Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!cmcl2!phri!roy
From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Dubious marketing practices
Message-ID: <2607@phri.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Mar-87 22:46:19 EST
Article-I.D.: phri.2607
Posted: Mon Mar  9 22:46:19 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Mar-87 20:25:30 EST
Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)
Lines: 39


	The latest issue of Hardcopy showed up today (along with the June
1986 Computing Surveys :-)) on my desk.  There was a press release from DEC
about their "new" VAX-9878 (I hope I got that number right) which delivers
50 MIPS for just under $5 million, and is supposed to compete against the
big IBM machines in commercial data processing applications.

	I gather the new machine is really "just" a VaxCluster of 8 8700's,
2 HSC-50's, 4 TA-78's, 16 RA-82's, and a uVax-II for a console.  Does it
offend anyone else that DEC (just to name an example; they all do it) takes
a collection of off-the-shelf parts, sticks a model number on it and touts
it as some new push-back-the-edges-of-technology machine?  Granted this is
a pretty hefty amount of computing power, but it's nothing more than
plugging some standard parts together.  Actually, the only interesting part
of the ad was the bit about how the system includes a resident engineer.
Does he come in the box marked "open me first"?

	I find myself reading with semi-horrid fascination about how the
Wall Street types go ga-ga over every new DEC announcement.  I made up my
mind long ago that DEC hasn't really announced anything exciting in years.
I think the last interesting product DEC had was the J-11 chip, yet every
new machine they announce, no matter how boring from a technical point of
view, gets gobbled up by the business types.

	Am I jaded?  Am I being naive?  Am I just turned off by big
companies and prefer to stick my neck out with relative startups like Sun?
I was having a conversation a few weeks ago with a man whose opinion I
respect greatly when he said something which really took me by surprise.  I
was singing the praises of sexy things like Suns, Sequents, Iris's, Lisp
Machines, etc, and making disparaging remarks about Vaxen, when he said
that the next machine he buys will be another Vax because if you make the
wrong decision and buy something new, you'll get screwed but nobody will
ever get fired by making the wrong decision and buying a Vax.  Comments?
-- 
Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016

"you can't spell deoxyribonucleic without unix!"