Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!agate!garnet.berkeley.edu!knrgroup From: knrgroup@garnet.berkeley.edu (Raymond group) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: Not another NeXT defector???!!! Message-ID: <1990Nov5.200703.5387@agate.berkeley.edu> Date: 5 Nov 90 20:07:03 GMT References: <1990Nov4.201838.26983@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <500@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> <1990Nov5.191518.1095@agate.berkeley.edu> Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 98 sado@quads.uchicago.edu (robert anthony sadowski) writes: >7,000 + 15,000 + how many have since been sold since then is still not a >significant market share. How many PC's are sold each year? The NeXT is NOT a low or mid-range PC. It is a workstation that competes against machines like the Mac SE/30, Mac II, Sun, Apollo, et al. At the rate of 15,000 sales every two months, the NeXT is head-to-head with Sun, which is a huge success by all accounts. Geez, by your argument, the Mac IIfx is a complete failure because it doesn't sell in the same numbers as a Mac Plus or a PC AT! >>I write: >>Secondly, the statement that "NeXT doesn't make it easy for you to develop >>for that platform" seems incredibly uninformed. The NeXT is the easiest >>and most powerful development platform around, period. >robert anthony sadowski responds: >I knew someone was going to single this statement out. I didn't think I >would have to qualify it with the statement that Eubanks is most probably >referring to NeXT's developer support, not the wonderful and powerful >interface builder. NeXT developer support is excellent. I speak from firsthand experience. Now that you qualify Eubanks' remark, I think what he was saying between the lines was that NeXT did not bend over backwards for Symantec. I can understand why. Many of Symantec's utilities and some of their other products would be irrelevant on a NeXT. The NeXT has these features built in. >>I write: >>Programmers who've used both NeXT and Mac development tools (MacApps, >>Prototyper, Think C) are almost unanimous in their strong preference >>for the NeXT. >robert anthony sadowski responds: >Prove it. Figures please. You haven't been following this news group too closely. There was a thread recently which included discussion of the merits of the NeXT vs. Mac for software development. You will also find many ex-Mac programmers in the NeXT news group, all of whom are now singing the praises of the NeXT for programming. I have not heard one comment here or in the NeXT news group from someone who has programmed on BOTH preferring the Mac. All the comments I've seen have favored the NeXT. Of course, there have been comments from Mac programmers who've not programmed on the NeXT who've said that the Mac is great development platform. If this is true, the NeXT is an insanely great development platform. >>I write: >>And they end up with nicer user interfaces to boot (because of NeXT's >>Interface Builder). >sadowski responds: >Opinion. This point could be debated in this forum for hours. No need for debate. The distinction between NeXT interfaces and Mac interfaces is as clear to me as the difference between Mac interfaces and Windows interfaces. I own a Mac and use a NeXT. sadowski writes: > I'll take words from Symantec, the leading developer of utilities for > Mac...and Microsoft...over that of Lotus, Ashton-Tate, and WP ... Gosh, you'd also take IBM's word that the Mac is an inferior machine. You'd take Ford's word that the Chevy is an inferior car. That is what you are doing when you take MicroSoft's and Symantec's word that the NeXT is not a great software platform. MicroSoft and Symantec have everything to gain from seeing the NeXT fail. They have products that compete with the NeXT, NeXTStep, and Interface Builder. You know why Lotus, Ashton-Tate, and WordPerfect all produced dogs on the Mac? They tried to pack too much into their software produts for the Mac. The Mac did not have the hardware to run their feature-laden products at acceptable speeds, and the Mac did not have the programming environment to allow them to get their products in under deadline. The NeXT, on the other hand, gives these companies speed and the development environment to make killer products for the machine. sadowski writes: >I said the guy [Steve Jobs] was great and everything. I agree wholeheartedly >with what you say. My point still is that the business world is dominated >by men in blue suits. Actually, your original point was that Steve Jobs was not an innovator. Even Sculley would disagree with that. At any rate, do not hold up the books written about Apple/Jobs as objective assessments of things as they are. Most of the books were written by men in blue suits or their ghost writers. If you read between the lines, Sculley comes off looking worse than Jobs in Sculley's own book. (Sculley tries to explain some of the damaging facts against him and fails miserably in my opinion. Sculley, for instance, married the stepdaughter of the CEO of Pepsi, then divorced her in the same year that the CEO divorced his wife. Sculley worked on marketing research for Coke, without telling his employers that he was the stepson of the Pepsi CEO. Sculley cried crocodile tears when he fired Jobs--one of the most phony scenes in the book.) The business world is dominated by men in blue suits. However, if there is any justice, these men will hire computer people to make their computer- purchase decisions for them.