Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!rice!brazos.rice.edu!schafer From: schafer@brazos.rice.edu (Richard A. Schafer) Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: Risc System/6000 Message-ID: <5139@brazos.Rice.edu> Date: 20 Feb 90 17:14:10 GMT References: <10307@hoptoad.uucp> <4115@ibmpa.UUCP> <5098@brazos.Rice.edu> Sender: root@rice.edu Reply-To: schafer@brazos.rice.edu (Richard A. Schafer) Organization: Rice University Lines: 64 Reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, I saw the IBM ad (3 full pages) for the new systems, and finally found the fine print that describes what you get for the oft-quoted $12,995 price. PowerStation 320 with 8MB of RAM 120MB disk 19" grayscale display and graphics adapter keyboard mouse Ethernet adapter AIX "user interface environment" (I don't think this means X-windows, but don't know what it *does* refer to.) NFS (it's part of AIX, I think) hypertext document search & retrieval capability. (I think this means the software support for hypertext; it clearly does not refer to the CD-ROM player. While there may be questions about how much use a 120MB disk systems is standalone, as a workstation connected to a server, this sounds like it could be quite interesting. While I wasn't able to come up with this price in any configuration I did yesterday, I have no doubt that the price is real. There have been lots of comments about whether IBM is serious or not in this market. Can anyone post the commercial prices of an equivalently-powered workstation for comparison? My October 1, 1989 SUN pricelist quotes SparcStation 1 (4/60M1-8-P3) 104MB SCSI internal disk 1.44 diskette drive 19" Mono monitor 8MB RAM $11,495 SunOS Current Standard Release (no manuals) (SS2-13) $ 450 SparcStation 1 Full System Documentation Set (SS-09) $ 450 ------- $12,395 (I presume this includes a keyboard and mouse, even though the price book doesn't mention it. Although we have lots of Sun's, I don't usually do the configurations myself.) Given the performance numbers quoted by IBM of the PowerStation 320 versus a SparcStation 1, the fact that the above price has a *smaller* disk than the one claimed to be totally useless by Dan Ehrlich, and that the IBM price for AIX includes software support services (if I read the Sun price list right, an equivalent level of software support to IBM's would cost you $95/month = $1140/year, almost the price of AIX every year), plus a longer warranty on the IBM equipment (1 year versus 90 days on Sun's), my calculations seem to suggest that the (much?)-less-powerful SparcStation 1 actually costs a little bit *more* then the equivalently configured PowerStation 320. That's the only prices I have available. Anyone else care to provide DEC, etc., equivalents? Richard