🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <bf7H1pbm6@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger)  
writes:

> OS/2 2.0, for example, sold 50,000 copies in the first 8
> days after its introduction, and the market for OS/2 2.0
> specific applications will be 10 times larger than the
> NeXT market within 60 days.  NeXT now has to explain to the
> world why NeXTstep is better than OS/2, which has VM,
> memory protection, multiprocessing, threads,
> 512MB/process, drag and drop capabilities, IPC, ...,
> which can be purchased for $200, and which will run 25,000
> PC programs.  The NeXT Appkit is great but at least 100
> developers will offer CASE, OOP languages, IBs, and
> other tools for Windows and OS/2.  The applications that
> people develop under OS/2 will run on $1000 computers or
> $10K computers that are faster than the NeXT.  I've
> noticed that the words "mission critical" and OS/2 are
> often used together. 

Not only that, but NeXTstep 486 will only run on *select*
(ie the most expensive) 486 machines.

How is NeXT supposed to explain that NeXTstep can only
display mono with that Super VGA card in your 486 that
OS/2 and Windows can use for cheerful color?

> In short, I think appealing to the basic human instinct of
> greed will get NeXT a lot farther.  Very few people will
> spend $5K on a computer, and NeXT doesn't even sell a
> standalone computer $5K.  Those that will don't want to
> spend money on high priced RAM to expand their machines
> and ISO keyboards -- my fingers already hurt like hell
> without dealing with the new keyboards.  "Just stick 16MB
> SIMMs in your machine if you want more than 16MB of
> memory."  I've seen 16MB Cubes with 8MB NDs swap if you
> looked at them the wrong way.  Try to do some real work and
> you might as well take a coffee break. 

Wouldn't it be great if NeXT either added enough RAM/HD to
the 5K/3.5K (list/edu) price, or lowered the price
altogether? Instead of purchasing a $5K NeXTstation,
then adding $450 of RAM (removing 4 MB), then adding a $1K
external HD, wouldn't it be great if 16 MB RAM and 400 MB of
disk was included!? 

> Sorry for that little bit of gloom and doom, but sometimes
> you've got to wonder if NeXT isn't playing it day to day. 
> Maybe I'm overreacting.  Where are those sales figures
> for the Q1? 

You'll be labeled as a heretic in this group for certain! ;-)

> Btw, I hope Glenn Reid doesn't find these marketing comments and
> flames by another college student too boring.

If you're obliquely referring to me, I'm not a student.  I
get *paid* to flame Glenn. ;-)

--
Nathan Janette		"I'm a NeXTstep man,
Dept MB&B, Yale Univ	 I'm a NeXTcube guy"
New Haven, CT
nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu (NeXT)