🚀 go-pugleaf

>I've heard rumors of a 68030 workstation from Apollo priced under $5,000, due
>out some time this year.

>Considering that Apollo supports BSD4.3, System V.3,
>X windows,

>NFS,

well, sort of.

>a sophisticated user interface management system that you can
>use to build mac-like interfaces, network computing (an implementation of
>course-grained parallel computing using workstations on the network as parallel
>processors), and that Apollo supports an AT bus (so that you can add cheap
>peripherals) and bundles in your choice of an Ethernet or token ring board,
>I wonder if Apple will be forced to drop their Mac II prices. Or would people
>be willing to pay a premium just because it's a Macintosh?

I very much doubt it. Two reasons. One, Apollo's don't run Mac software.
A/UX runs a good number of them (I've seen, for instance, Pixel Paint run on
A/UX on Unix files. Wait until you see SFGetFile on a Unix filesystem!).
Second, considering the cost of the 030's, it'd be hard to believe that a
company could come out with an 030 based system that's be cheaper initially
than their 020 based system.

The basic problem with a low end Unix box is that, except for A/UX, they
don't have the caliber of office software available that the mac does. Lots
of people are going to buy Mac's because they can run Unix AND
Excel/Word/PageMaker/etc... it allows them to get rid of one of their
machines. It used to be you had a Unix box for company work, and the Pc/Mac
to do the management stuff. That isn't necessary any more.

Until the low end boxes have mac caliber software, it's going to be VERY
hard for them to go in after Mac environments. The low end unix box is good
for low end unix. It isn't terribly good for spreadsheets, word processing,
etc. The Mac2/AUX is probably more likely to suck out sales from the low end
of the other manufacturers simply because it can run both Unix AND Mac
stuff, not the other way around. I'd LOVE to have sun's at home. I use Mac's
because I can't do what I want to do on Sun's -- write and publish words.
They're great workstations, but vi/emacs/etc don't cut it. So I love my Sun
at work, I love my Macs at home. And I don't expect that to change any time
soon, except maybe I'll get lucky and go to Mac2's and A/UX at home....

chuq (and some folks would happily pay a premium to avoid Apollos....)
Chuq Von Rospach			chuq@sun.COM		Delphi: CHUQ

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