Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!olivea!mintaka!ogicse!usenet!prism!mcgredo From: mcgredo@prism.cs.orst.edu (Don McGregor) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Low End NeXTs (was Re: Desktop publishing) Message-ID: <1991Apr03.164610.13611@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> Date: 3 Apr 91 16:46:10 GMT References: <4753@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> <1991Apr1.200929.17719@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> Sender: @lynx.CS.ORST.EDU Organization: YoyoDyne Propulsion Systems Lines: 24 Nntp-Posting-Host: prism.cs.orst.edu In article scott@texnext.gac.edu (Scott Hess) writes: >That out of the way, consider the prices of 4M simms. Falling so fast, >by about August I'd expect 16M of RAM to be around $500. A 16M '030 >system is all most people would ever need. Put it in a slab, and alot >of people would be fairly happy with that system - you'd sell about a >billion of them into schools as client machines, if you can get the >price down in the $2500 range (.edu discount). > I think they'd be better off sticking with the '040 and riding the price curve down. If they used an '030 they'd also need to put an FPU on it; buying the chips seperately might wind up costing more than buying '040s. Not to mention the need to design a new motherboard, keep two production lines open, bigger parts inventory, etc. It's not impossible to get the edu price down to $2500 with the current system. In a year or so they should be in a position to cut the price, perhaps coupling the price cut with unbundling some of the software-- WriteNow comes to mind. WordPerfect can't be all that happy about having competition that comes free with the computer. Did anybody else notice that the docs are in RTF instead of WriteNow format? Don McGregor |"You can fall for chains of silver/You can fall for mcgredo@prism.cs.orst.edu| chains of gold/You can fall for pretty strangers/ | And the promises they hold..."