Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!uvaarpa!hudson!biochsn!wrp
From: wrp@biochsn.acc.virginia.edu (William R. Pearson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: A Few Good Rumors...
Message-ID: <250@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>
Date: 16 Feb 88 22:55:53 GMT
References: <1406@csib.csi.UUCP> <1575@uhccux.UUCP>
Sender: news@hudson.acc.virginia.edu
Reply-To: wrp@biochsn.acc.Virginia.EDU (William R. Pearson)
Organization: University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Lines: 27
Keywords: A/UX Unix


	The thing to remember about a MacII, as opposed to a Sun 3/50
or Sun 3/60, is that it is an expandable machine with a bus. (One
should also consider that the cost of a Sun 3/60 with a 144 Mbyte
drive and 8 Meg memory + tape is around $19,000 list, let's not
compare Apple list prices with Sun discounted prices).  If you want
to get a Sun with any kind of expansion capability, you have to buy
a $25,000 (list) machine.  While Apple is going to have to come up
with some way to let people buy A/UX without purchasing an 80 Mbyte
disk (since people are using 300 Mbyte Wren IVs which cost around
$3K), Apple's list prices are NOT out of line with other 68020
offerings, especially for machines with busses.

	The prices are farther out of line compared to an IBM PS/2-80
or a Compaq 386/20 with Xenix/Unix/AIS, but again, not so far out
of line compared to those manufacturer's list prices.  The problem(?)
is that no manufacturer can compete with a $5000 no-name 386 clone with
a 100 Mbyte drive and Xenix/Unix.  But those machines do not offer
a standard graphics interface, the potential to run Mac programs,
or the support of a major manufacturer.

	I wonder how many of the net-readers pay list price for
any of these products?  Comparing Apple list to Sun/IBM/clone discount
is a bit unfair.

Bill Pearson
wrp@virginia.EDU