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From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT Press Release
Message-ID: <4991@lectroid.sw.stratus.com>
Date: 9 Apr 91 17:55:41 GMT
References: <11278@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: usenet@lectroid.sw.stratus.com
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
Lines: 35

In article <11278@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> #admiral@m-5.Sun.COM (Michael Limprecht  
SUN Microsystems Mt. View Ca.) writes:
> In article <?#3Ga72i1@cs.psu.edu>, melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger)  
writes:
> > On Professional Workstation Shipments:
> > 
> > 	SUN	11,000
> > 	NeXT	 8,000
> > 	HP	 3,000
> > 	DEC	 1,000
> > 	IBM	 1,000
> > 
> What marketeze!  At least if your going to make up a market segment
> you could at least think of one where your the leader.
>
What nonsense. In only a couple of years, NeXT has gone from a bit player to
the 2nd biggest workstation seller in its major market -- only a bit behind
Sun which has been aiming at this market for years and years.

Also, what do you mean by "make up a market segment."  Don't you think the
professional business market is a valid market segment, clearly differentiated
from R&D, computational, etc. markets?  This is exactly the market next is
aiming at. Yep, Sun outsells them by a long shot in those markets where
most users a professional computer types (you know, those who respond to
complaints about how bad the Unix command syntax is with "If you don't
like the shell, write your own). NeXT, on the other hand, is rapidly
catching up with Sun in those markets where ease of use matters.

(My one quibble with the figures is the IBM figure. I think the NeXT figures 
only include Unix boxes, not the many IBM 386 and 486 machines running OS/2 or
DOS.)

 
Jim Mann                                      jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com 
Stratus Computer