Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!rogerj
From: rogerj@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Jagoda)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT at Comdex???
Message-ID: <9360@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 89 00:16:33 GMT
References: <18383@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Reply-To: rogerj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Jagoda)
Followup-To: FQOJ@CORNELLA.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 44

In article <18383@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 2FHGKINGLY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>Was NeXT at COMDEX?
>
>Anyone from NeXT care to comment?

Well, I can't comment on COMDEX, but I was REAL surprised
that NeXT blew of UNEXPO. I mean Informix was there to show
WINGZ on their NeXTs, a few other vendors with NeXT products
there too, but no LEADER. Funny, NeXT's major competition was
there and saw no problem with showing their wears. SUN, DEC, 
Apple...especially SUN..these guys had their act in gear.
 
A lot of people were surprised. Some SUN folks theorized it this way:
Steve doesn't want the "market" to think of the cube as being just
a "unix" box BUT he also doesn't want to miss too much of that
market either because many of the initial users will come from that
croud. Makes sense I suppose. But, from talking to the ISVs there, I
think the NeXT world has a BIG problem. Most of these guys (people
like WordPerfect, Fox, Lotus) are waiting for the OSF/Open Look
outcome. Then they'll develope under that environment because it's
under X which is JUST a bit more universal than NeXTStep. One guy
from WP said "Look, SUN sells more SPARCs in a month than NeXT
will sell this quarter. Well, he may be right. From what I could
gather, poeple who ARE looking at the NeXT aren't putting their
"Main-line" development efforts into it because of the low installed
base. SPARCs sell so that installed base is where the porting effort
goes first. If the ports work under a standard like X/Open Look then so
much the better because of the installed base. Yes, you can lisence
NeXTStep but only IBM chose to do so. Even SUN abandoned (many say for
the worse) their proprietary windowing system, NeWS, good though it was,
for something that was X11 compliant. I know Steve said "X is brain-
damaged," and he may be right, but the ISVs will make or break this
platform and right now, they're paying attention to more main-stream
unix platforms. I hope someone who works for NeXT will take this message
to Steve....they missed the chance to hear it from the source 'cause
they don't think shows like UNEXPO are worth making an appearance at 
(nor COMDEX also apparantly). 
 
Just MHO folks.
 
Roger Jagoda
Cornell University
FQOJ@CORNELLA.CIT.CORNELL.EDU