Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!umd5!feldman
From: feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: wrinkled availabilty contour
Message-ID: <4587@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 8 Mar 89 16:13:07 GMT
References: <1308@hub.ucsb.edu>
Reply-To: feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 35

In article <1308@hub.ucsb.edu> silber@sbphy.ucsb.edu writes:
>We have some NeXt's on campus and i have been to a couple of demos;
>i thought that once the machines 'start showing up' up someplace, that
>that implies that the bally-hoo'ed class of 'authorized university 
>affiliates' could buy them.  

Universities that have signed contracts with NeXT can purchase NeXTs.  

>It turns out that at UCSB, the purchasing
>department is the only channel for orders and they will only order them
>for departments, NOT for individuals.   So Jobs' famous exhortation:
>"if they havent' got bread, let them eat cake, if they haven't got
>cake, LET THEM ENROLL" doesn't cover all or even the majority of cvases!!!!!!

Once a university has signed the NeXT contract, NeXTs can be sold to
whomever the university wants to sell them, within the bounds of the
contract.  This includes university faculty, staff, and students.  

Don't be angry with UCSB for not selling NeXTs to individuals yet -- we
don't, either.  It takes time to set up distribution, service, and support
channels within a university.  Combine that with the fact that the NeXTs
currently on the street are version 0.8 -- beta units, missing software and
containing bugs -- it is very understandable why students cannot yet
purchase NeXTs at many (most?) universities that have signed contracts.  

Version 0.9 is due out at the end of this month and 1.0 -- the
shrink-wrapped release version -- a few months later.  You may have to wait
until 1.0 before your university (and others) start selling to students.
The universities are providing the first level of service and suport for the
NeXT.  Trying to support a large number of student-owned 0.8 NeXTs -- which
as well as being incomplete and buggy, require a fair amount of UNIX
knwledge to administer -- requires more people time and money than most
universities can deliver right now.  

	Mark