bruce%Central@sun.com (Bruce Samuelson) (02/03/89)
In reference to the recent Sun announcement in 7.123, let's consider the
hypothetical case of a university department deciding between package 1 (a
3/50 --> 3/60 8MB upgrade) and package 2 (purchasing an 8MB NeXT and
keeping the used 4MB 3/50).
Assumptions:
1) Cost of a bottom end NeXT: $6500 price to university computer store
$1300 20% markup (purely hypothetical)
$7800 total cost to university department
2) Cost of UG3/60-8F upgrade: $6650 retail price
(3/50 cpu --> 3/60 cpu $1995 30% univ. discount (purely hypothetical;
with 8 MB) based on our last purchase from Sun
in 1987; may be out of date)
$4655 total cost to university department
3) For simplicity, assume none of the machines has a winchester disk.
(The NeXT prices are $2000 for 330MB or $4000 for $660MB.)
4) Assume the specs below are accurate. I got them from a MacWEEK
magazine and from Sun and NeXT brochures. Especially uncertain ones have
question marks.
Package 1 Package 2a Package 2b
3/60 upgrade Buy new NeXT and keep used 3/50
cpu 20MHz 68020 25MHz 68030 15 MHz 68020
floating point 20MHz 68881? 25MHz 68882 15? MHz 68881 (opt)
digital signal processor none 25MHz 56001 none
memory 8MB 8MB 4MB
bus VME 25MHz? Nubus VME
expansion slots 0 4 (3 available) 0
dma channels ? 12 ?
ethernet port yes yes yes
SCSI port yes yes yes
RS 423 serial ports 2? 0 2
(19.2K baud)
LocalTalk serial ports 0 2 0
(230K? baud)
microphone input port 0 1 0
sound output ports 0 2 0
mono display size 19" 17" 19"
resolution 1152 x 900 1120 x 832 1152 x 900
greyscale bits 1 2 1
removable optical none 256MB none
disk (r/w)
Unix SunOS Mach 0.8 SunOS
NFS yes yes yes
Other software bundled with NeXT: NextStep object-oriented development
environment using Stepstone Objective C, Mathematica, Allegro Common Lisp,
Sybase SQL database server, Webster's dictionary, Webster's thesaurus,
email with voice and image support, Jot (personal dbms), WriteNow (word
processor), Digital Librarian (a text indexing tool), and miscellaneous
other s/w.
Cost $4655? $7800? none
Comments: Sun has a clear advantage over NeXT in the maturity of their OS,
availability of 3rd party s/w and h/w, and probably in their support of
standards (NeXT apparently will try to set some new ones). However, for
those of you who don't mind rhetorical questions, let me pose one: If you
were a university customer whose h/w and s/w needs could be met by either
a NeXT purchase or a Sun upgrade, which package would you choose?trudel@caip.rutgers.edu (Jonathan D. Trudel) (02/09/89)
>Comments: Sun has a clear advantage over NeXT ... >However, for >those of you who don't mind rhetorical questions, let me pose one: If you >were a university customer whose h/w and s/w needs could be met by either >a NeXT purchase or a Sun upgrade, which package would you choose? Well, since all of our suns have dimples (too cute to upgrade? :-) we can only consider getting a NeXT and upgrading the memory of our 3/50's. I think that a lot of people are holding off on making any sort of decision like the one you suggest because so much is going to happen this year as far as Sun and NeXT are concerned. To make a decision now would be without value for this reason. However, I and a lot of other people will probably take exception with the method of your comparison assumptions. You don't use comparable systems - the NeXT has its optical drive (with a SCSI crontroller ?), and the 3/50 you chose does not include the price of a disk subsystem. You should include these when doing your comparison. >Assumptions: >1) Cost of a bottom end NeXT: $6500 price to university computer store > $1300 20% markup (purely hypothetical) > $7800 total cost to university department Purely Hypothetical? Is that in order to skew the results? I don't see valid reason to add this amount. 3/60 upgrade NeXT >Cost $4655? $7800? If you subtract the price of the optical drive (I'll guess $1000), and subtract the $1300 price markup, the Next's price for a system similar to a bare-bones 3/60 is more like $5500, not $7800 as you suggest. I'm still unconvinced one way or the other, though...
wyle@uunet.uu.net (Mitchell Wyle) (02/16/89)
utacfd!utafll!bruce%Central@sun.com (Bruce Samuelson) writes: >In reference to the recent Sun announcement in 7.123, let's consider the >hypothetical case of a university department deciding between package 1 (a >3/50 --> 3/60 8MB upgrade) and package 2 (purchasing an 8MB NeXT and >keeping the used 4MB 3/50). [Some clever tables, stats, feature comparisons deleted] My personal speculation is that Sun and NeXt will be duking it out in the delivery time arena. If you order a NeXt now (we can't cuz we're friggin foreigners), you will wait a long time to see your box. Sun quotes us 90 - 120 day delivery times, and lives up to their word. By the time NeXt ships in quantity, Sun will have lots of h/w and s/w products *SHIPPING* which will narrow the gap in price / performance which NeXt now (admittedly) has. Pay close attention to Bill Joy's talk at the Miami SUG (Sun Users Group) meeting. You should have considered DEC's new MIPS box in your comparison, Bruce. Good article, though; food for thought. >Other software bundled with NeXT: NextStep object-oriented development >environment using Stepstone Objective C, Mathematica, Allegro Common Lisp, >Sybase SQL database server, Webster's dictionary, Webster's thesaurus, >email with voice and image support, Jot (personal dbms), WriteNow (word >processor), Digital Librarian (a text indexing tool), and miscellaneous >other s/w. When is Open-Look going to ship? Which bundled software will come with it? Mathematica runs on our suns now. So does Lisp and Oracle. We paid for 'em, though because NeXt is too late again (NeXt month ;-). >Comments: Sun has a clear advantage over NeXT in the maturity of their OS, >availability of 3rd party s/w and h/w, and probably in their support of >standards (NeXT apparently will try to set some new ones). However, for >those of you who don't mind rhetorical questions, let me pose one: If you >were a university customer whose h/w and s/w needs could be met by either >a NeXT purchase or a Sun upgrade, which package would you choose? I'd order a couple of NeXts, more suns and see which sales-droid lies worse about delivery times. Steve Jobs' last company is raping its customers for upgrades, compatibility and software support. If you've never seen a screen with "Sorry, a system bomb occured," you've never seen an Apple Macintosh. Segmentation fault (core dumped). More ramblings from... -- -Mitchell F. Wyle wyle@ethz.uucp Institut fuer Informationsysteme wyle@inf.ethz.ch ETH Zentrum / 8092 Zurich, Switzerland +41 1 256 5237