Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!ispd-newsserver!ism.isc.com!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Subject: Re: Summary: What's wrong with SCO
Message-ID: <1991Apr18.191317.22136@ico.isc.com>
Summary: sheesh...even the vendors don't fight THIS way!
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
References: <1991Apr14.022153.2099@emisle.uucp> <1991Apr16.183342.10185@compu.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1991 19:13:17 GMT

fred@compu.com (Fred Rump) writes:
> dvb@emisle.uucp (David Van Beveren) writes:

> >However, my original impression that SCO is completely hopeless has been
> >changed. 
>         To what? The respondents plainly tell you that SCO has a better 
>         product. Did you wish to listen or was your query mere 
>         propaganda?

In essence, he asked whether he was in for major hassles with SCO.  The
answer was no; it works.  He didn't poll all the {AT&T;ISC;ESIX;Dell;...}
users for a general evaluation; there's no sense trying to read one into
the responses he got to a restricted question, posed to a particular subset
of the group.

>         ...With roughly 80% of the 
>         world-wide market one would have to be pretty dumb to want to 
>         swim upstream and claim the minority view is better. Or is it 
>         that everyone else is wrong?

1.  Aren't invented statistics handy when you want to prove a point?  The
80% figure for SCO includes Xenix (and MOSTLY Xenix, in fact) - which is a
separate product (discussed in a separate newsgroup) and irrelevant to this
discussion.  I don't have current figures, but the last I heard, from last
winter, ISC's 386 UNIX was outselling SCO's UNIX.  So now what?

2.  By your reasoning, McDonald's makes the world's best hamburger--one
would have to be pretty dumb to want to swim upstream and claim that some
minority burger-maker could do better, right?  Similarly, Geraldo Rivera
is the world's best investigative journalist; New Kids on the Block are
the world's best musicians;...

(No offense intended to SCO!  I'm just trying to make the point that
"most popular" != "best".)

Look, the products from the various vendors have various advantages--
nobody is an absolute stellar runaway or they'd have all the sales; nobody
is abysmal or they'd be out of the business.  Moreover, you can do a lot
better at figuring out which product is better for *your* needs if you
leave the vendor-flaming out of the discussion.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...While you were reading this, Motif grew by another kilobyte.