Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!smsc.sony.com!dce
From: dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MINIX
Message-ID: <1989Dec28.021439.11461@smsc.sony.com>
Date: 28 Dec 89 02:14:39 GMT
References: <987@crash.cts.com> <1706@cbnewsk.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: dce@Sony.COM (David Elliott)
Organization: Sony Microsystems Corp.
Lines: 31

In article <1706@cbnewsk.ATT.COM> rob@cbnewsk.ATT.COM (rob) writes:
>needs fancy, bound docs anyway. Give me something that works even partially,
>with looseleaf docs (handwritten if necessary; who cares? :-) ) so I can get
>going with it NOW!!! How many sales will P-H lose by waiting until the
>distribution gets 'pretty-fied'?

While I understand your desire to get your hands on the product, you
may be going too far.

The question you have to ask is: Who are they going to lose
sales to?  There's not a lot of competition in this area, so when
MINIX for the Mac does come out, people are going to buy it.  After
all, anyone who isn't switching to A/UX now for whatever reason
isn't going to all of a sudden decide to pay $800 for it if they
can wait a year for MINIX.

On the other hand, a bad release of MINIX could lose them lots of sales
and give them a bad name.  I've seen many a product slagged off just
because the first release was buggy.  I've also seen many products that
took extra time to produce do very well, even with terribly long
vaporware periods (ask a musician about OpCode's Vision).

Personally, I believe that the one year quoted is a conservative
estimate.  As the word gets out, people will begin pushing for an
earlier release.  I suspect we'll see the first version in the
late summer.
-- 
David Elliott
dce@smsc.sony.com | ...!{uunet,mips}!sonyusa!dce
(408)944-4073
"But Pee Wee... I don't wanna be the baby!"