Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!amanda@intercon.uu.net From: amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) Newsgroups: comp.unix.aux Subject: Re: Fun with Dick and Jane Message-ID: <1325@intercon.UUCP> Date: 1 Aug 89 15:35:06 GMT References: <10936@polya.stanford.edu> <14726@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> <1280@hydra.gatech.edu> <282@afsg.apple.com> Sender: news@intercon.UUCP Reply-To: amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation Lines: 45 Hmm, the temperature seems to be rising in here :-). I think everyone has some valid points, but we all have aggressively different points of view. Historically, Apple has not been prepared to bring a product like A/UX to market, and I am still a little skeptical of their ability to do so. Now, I think that there are a lot of people within Apple that are doing their darnedest to improve this situation. People like Ron Flax and the Federal Systems Group, Kirsten Nelson, and so on. Likewise, the engineering team has done some incredible things. I think we can all agree that A/UX 1.1 is a significant improvement over 1.0. There are, however, two major problems that may end up making A/UX a footnote in Apple's history (which I think would be a great shame): - Design goals. Apple does not build "workstations." Period. You can use a Mac II running A/UX as a "workstation," but it will be very annoying to do so. Whether or not Apple "should" make a workstation beside the point, in my opinion. Apple has steadfastly held to the idea that a computer is a strictly *personal* resource, local disks and all, which is both good and bad. It makes it fairly nice to put on a professional's desk. It also makes it a pretty poor academic workstation. Personally, I think that any attempts to convince Apple management to make a traditional workstation are a waste of time. To be blunt, since it doesn't fit into the Apple way of thinking about how computers are used, Apple simply doesn't care about it, however big the market may be (no offense, Ron...). I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, partially because I think that the Age Of The Workstation is drawing to a close, but that is another story... - Politics. I am afraid that internal Apple politics will kill A/UX long before external market pressure. They seem to be off to a depressingly good start at both the engineering and marketing levels. If anyone at Apple has evidence to the contrary, I for one would love to hear it. -- Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation -- amanda@intercon.uu.net | ...!uunet!intercon!amanda