Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!portnoy From: portnoy@athena.mit.edu (Stephen L. Peters) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NeXT Positioning Problem Message-ID: <1990Nov12.183511.6733@athena.mit.edu> Date: 12 Nov 90 18:35:11 GMT References: <56039@brunix.UUCP> <1990Nov12.163730.18300@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background) Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 33 In article <1990Nov12.163730.18300@watdragon.waterloo.edu> vehaag@crocus.uwaterloo.ca (Viktor Haag) writes: >... I am not sure >that NeXT needs to get itself involved in TV adverts - if you stop and think, >there are really only two companies that do it: Apple and IBM. Sun doesn't >Apollo doesn't, Silicon Graphics dosen't, Amiga (gasp) doesn't. All of these >companies seem to be surviving. Yes, but Amiga put out a campaign when it was just starting that NeXT hasn't done even to generate initial interest in the machine. Don't Sun and the others mentioned advertise in magazines for businesses? Where is NeXT advertising? I barely see them *anywhere*!!! All the information that I've received resulted from an initial foray into the campus computer store and picking up the NeXT brochure, and my following it up by actively looking for more info!!! >I feel that the NeXT is going to be bought by the informed user, who knows >what he wants, and what he is going to get by buying a slab or a cube, and not >bought by a user who buys it 'cause it looked cute on TV. NeXT is not a machine >for everyone, its a machine for everyone who knows what a good machine is. Yes, but there has to be some way for a buyer to become informed. If a person walks into a Businessland or other store, and says he wants good graphics, some nice sound capabilities, but has NEVER HEARD of NeXT, how likely is he going to want to be steered towards a system he has heard of, like a high-end Mac or PC? Before people get informed, they need to get the information. Advertising campaigns are made so that people can hear what the machine can do for such-and-such a cost, and then can gear their information-gathering towards their interests. Someone who doesn't know what the NeXT is, and thinks it's a 10 grand machine that won't do what he wants, won't spend too much time disproving his own theories. Stephen Peters