Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: OS cost component of workstation
Summary: yes, but what are the chances
Message-ID: <1990Nov6.054403.10563@ico.isc.com>
Date: 6 Nov 90 05:44:03 GMT
References: <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM> <3686@skye.ed.ac.uk> <3699@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
Lines: 27

richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) writes:
  rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
> >Fine.  Now show me how many people will buy a machine assuming they can get
> >the OS free "with luck" and "in a year"!...[snide remarks deleted]...
...
> Fine.  Now show me where I suggested anyone should.  

That's the first, and lesser, part of my point, simply that few people will
buy based on speculated availability of software.  The more important part
is that there's little chance of a cheap/free UNIX within a year or so...

> I merely pointed it out because when it happens, which might or might
> not be within a year, it's likely to make quite a difference to the 
> workstation market.  In particular, I think it will extend that market
> downwards to cheap 386 machines.

My quarrel is with the idea that there's any significant likelihood of it
happening.  Sure, if it *did* happen in a year, it would make waves.  But
there's no chance of it.  And if it takes two years, the workstation market
coming down from above (the RISC folks) will already be there.  They're
already close enough in price for packaged systems (workstation + OS) to
start lopping off the top of the 386/486 PC + UNIX market.  In other words,
by the time it happened, it wouldn't be extending the market "downwards"
but only "sideways".
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...but Meatball doesn't work that way!