🚀 go-pugleaf

Steven D. Borrelli writes
> So far my estimates are as follows:
> Sales (1991) $127 million
> Units shipped in 1991 (estimate)   32,000-56,000.

I calculate that the units was a bit lower ...

$127,000,000 divided by 32,000 machines give approximately $4000 per machine.

$127,000,000 divided by 56,000 machines give approximately $2250 per machine.

Now we all know that a NeXT computer costs more than $4000 except for the  
smallest machine for registered developers. However there were upgrades of  
68030 boards to 68040 boards and NeXTdimension upgrades, both costing less than  
$4000 a pop. (But an ND purchase probably includes a monitor purchase - so  
theprice goes over $5000). It is possible 32,000 'units' was right for 1991 if  
a 'unit' was any item with a processor on it (new computer, 68040 upgrade, ND).

Revenue of $127,000,000 probably includes course fees, support fees, media  
sales, SIMM upgrades, printers, paper trays, and such non-computer stuff.

I would *guess* that NeXT was in the 25-30,000 range based on the above  
arithmetic. Probably the real number was a bit lower.

Remember that SGI is in the 10-15,000 range, IBM in the 20-30,000 range, HP and  
DEC in the 50-75,000 range, and Sun in the 150-200,000 range ... 25,000 for  
NeXT would be respectable in the desktop Unix market. And remember that  
trade-ins replacements and significant upgrades are usually counted by  
manfacturers as units shipped, as are any units that go into a channel without  
making it to an end-user.

Unless you compare to Macs (1,000,000 a year?) or PCs (15,000,000 a year?) :)

Mark R. Thomsen

P.S. Anyone ready to flame me for predicting that NeXT would catch Sun in sales  
in another year? :) :) :)

I asked Mike Slade at NeXTworld about the 40000-60000 estimate and he said
that were not bad estimates. If both are not bad around 50000 would be the
case. But I suppose 40000 is better.

That means that the machines would have been sold for around 120M/40000 is
$3000 a piece. Since large parts of sales were either education or large
accounts I think that these figures are not very far off.

I am of course totally wrong and history will vindicate me ... ;-)
-- 
wierda@ltb.bso.nl (Gerben Wierda) || I speak for myself and not for my employer.
(+31) 2154 84415/(+31) 35 833539  || Support the League for Programming Freedom!
	"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."
	Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland".

In article <29E9FA96.56C5@deneva.sdd.trw.com> thomsen@spf.trw.com (Mark Thomsen) writes:
>Steven D. Borrelli writes
>> So far my estimates are as follows:
>> Sales (1991) $127 million
>> Units shipped in 1991 (estimate)   32,000-56,000.
>
>I calculate that the units was a bit lower ...
>
>$127,000,000 divided by 32,000 machines give approximately $4000 per machine.
>
>$127,000,000 divided by 56,000 machines give approximately $2250 per machine.
>
>Now we all know that a NeXT computer costs more than $4000 except for the  

But what you are missing is that NeXT sells machines through resellers
that mark them up.  NeXT sells to VAR snd universities cheap.  Only the
the regular retail market pays $5000 but only a protion of that goes to
next.  I believe that they sold 45-50K machines.

*** stuff deleted ***
>
>P.S. Anyone ready to flame me for predicting that NeXT would catch Sun in sales  
>in another year? :) :) :)

I won't flame you. I think in the next couple of years NeXT will be
giving Sun a serious competition for sales.

Sun thinks so also.  Why would a 3 billion dollar company be worried
about a 200 million dollar company if they didn't see dark clouds
in the future.

Sun is nervous and should be.
--
/*  -The opinions expressed are my own, not my employers.    */
/*      For I can only express my own opinions.              */
/*                                                           */
/*   Kent L. Shephard  : email - kls30@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com   */