Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!think!mit-eddie!zrm
From: zrm@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Zigurd R. Mednieks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac II (really SE: A letdown?)
Message-ID: <5167@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 17-Mar-87 14:25:21 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.5167
Posted: Tue Mar 17 14:25:21 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Mar-87 00:42:12 EST
References: <422@yabbie.rmit.oz> <425@yabbie.rmit.oz>
Reply-To: zrm@eddie.MIT.EDU (Zigurd R. Mednieks)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 50

>background AFTER you've hit CR.  "SYS V with BSD enhancements" usually
>means things like "vi" and "csh" but not jobs control, which I find of
>greater utility than something like getopt().

Job control, the Berkeley file system, sockets, etc. are among the
substantive differences bewtween Sun's Unix and any System V with BSD
enhancements type of Unix. Sun, interestingly, has managed to have its
cake, in the form of Berkeley Unix performance, networking, job
control and user interface features, and eat it too, claiming
conformance to the System V and ANSI standards.

That is one set of reasons why Suns are so often recommended. Another
is that Sun has a very evident commitment to keeping itself at the
very front of the ALL the Unix standards fads. Witness their current
balancing act between News and X-Windows. Whoever has been guiding
Sun's strategy so deftly should win the Nobel prize for marketing. No
engineer ever got fired fot asking for a Sun.

Compare Sun's comittment not only to Unix but to setting standards
(and rolling with the punches on those occations where AT&T actually
sets a standard) with the level of comittment shown by Apple. Apple
farmed out the Unix port for the Macintosh II. How is a small porting
house going to keep in stride with Sun's software engineering
department? What if Apple's other strategic interests make Macintosh
II Unix an evolutionary dead end? As interesting as the Unix to Mac
Toolbox interface might be, that interface will never be a standard
like X or News.

Apple will be facing these issues, as have all of Sun's competitors. I
don't think Apple faces disaster, but I do think they will be
unpleasantly suprised by just how entrenched Sun has become in the
Unix market. Perhaps Apple will relearn something Steve Jobs probably
believed: Being market-driven is not always the best way to approach a
market.

Not only will they have tough sledding against Sun, they may make
mistakes in "evangelizing" to engineering software vendors. Apple may
split that software field between those companies that choose to go
with the new but limited (possible better to say specialized)
multi-tasking features of the Mac OS and those that choose the easy
way out and port their product to yet another Unix system. When Apple
brought out the Macintosh, there was no easy way out, and Apple was
rewarded with the highest quality software in the industry. Now, with
the possibility to simply modify one's standard Unix product and sell
it on the Mac II, it may be too tempting to take this path of least
resistance.

In short, don't short Sun just yet.

-Zigurd
zrm@mit-eddie