rb@cci632.UUCP (Rex Ballard) (07/29/86)
In article <915@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: >Henry was noodging DEC for only selling packaged systems while MIPS >would sell chips, boards, or systems. It is unfortunate that DEC only sells it's systems under it's own name, their folly, I guess. >This is an utterly reasonable idea. Consider how much pain would have >been saved had Motorola sold Suns rather than their odd, slow Versados >systems. >How many people ever want to see an Intel Development System again? Unfortunately, consider how little support Motorola would have recieved had competitors been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements. >[Of course you need to create the tools needed for cross-development, >but OEM hardware and software, as a base to build development systems >on, seems to follow the leading edge a lot closer than chip-mfrs' >hardware and software.] The main difference between a "chip maker" and a "system maker" is that the "chip maker" is out to sell "chips". To do this they need to provide enough support to make implement systems around their chips as non-restrictive as possible. >I'm curious why MIPS hasn't made this rumor public knowledge. Perhaps >Plexus is not selling the system through its own sales offices yet? Probably because they don't want to end up with Plexus as their only customer.