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From: freedman@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Dan Freedman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Flames against Ami
Message-ID: <1198@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP>
Date: 22 Apr 89 18:17:28 GMT
References: <330@quintro.UUCP> <187@santa_fe.UUCP>
Sender: news@calgary.UUCP
Reply-To: freedman@ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca.UUCP (Dan Freedman)
Organization: Knowledge Science Lab, U. of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
Lines: 34


Corporate loyalty from both the Sun side and the Hpollo sides of the
fence has been invoked in this newsgroup recently.  Lets face it, both
Sun's and Apollo's workstations are really neat pieces of technology.
Sun definately has the edge on marketing, and Apollo has the edge on
technology.  (Yes, Sun has recently announced some really nifty new
workstations, but we all know that the computer business is a leapfrog
game - each vendor leapfrogs over the other vendor's latest
technology).

BUT, REGARDLESS OF WHICH IS MORE ADVANCED OR WHICH SELLS BETTER, I
don't think there will be too much disagreement with the statement
that ALL workstations currently available are an extremely long way
from being perfect machines.  The o/s's are full of bugs.  The
software is slow, and the system's overhead is high.  The
compatibility between systems is pretty poor.  Everybody's customer
service is lousy (can anyone truly say that they are happy with the
technical support that they get from their vendor?  If so, did you get
good technical support from the beginning, or did you have to really
fight for it?).

Lets hope that Hpollo really *can* give Sun a run for its money.  If
it can't, the losers will be us, the customers, because the incentive
to improve the systems will be reduced.  After all, why spend many
dollars on development if the equipment is already selling well, and
if there is no competition waiting to take over with better systems.
Let's hope that with a few big players all competing for the
workstation market, we will see better systems *and* better marketing
and support from all vendors.

Dan Freedman
University of Calgary Computer Science Department
2500 University Drive N.W.			      freedman@cpsc.UCalgary.CA
Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4	                   ...!alberta!calgary!freedman