werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (10/16/88)
In article <wXJwLsy00Uka8226gj@andrew.cmu.edu>, bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) writes: > jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) writes: > > of his promise 3 years ago was he would deliver a great workstation for > > $5000 *retail*. first, what's this talk about a *PROMISE* ?! it was a goal (at best) or hype (probably closer to the truth), and I still remember (and probably have it videotaped) when PBS was running an expose on Jobs and NeXT's beginnings in its series on Excellence. They filmed Steve at a retreat with the founding crew at NeXT, outlining his hopes/goals/plans for the new machine. Steve wrote on a white glassboard the figure $3,000 as the target RETAIL-price. (you could have caught a 2-second clip of this on USA-Today on Wed.) Considering, that he wanted to come out with 3M-machine within 2 years, it was so plainly absurd, it wasn't worth taking it serious. But rather than making a big deal out this, let's be glad that there is still someone out there that dedicates his life to make "another insanely great computer at the lowest price possible"; if Steve Jobs wasn't doing it, who else is there? so what if it has turned out that it can't be done as cheaply as hoped for; we should be glad that guys like Steve & Steve didn't get lured into the world of making gadgets for the military! ....... and that Jobs risked a not inconsiderable part of his wealth to "push the envelope of computing further out." > I don't think you're correct. NeXT's stated market was, from the > beginning, the university market (only). Supposedly they've later > indicated thoughts about expanding their target. Whereas many people were surprised how many Macintoshes could be sold on campus at ~2 grand+, it would really be foolish to bet the farm to sell enough ~7-grand computers there... so if NeXT can't develop an alternative market right from the start it is difficult to see where the capital shall come from to cover the red ink of doing business - no Apple-][ to pay the bills here !! fortunately, whereas you couldn't have sold a 128/512k Mac without a hard-disk or letter-quality printer to a businessman or professional, the NeXT machine has enough power to be useful to most anyone. so, given that they were smart enough not to try for another incompatible operating system, the NeXT-machine has a good chance to survive (a few years, at least) IFF the company can get into the black before it runs out of money ... I wish them well. -- --------------------> PREFERED-RETURN-ADDRESS-FOLLOWS <--------------------- (ARPA) werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet: 128.83.144.1) (INTERNET) werner%rascal.ics.utexas.edu@cs.utexas.edu (UUCP) ..!utastro!werner or ..!uunet!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!werner
jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) (10/17/88)
In article <3254@utastro.UUCP> werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes: >In article <wXJwLsy00Uka8226gj@andrew.cmu.edu>, bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) writes: >> jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) writes: >> > of his promise 3 years ago was he would deliver a great workstation for >> > $5000 *retail*. > first, what's this talk about a *PROMISE* ?! it was a goal > (at best) or hype (probably closer to the truth), and I still The word promise means many things, including a person standing up and saying I 'will' ... To be called a promise does NOT mean the person has to stand up and say 'I promise...'. Enough about a word. I always thought it was media hype, and I feel I was proven right by the way the media freely compared a $6500 University price machine to several $10-20K *retail* priced machines. -- uucp: {decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim Jim Budler internet: jim@eda.com EDA Systems, Inc.
tbetz@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Betz) (10/18/88)
Quoth werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) in <3254@utastro.UUCP>: |In article <wXJwLsy00Uka8226gj@andrew.cmu.edu>, bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) writes: | | fortunately, whereas you couldn't have sold a 128/512k Mac without | a hard-disk or letter-quality printer to a businessman or professional, | the NeXT machine has enough power to be useful to most anyone. | so, given that they were smart enough not to try for another | incompatible operating system, the NeXT-machine has a good chance | to survive (a few years, at least) IFF the company can get into | the black before it runs out of money ... I wish them well. | Uh, Mach is a >very< compatible operating system, to judge by the comments I've heard from those who use it. Any Unix source pretty much compiles on Mach unchanged. Could be the very key to NeXT's success... even without all the bells and whistles, almost everything out there that runs on Unix will directly port to Mach. -- MY CURRENT FAVORITE ADVERTISING LINES: |Tom Betz EAA#48267 "Look what they done to old Duke! |ZCNY, Yonkers, NY 10701-2509 Next year I'm plantin' corn." |UUCP: tbetz@dasys1.UUCP or "It's not >that< crazy! Rosemary..." | ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tbetz
tbetz@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Betz) (10/18/88)
Quoth tbetz@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Betz) in <7003@dasys1.UUCP>: |Quoth werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) in <3254@utastro.UUCP>: ||In article <wXJwLsy00Uka8226gj@andrew.cmu.edu>, bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) writes: Miles Bader didn't write anything in my previous posting. I failed to delete the attribution to him. Sorry!! -- MY CURRENT FAVORITE ADVERTISING LINES: |Tom Betz EAA#48267 "Look what they done to old Duke! |ZCNY, Yonkers, NY 10701-2509 Next year I'm plantin' corn." |UUCP: tbetz@dasys1.UUCP or "It's not >that< crazy! Rosemary..." | ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tbetz