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From: dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Next intro: any effect on Mac _high-end_ prices?
Message-ID: <1990Oct6.172357.18366@smsc.sony.com>
Date: 6 Oct 90 17:23:57 GMT
References: <4737@crash.cts.com> <2867@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM>
Organization: Sony Microsystems Corp, San Jose, CA
Lines: 54

In article <2867@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM> ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger) writes:
>
>	Where is it that Apple and NeXT are in any serious 
>	competition with each other? (In ego perhaps) but
>	Joe Average is not going to run out and buy a Unix
>	box. If you think they are, Why can't you buy a Sun
>	or other Unix box at the local computer store? (outside Xenix)

Could it have anything to do with price?  Because of various design
decisions, Unix machines require more memory and disk space than
Macs and PCs running MS-DOS, and do better in systems that can
support virtual memory.  Two years ago, memory was selling for
$250 per meg (not listing, *selling*), hard disks were physically
large for less space and cost twice as much as now, and VM micros
were just starting to drop in price.

It has only been recently that the lower-priced Suns and other Unix
machines were in the same price range as the higher-priced Macs and
PCs.

>	I think that its somewhat obvious that Unix is not for the
>	masses no matter what front end you stick on it. Software
>	for Unix platforms is usually incredibly spendy as well.

Unix software is spendy because the market hasn't been there.  How
much do you think Apple pays Informix to develop Mac products?
I may be wrong, but I suspect that it's less than nothing (given
the cost of the Apple Developer program and tools).  How much
do you think that a Unix workstation vendor pays for the same
product?  I suspect that $50,000 plus a guarantee of 5000 units
sold in a year is considered a great bargain.

With standards like X and POSIX, as well as processor ABIs, this
situation can change for software developers, but it will take
some time before vendor egos allow these standards to really take
hold.

Another major factor is software in the freeware/shareware area.
I have tons of Mac software, almost all of it binaries, that I
got from convenient sources, and I believe that MS-DOS users have
an order of magnitude more.  With X catching on, this will get
better in the Unix world, but it will not be the same, since Unix
people generally require sources.

For now, Unix will remain a higher-priced personal system option.
As system prices fall, standards become more prevalent, and more
software becomes available, people will be able to take advantage
of Unix.  All it takes is a critical mass of users.

One big advantage that NeXT and all the other Unix vendors will
have in the future is that the next generation of processors
(you know, the 100-200 VAX MIPS processors we keep hearing about)
will be pretty easy to port to.  I don't think we'll be seeing
100MIPS Macs that run the same binaries as the Plus.