Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!pur-ee!j.cc.purdue.edu!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!asd
From: asd@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT concerns
Message-ID: <1038@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 28 Jan 89 00:21:40 GMT
References: <4474@umd5.umd.edu> <32681@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <400@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: asd@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth)
Organization: Purdue University
Lines: 46

In article <400@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu.UUCP (Steve Dorner) writes:
>The following are University prices.  The Sun prices are from the latest
>Sun price list (let me remind you, this is AFTER discount).  For the
>sake of argument, let's suppose the optical drive is too slow for use
>as a disk in a typical workstation environment.
I'd definitely would want to boot off a device 5-6 times slower than a hard
drive.

>NeXT	0	od	8M	17"	25MHz	68030	68882	$6500
								^^^^^

>NeXT	330M	od	8M	17"	25MHz	68030	68882	$8500
								^^^^^

Don't forget to tack on the "hidden" charges like support.  A NeXT rep at a
show here said whoever sold it would have to add on 2-3% or so for the money
they had to dish out to be able to sell the machines (training, etc).  Not
that an extra 2-3% is all that much.  Was any of those Sun prices with color
monitors?  Those color monitors aren't cheap.

>Now, I'm not saying the NeXT machine doesn't have some gotchas, at the
>moment.  But they are mostly bugs due to the current beta release of
>the software.  And Sun's software STILL has bugs and gotchas, as anyone
>who does networking on a large scale will be happy to tell you.
And NeXT's software won't in the near future?  When your dealing with the
amount of code that goes into OS's, bugs are a fact of life.

>To say that the NeXT box is not going to compete with Suns for the
>workstation market is a little strange.  I'm not sure what you mean by
>"orientation"; the NeXT machine does everything Suns do.  The fact that
>it does even more doesn't make it LESS suitable for engineering work,
>does it?
True, but remember ONLY at school!  I wonder what will happen when some
student graduates with his cube and no longer has support for it.  But then
again, how many kids have $10+ grand to shell out for a machine they can
effectively use.  (cube, 330 hard, printer).

>I don't think it's going to kill Suns.  But I think Sun is going to have
>to significantly reduce its prices once the NeXT box is in quantity production.
>And that will be good even for those of you who are offended by good
>user interfaces and bundled software :-) :-) :-).
No doubt!  Now if only regular folks could buy it, and not just folks in
school, and usually only the staff.  It could be a big hit if anybody who
could buy a Mac SE (loaded) or a II(slightly less loaded), could buy a NeXT.

kareth.