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From: beres@cadnetix.COM (Tim Beres)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Next and the competition
Message-ID: <5816@cadnetix.COM>
Date: 19 Dec 88 18:29:51 GMT
References: <2405@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <5725@polya.Stanford.EDU> <17911@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Sender: news@cadnetix.COM
Reply-To: beres@cadnetix.COM (Tim Beres)
Organization: Cadnetix Corp.,  Boulder, CO
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In article <17911@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes:
>
>      The problem NeXT must face is that they've shot their bolt long before
>they can profit from it.  Everyone now knows what the NeXT machine can do...
>[brevity deletion]
>					John Nagle

Scott McNealy addressed this point during his keynote address at SUG.

I'm going to paraphrase some of his comments from memory, please politely
correct me if I get it wrong [my views in brackets]:

    1.  Sun can't get away with announcing a product 9 months before FCS.
	It would kill sales of existing products [admittedly not a prob. for
	NeXT] and reeks of vaporware promises.
    2.  Just wait and see what we (Sun) have in 9 months.  [Extrapolating
	from some of the things I saw:  NeWS (damn caps!) uses the PS
	paradigm, with applications forthcoming that subsume pieces of
	the Interface Builder, etc;  the new bus mentioned by Bill Joy
	and/or SCSI could be used to hook up opticals.]
    3.  NeXT uses a non-standard optical disk format - 
	the "standard" being worked out by Sony, HP, Phillips, et al is
	different than that of Canon/next [that's it, no more caps].
    4.  McNealy did shrug off the DSP & sound capabilities of the next box.
	[But the pre-announcement and industry reaction may cause this capab.
	to be further investigated.]
    5.  He remarked that mach is a non-standard and buggy choice of OS;
	furthermore, he somewhat denigrated CMU, their efforts and abilities
	[Can someone fill in the details, please.  I remember thinking -
	hey, BSD.]
    6.  He slammed them on their lack of standards:  mach, display PS, 
	optical format...
    7.  He said the enclosure was big and ugly.
    8.  Sun doesn't do the bundling of SW that next intends, simply because
        they don't want to lock their customers into the "one database format",
	as McNealy noted of next.
    9.  Sun is pushing down and up on the market.  Towards lower cost
	desktop machines and higher cost/performance servers.  All running
	the same software.  [Bernie LaCroute (sp.) addressed this subject.
	Will the lower cost machines in N months be able to compete with
	next on a price/performance/features basis -me]

I do agree with John.  Next has given us some advancements, but did they
give away the goods too soon?  Also - is their selection of features/standards
helpful or hindersome?

			Tim (I want one now - but in 8 months or so, assuming
			     I'm back in school [what the heck], I may want
			     something else entirely)

------>MY SOAPBOX (I speak not for Cadnetix nor any enjoined entity)
	OK, one more time:  This is a frying pan.....this is an egg....
	   this is an egg in a frying pan....JUST SAY OVER EASY
Tim Beres   beres@cadnetix.com  {uunet,boulder,nbires}!cadnetix!beres