Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!ncsuvx!hgm From: hgm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Hal G. Meeks) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re:Next and the competition Message-ID: <2405@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> Date: 18 Dec 88 18:13:48 GMT Reply-To: hgm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Hal G. Meeks) Organization: NCSU Computing Center Lines: 80 Article 1061 in comp.sys.next: From: T8M-KAUP@FINTUVM.BITNET (Asko Kauppi) Yesterday, after having read the articles in this newsgroup, I began speculating the situation of the various companies. Will they survive the next round? Here are some of my thoughts. Please comment them, 'cos I *love* a nice discussion (/argue). >1) The Macintosh family > I still cannot help being impressed by the quality of the Mac II colour >screens. It seems that the Apple is doing everything two years in advance >to its competitors: the mouse, windowing, 3"1/2 disks, the HyperCard... Apple currently has a minor dilemna on their hands; the Plus and SE may run the same software as the II, but they must be sorely tempted to extend the capabilities of the native OS to take advantage of the Mac II's color, higher speed, etc. As it stands now, the most signifigant thing Apple has done in the last 2 years is allow Hypercard to be bundled with every Mac sold. A point to ponder is Apple's initial resistance to giving Hypercard away. Is this a trend? >2) The OS/2, IBM and the clones >I have serious doubts about the OS/2. Not that it's that bad an idea >initially, but when will it be ready? I know there's the 1.0 shipping already, >but so what. Exactly. Things do not bode well for OS/2. 3) The Amiga line >The Amiga is "the first home computer with a dedicated, up-to-date operating >system as its standard OS." (I don't recall who said that, but I agree.) Pete da Silva said it. I agree too. >There were the gurus, but that's mostly over and out. And, the Macs and the ST >have their "bombs" as well. So there should be no arguing that the system >wouldn't work. It does. >I just have the feeling that the company doesn't *really* care for this >particular line of products. Perhaps the 1.3 OS will change that feel. >I sure welcome the FastFileSystem. Okay, so I have a bias, since I own an Amiga 2000. Commodore seems to be doing many things right at the moment, in contrast to their earlier stupidity. Support is definitely there; 1.3 can be considered a mature version of 1.2, with extensions that make the OS much more reliable and a pleasure to use. However, the schizophrenic nature of Workbench/CLI needs to be amended. Workbench needs to be beefed up. These things are coming, but probably not until late next year. And I still have to wonder if Commodore can really play hardball with the big boys. At the moment, however, it is the home computer of choice for me. Still an amazing machine. And with the Mac Emulator coming in Febuary, the Amiga will be the only micro capable of running 4 different (and popular) operating systems (6 if you cheat and include OS/2 and CPM ;-) ) 4) The UNIX systems: Sun, Apollo etc. >As the Amiga line is shifting upwards to the higher end of the PC users, >the UNIX seems to be coming "down" from the workstation cathegory to the >PC one. >5) The NeXT (finally...) >Reading the Byte article about the NeXT machine gave me the same butterflies >that the first Amiga notation couple of years ago did. Me want one| I am going to reserve my opinion on the NeXT box for at least a year; so much is up in the air at this point. I suspect it will not be a major player in the mini/micro market, but it will be extremely influential in raising expectations of users as to what a computer ought to be able to do. Just as the Amiga seems to be doing, in a smaller way possibly. 6) The Black Horse (I'm not finished yet..) >Then there's the possibility that something totally unpredictable happens. Like memory chip prices going up drastically. Or market saturation occuring. -- ------------------ "I am living in a condo hgm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu with Henry Thoreau" netoprhm@ncsuvm.ncsu.bitnet Reagan Years, Part II