🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct30.195337.25456@cs.yale.edu> nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct29.083938.1398@cubetech.com> andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew  
>Loewenstern) writes:
>> In article <dillon.0q9s@overload.Berkeley.CA.US>  
>dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>> >    At the moment we have the situation where while NeXT's GUI runs circles
>> >    around everyone else's, the lack of primo bundled software turns people
>> >    away from investing it.  Things like Edit and Draw! are cute and all
>> >    that but provide almost no capability, and that's what users see.
>> 
>> Bullshit!  NeXTSTEP now ships with _LESS_ bundled software than it did
>> originally, and NeXT is selling more copies/machines than ever before!
>> 
>> NeXTSTEP ships with way more bundled software than ether OS/2,
>> Macintosh, or Windows, and they are all outselling NeXTSTEP by a very
>> large margin.
>> 
>> People care about *shrinkwrap* software, and bundled software prevents
>> the development of shrinkwrap software.
>
>A ha, so you'll support the unbundling of the development apps (IB,
>cc, etc) to encourage the development of shrinkwrap equivalents?
>
>What is the difference?


You really got me good here, Nathan, but I thought long and hard about
this one.  I think I have a pretty good answer though...

What is a NeXT computer without it's development environment?  (yes, I
would say that the AppKit is considered part of the environment along
with IB as even _without_ IB, you still have a pretty darn good
development environment).  A fancy Macintosh?  Not fancy enough to get
people to buy them or write software for them.  NeXT couldn't sell
many of them until they started to focus on the development
environment as it's main selling point (remember "The Best Computer
For Publishing Ever Made If You Like FrameMaker and Only Use Our
Printer"??  of course this may come true, but several years after the
initial attept).

If you unbundle the development environment for 3-rd parties to do it,
here's what happens:

1. Nobody buys the computer because there is no reason to except maybe
that it comes in cool black cases.

2. No 3-rd parties write development tools since either nobody owns
the computer or nobody who owns it is interested in development tools.


If NeXT throws away the entire development environment, what do they
have to sell?  Nothing.


People have been buying NeXT computers first and foremost to do
development.

Those people are also interested in doing other things besides
development and running of mission critical apps, so third parties
write software to fill those needs.  But the most important thing here
is that the customers already have the machine, thus creating the
demand for shrinkwrap software.  Creating the shrinkwrap software
before people start buying the machines works too as the computers
then become useful, but few software companies will take that
initiative as it's way too risky.

Right now, if NeXT unbundles the development environment, they have
little to sell.  This will of course change in the future, but NeXT
has to sell machines now.

OK, so you're saying "Well NeXT could have written a really good
spreadsheet, word-processor, and whatever and sold the computer that
way too instead of going for the development environment, right?"  If
NeXT spent a whole lot of money and time developing a really good
spreadsheet and a really good word-processor and whatever and tried to
sell the machines without a development environment as a really good
business computer, it wouldn't work.  How much better a spreadsheet or
word-processor do you think NeXT could design than MS-Word or
MS-Excel?  Probably not enough to get a lot of people to switch from
Macintosh or Windows.  How much better a development environment is
NeXTSTEP than X or Macintosh, or Windows with any combination of third
porty development tools?  A lot when you look at the whole picture
(yeah, NeXT really needs a bitchin' case tool like CASEVision on the
SGi's and a full blown obj-c interpreter built into IB).

This will get NeXT in the front door.  People will own the machines,
and then the software companies will fill the demand.  NeXT isn't
going to convert people with only a good word-processor or whatever.
10 years ago, maybe, but not now.

But, the change is starting to happen.  People have been buying the
machines to do development, and companies are writing all kinds of
shrink-wrap software for the computer.  And guess what?  People are
starting to buy the machines for things other than development.  Now
people have always bought NeXT computers for stuff other than
development, but in very small numbers.  There's no way that NeXT
alone could develop all the different kinds of softwares that are
beginning to appear:  Page layout, contact management, image
processing, document management, drawing tools, etc.....



andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "Carpe Nocturn - I get more work done after
Andrew Loewenstern      |  2 a.m. than most people do all day."
Cube Technologies, Inc. |                          - Simson Garfinkle