🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <dillon.0qoo@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>    Third-party software for Windows has the advantage of getting written
>    up and reviewed by half a dozen magazines making shrink wrapped
>    software an easy pick for customers.
>
>    Third-party software for the NeXT has no such luck.  The most you hear
>    is an occasional review on the net and the advertising blurb in NeXT's
>    catalog.  The majority of consumers, especially those targetted for
>    NS486, do not have access to either medium.
>
>    With no handy reviews to work from consumers are completely in the dark
>    when it comes to buying NeXT software, and many people are not about to
>    spend $500 just to see if the software does what they want.  The only
>    counterweight to all of this is the demo system that many NeXT software
>    vendors are using... that is, making demo versions of their software
>    freely available, sort of like the shareware approach, but this to
>    depends on the net which is not accessible to the majority of
>    consumers.
>
>    Without the exposure of magazine reviews and write-ups about the only
>    thing the NeXT has going for it in a consumer market, at the moment, is
>    the bundled software that comes with the machine itself.

Totally untrue!  Every NeXT Starting Point Kit comes with a recent
issue of NeXTWorld magazine and a NeXTConnection catalog.

NeXTWorld reviews quite a bit of software, and there is quite a bit of
advertising for third party products.  Every single NeXT computer
comes with this.  That's what I call exposure!  Macintosh not only
comes from Apple with absolutely ZERO bundled software, it doesn't
come with any software catalogues or magazines.

People are not "completely in the dark when it comes to buying NeXT
software", and yes, you can return software that you don't want.  You
can get Evals or demos.  You don't have to be on the net.  Most NeXT
owners are large companies now, and to them $500 is not a big layout
for software (which they can take back).

>    It's all well
>    and nice to have dealers running ten thousand dollars worth of third
>    party software on their NeXT's, but a consumer isn't about to spend ten
>    thousand dollars above and beyond the $5K+ he's spending on the
>    machine.  The modularity of the NeXT is admirable but it also causes
>    fragmentation in the third party market... to 'complete' your machine
>    you have to buy a dozen 'fragments' each costing a bundle of money.

What planet are you from?  Name ONE.  Just ONE computer which sells as
many or more machines than NeXT does each year for which the above is
not true.  You don't think you have to lay out cash to get usuable
software for Macintosh, Windows, HP or Sun or DEC or IBM or SGi
workstations, or Amiga's, or Atari's, or anything because no software
comes free with the machine??

Yes you can get shareware, but it doesn't come with the computer, and
shareware just doesn't jive well with big companies for some reason
(remember who the majority of NeXT owners are now...).


sigh, enough for tonight.
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