a competitive system.  *if* of course is the big word, but I'd software
companies backing this method, especially w/ the current piracy problems.
    But at what price?  Netware's legacy is that it's not suited as an
application OS.  Unix is so much more flexible in the kind of jobs it can
handle, that it's not even a comparison.  When Novell bought USL &
Unixware, it was going to merge Unixware and Netware 4 and you'd end up w/
Netware on Unixware... back to it's Unix roots.
    Kin Lau (gabe@io.org)