Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!psuvax1!news From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: An interesting idea... Message-ID: Date: 8 May 91 22:40:12 GMT References: <_g5Gy0x*1@cs.psu.edu> <1991May6.110530.7978@sugar.hackercorp.com> <=0bGppm&1@cs.psu.edu> <1991May8.174950.778@sugar.hackercorp.com> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Organization: Penn State Computer Science Lines: 65 In-Reply-To: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com's message of Wed, 8 May 1991 17:49:50 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: sunws4.sys.cs.psu.edu In article <1991May8.174950.778@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: The NeXT is priced a little under the low end of workstations, and is way overpriced as a PC. And it doesn't have any unique new capability that gives it a niche. A low end workstation is 5K or 10K? That extra 5K will buy me a new car :-). Yes, but there *are* plenty of NeXT programs. And the cheapest one I can find is a $95 appointment calendar. The sort of thing you'd find on a "best of fish disks". Hold on, here's a couple of $20 educational programs. The NeXT freeware/shareware market is just now starting to take off. Consider that the 040 machines have only been available for six months. These machines are exciting more than just a few people. And the high end are over $2000! I imagine there are $2000 PC and Mac programs. That really isn't a problem. I think this pretty much indicates the pricing we're going to see in the future. Typical workstation prices. No way. I'm not going to pay workstation prices. Look again. How much do WP, Improv, Wingz, Diagram, Illustrator, DataPhile, TopDraw, Create, WriteNow(free, trick question) each cost? You see high-end workstation prices for some of the traditionally high-end workstation products like Oracle and Ingres. The NeXT is capable of supporting such packages(quite easily, I might add) because it is a workstation, so these packages will naturally be ported to it. How about a 386SX with a decent sized hard disk and a couple of Meg of RAM. As far as business folks are concerned, that *is* equivalent to the NeXT. But it isn't equivalent and it doesn't even come close. Run Windows 3.0 on a 386SX then show people the NeXT. Run Word for Windows on a 386SX and show them a Mac Classic :-). None of the ones around here do. The NeXT attracts all the computer nerds. Hell, I'd love one myself. Feeling generous? :-> The NeXT attracts all of the computer nerds because they understand that it is a superior machine by looking at the OS, NeXTStep, and the hardware. Everyone else needs to see the software, which has been slow in coming, but it is coming. But business suits? No way. Their employees being more productive using Illustrator, Improv, Word Perfect, etc. on a NeXT rather than a PC or Mac will convince them. Hell, anyone doing DTP will immediately see an advantage to the NeXT just by looking at the NeXT price($5000 Peter) and the computer itself running TopDraw or FrameMaker. Right. So how do they plan on doing that? I haven't seen a killer application that business will pay an extra $3000 a seat for. An extra $3000 a seat? How well do Windows apps really run on 386SX computers? You seem to think that they are sufficient for most business needs. -Mike