🚀 go-pugleaf

Just got back from Interop in S.F.

NeXT was not officially there, but was found in 3 booths, and NeXTworld
had both Dan Ruby and Dan Lavin attending some of the show (I peeked
in the email list, and also heard they attended the Pencom Hospitality suite.

Overall, it appears that NeXT will seriously have to look at it's high end  
networking in the coming year.  A lot of discussion about FDDI (and it's copper  
brethren CDDI) will be in the <$500 per desktop connection by 1994.

I attended a couple of X.400 X.435, X.500 things, and other than the effort be  
put into these protocols, I am not impressed that any "just works" solutions  
exist.  One of the standards members stated that 1996 will be the watershed
year for X.500!

MIME is not overly impressive, at least compared to NeXTmail in presentation.   
Like a lot of standards, MIME will hamper "neat" UIs, as a lot of  
works-in-progress seemed to think that MIME attachments cannot and should not  
reflect any sort of integration (attachments 'fall' out of the document, in no  
real order of interrelationships to the other attachments).

NT was there, Alpha was there, (although, I did not look for NT on an Alpha).

NS486 was not there.

Where NeXT was found:

Hayes Booth.

	NeXT was pushing their ISDN linkages with the Hayes people.
	They had two NeXT's talking IP across a 1B+D line.  

	Tidbit of the day.  NeXT knows their AppleTalk solution is weak.
	Look for them to do something about it real soon.  They are supposedly
	going to send me the "upgrade" via floppy.

Auspex.
	NeXT and Xedoc covered this booth, showing how NetInfo worked with
	an Auspex server.  Had a good time listening in on an impromptu
	presentation to a potential petroleum-producing customer.  Saw a lot 
	of new way to present NeXT to resistent management.

White Pine Software:
	Showing off Exodus.  I did not stop by this booth, but a colleague
	who is running CubX on a mono Turbo said the presentation and the 
	presenter were a bit sluggish and it did not show off the NeXT
	very well.
Finally,

Had a long discussion in front of a SunSelect marketing droid when I overheard  
him reading a washing list of "Why NeXT is bad for commercial deployment..." to  
a undecided development manager.  Seems the Sun person was selling DOE as "just  
around the corner..." I picked up on that theme and said "yeah, it's down two  
aisles and over one in the Auspex booth.  Comes in a black box.  Every thing  
this guy is talking about is being shown off there."  We then went off on a
strategic advantage vs. competitive advantage debate, and how Sun fit neither  
of those categories. 

-geoff

--
"The only thing obsoleted by Windows 3.1 is poking myself in the
eye with a pointed stick." - Gene Lee
---------------------------------------------------------------
Geoffrey Brunkhorst, RCF                    brunkhorst@Mayo.edu
Guggenheim 10                                    (507) 284-1805
Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN, 55905 USA     fax (507) 284-5231