Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!tank!gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu
From: gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: $1000 68040-NeXT (was Re: NEXT and the 68040?)
Message-ID: <8009@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 12 Mar 90 18:45:52 GMT
Sender: news@tank.uchicago.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
Lines: 28

>In article <1990Mar11.024125.7409@cs.umn.edu> rantapaa@cs.umn.edu (Erik E. Rantapaa) writes:
>>I heard from a reliable source that NeXT is planning to come out with a
>>68040 version of the cube for around a thousand bucks.  Apparently they
>>have got manufacturing costs low enough with their automated factory so
>>that they can stamp them out for a fraction of that price.  I'm not
>>sure what you'll get, but even a bare cube with 1M memory and OD would
>>be very attractive.  Has anyone heard anything about this?


A minimal '030 Next sells for $10,000 now.  Someone suggests that they're going
to sell an '040 Next for 1/10th the price.  And this gets serious discussion?
Think about it:  how much does the chip set for the '040 cost by itself?  How
much does the OD stuff cost?  How much margin does Next need?  Even a Mac SE
costs around $500-600 to manufacture.

Also: if Next has figured out how to produce an '040 machine for <$1K, then
they should be able to make and market their '030 machines for much less than
$10K.


Robert


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= gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to =
=            		         * all my opinions are *  compute"         =
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