Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!cs.utexas.edu!milano!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Standards/Trailblazer Discussion
Message-ID: <5312@bigtex.uucp>
Date: 3 Aug 88 23:42:17 GMT
References: <7805@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen)
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 57

In article <7805@cup.portal.com>, David@cup.portal.com wrote:
> [...] They are doing it in
> an attempt to seduce this particular influential market sector away
> from a standards-based approach, which is of course to their benefit
> over the long term, and to the general consumer's detriment.

Standards are NOT set by people sitting on international settings with
huge amounts of money and resources from their companies backing their
efforts.  Standards ARE set by large numbers of people buying
compatible hardware.  If everyone buys a TB+ and no one buys V.32, then
V.32 is not a "standard" in any useful definition of the word, and the
TB+ is clearly a standard.  The only thing all those nice people with
their fancy committees do is generate lots of publicity and some
monentum - they have little say in what really happens except as in
they buy and use the equipment they advocate, and that they generate
publicity.

The good thing about committees is that a standard emerges before it
otherwise would.  The bad thing about them is that they generate
standards that are useful for vendors, not ones that are useful for
users.

> [...]
> but don't believe for a moment that Telebit puts being nice to USENET
> sites ahead of making money.

I don't.  Telebit is playing the standards game, just the V.32
committee did, but Telebit is going to play strictly in the marketing
area and skip the fancy committees.  Thus far, Telebit is half the
price and higher performance.

Has anyone seen any market statistics as to how many PEP modems there
are in end-user hands as opposed to V.32, USR HST or Hayes V series?

> Just take a more consumeristic attitude - is the short-term benefit
> worth the long-term problems?  I don't think so.  I say, "The Emperor
> has no clothes!", when it comes to Telebit, that's all.

Feel free to point out any long term problems.  Without a sudden drop
in V.32 prices, that in a mysterious way does not affect TB+ prices, I
can't see how the situation will change.  And even if it does, I don't
expect ANY of my equipment to have more than a 5 year lifetime, nor do
I expect any of it to be current for more than 3 years at best.
Certainly none of your V.32 modems will be current technology in five
years (ISDN perhaps?)...

PS. Yes, I do believe that V.32 will be better than the existing TB+
    in the long term.  However, that's another day, and V.32 is not
    the answer for usenet sites today.  I haven't been bean counting,
    but I suspect that my TB+ has ALREADY paid for itself, rendering
    the issue of throwing it away in the future moot - the TB+ did the
    job when V.32 couldn't.  Two or three years from now V.32 will
    probably be the best thing, but that doesn't help next month's
    phone bill.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james   "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746