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From: rgc@wam.umd.edu (Ross Garrett Cutler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Why the big price jump?
Message-ID: <1990Sep21.034515.29804@wam.umd.edu>
Date: 21 Sep 90 03:45:15 GMT
Sender: usenet@wam.umd.edu (USENET Posting)
Reply-To: rgc@wam.umd.edu (Ross Garrett Cutler)
Organization: University of Maryland at College Park
Lines: 27

Hello,
I'm a student who has followed NeXT very closely.  Their first computer
was far too expensive for the average student (6K for an unusable, diskless
station); when I heard rumors that they were going to try again for the
student/educational market, I was again excited and eagerly awaited its
debut.  What I see is a step in the right direction, but Jobs has clearly
not intended to sell this for personal student use.  Here's what I mean...
   The educational price at UM is quite nice for a base NeXTstation: $3220,
a price I can swallow.  But that only comes with a 105 MB HD, with only
a limited selection of software installed (e.g. C++ or none of the developer's
stuff is there -- what good is that for a CS major?).  True, you can get
Mathematica on a 105, but to really do much, you need their 340 MB HD.
And the price is...$4887!!!  Over $1600 dollars for an extra 235 MB???
Come on...is the drive that much more expensive?  I saw a 300 MB SCSI
Micropolis for under $1600, so what's the deal?
   It could that NeXT is really discounting their low end computer (the
105 MB version), hoping to make more for the larger systems.  But I thought
it was Jobs' original goal to market toward a computer usable and
afordable by students.  Once again, it's too expensive for the average
student (unless you don't intend to use NeXTStep, C++, ... -- all the
stuff that makes the NeXT interesting to me).
   Any input would be most appretiated...
--
Please email -- I'll summarize.
Ross Cutler
University of Maryland, College Park
Internet: rgc@wam.umd.edu