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From: plouff@levers.dec.com (Wes Plouff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Connectivity -- Amiga's Missing Link
Message-ID: <8905191505.AA06770@decwrl.dec.com>
Date: 19 May 89 18:00:00 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 74

Recent postings in this newsgroup on the next Macintosh Finder release,
OS/2, Amiga's market position, E-mail and a couple of others can be tied
together by a common thread.  This week I attended the Engineering
Workstation Conference in Boston, and came away with a new perspective
on personal computers (including Amiga) -- the high end models are
becoming more workstation-like. 

At a seminar on economic justification(!) for workstations, one
presenter showed a slide of historic trends in bottom-of-the-line
workstations.  The cost curve has flattened out at around $10,000 for a
reasonable working system with hard disk.  Performance has been taking
off, though.  For that $10K you can buy 4-15 MIPS, up dramatically from
even a year or two ago. 

Later on, the panel wandered off into defining what an acceptable
workstation was.  Their criteria (paraphrased) were: 

	- multitasking
	- good computing performance
	- good graphics performance
	- good network connectivity

Since these people all had hardware from several vendors, they also 
preferred the ability to port applications to new hardware rapidly.

[Raising asbestos shield...]

Looking at the new operating systems offered by Microsoft/IBM and Apple,
you can see, IMO, that they are trying to meet these criteria and expand
the workstation market downward in price.  Or perhaps also expand the
price range of their product lines upward.  OS/2, especially with
Presentation Manager, is trying to address the first and fourth points 
along with the portability question.  Apple is playing catch-up on
multitasking, and feeling the effects of design decisions made years
ago.  The personals that cost a fraction of $10K are trying to offer
some fraction of $10K workstation features and performance. 

Technical goodness of these implementations is another question.  I 
agree with much recent criticism of those Other Operating Systems, but 
want to focus here on goals and purpose.

If "mainline" personal computers are evolving toward being reduced-
capability workstations, where does this leave Amiga?  Amy does pretty
well at computing performance and multitasking.  Its graphics are,
unquestionably, excellent in its price range.  Porting UNIX applications
even turns out to be not so hard.  But the family has no supported
networking.  Sure, you can buy Ameristar Ethernet products, and someone
else's Appletalk stuff, or use some of the excellent public domain
networking software packages, but Commodore networking products and
system software are nonexistent. 

Sales to big business, education, and within the next couple of years, 
IMO, even small companies will depend on the ability of Amiga to execute 
the most common network services: electronic mail, file transfer, and 
remote disk access.  All the individual owners reading this conference 
will surely find creative ways to use this stuff, too.

I suggest that for Amiga to keep growing, in two years' time some 
networking support must be standard on all Amigas.  At worst, the 
typical hard drive-equipped owner should be able to install something 
off his Extras disk, plug in his Commodore or 3rd party network card, 
run a setup program and go.  Otherwise, well.... say, this is a great 
game machine!

BTW, those who think I don't appreciate Amiga's current networking 
capabilities should study my signature.

-- 
Wes Plouff, Digital Equipment Corp, Littleton, Mass.
plouff%levers.dec@decwrl.dec.com
- or -   {harvard,ulowell}!m2c!jjmhome!beeline!plouff

Networking bibliography:  _Islands in the Net_, by Bruce Sterling
			  _The Matrix_, Digital Press, forthcoming