Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!tilley From: tilley@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Richard Tilley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Steven P. Jobs reality distortion field? Message-ID: <1991Apr23.074156.20494@ccu.umanitoba.ca> Date: 23 Apr 91 07:41:56 GMT References: <1991Apr21.060729.21077@rick.cs.ubc.ca> <1991Apr22.163450.1@sif.claremont.edu> Distribution: comp.sys.next Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada Lines: 30 In <1991Apr22.163450.1@sif.claremont.edu> greg@sif.claremont.edu (Tigger) writes: >I hate to tell you, but not all of us in academia are convinced. Technically, >the machine looks real good, but recently the company seems to be as hard to >deal with as Sun (which is the _worst_ I've ever experienced). Let me give >you a couple of examples. [example deleted] >Your main point was that NeXT needs to work on its marketing. I think they >need to work on their customer/account relations. [stuff deleted] >If they don't shape up their customer relations, I wouldn't be too surprised >if we dropped the NeXT resale agreement. And if they treat everyone else >like they treat us... NeXT is up to their ears in orders right now. The increase in sales since the 040's started shipping in volume must be huge. They will get hungrier once that backlog is gone. However there are small changes in customer relations that wouldn't cost them anything. For example, we have a resale agreement but our bookstore doesn't handle NeXT's. Fine. One can order direct. But NeXT only gives educational discounts if a purchace order is used. There are only 5 machines in Winnipeg that I know of. They need some enthusiastic early adapters that will promote the machine. Hard to find amongst ancient faculty with fat grants. [pardon the stereotype. It's an average] They wouldn't discount an upgrade for the campus support person's [me] B-Land firesale cube. No students can buy slabs. Reason given is that they need a PO to show that it is for educational use. Whats wrong with a student number? Still. I am hopeful they will get friendlier when they get less busy. ... Richard