h5346866@rick.cs.ubc.ca (bradley don head) (04/21/91)
Well, *sigh* I just read the major Steven Paul Jobs *FLAME* in the
April 29, 1991 issue of Forbes. :-( I must say, this kind of journalism
doesn't do a whole lot for the good of NeXT. Where are the major marketing
promotions that this computer deserves? We've got to convince people
that this is a capable computer. It's fine to boast that the academia
loves the NeXT, but we need to convince the rest (i.e. the majority) that
the NeXT is here.
It seems that the journalism industry loves to knock a newcomer. Yes,
it's tough to crack into the computer industry with a new offering -
but the NeXT an exceptional new offering. It would appear by the article
by Julie Pitta (Forbes) that she equates marketing skills with managing
skills. If that is the case, I must agree. Yes, credit Steven Jobs with
visionary greatness, and perhaps even managerial prowess - but a
marketing wizbot, I think not *double sigh*. Come on Steve, break through
that reality distortion field you *seem* to be caught in and get yourself
some aggressive marketing! Sales will come, I believe that, but not without
aggressive marketing. You've convinced the academia, now convince the rest
of the world. The NeXT is a wonderful workstation, but why is it that only
we on comp.sys.next know this? One word for you Steve...EXPOSURE! How many
comparison reviews of workstations have I read in trade mags/journals where
the NeXT was for some reason left standing in Steven Jobs closet? Come on,
NeXT, get your machines into the hands of the puppeteers of this industry,
so that with their help you may manipulate the marionettes of this world...
--
/__ / / ___/ Brad Head <h5346866@rick.cs.ubc.ca>
/ /____/ /__ University of British Columbia
/ _____ __ / ( ) Vancouver, BC, Canada
__/ / __/ / tagreen@lothario.ucs.indiana.edu (Todd Green) (04/22/91)
In article <1991Apr21.060729.21077@rick.cs.ubc.ca> h5346866@rick.cs.ubc.ca (bradley don head) writes: > Well, *sigh* I just read the major Steven Paul Jobs *FLAME* in the >April 29, 1991 issue of Forbes. :-( I must say, this kind of journalism >doesn't do a whole lot for the good of NeXT. Where are the major marketing Truth hurts sometimes doesn't it. >that this is a capable computer. It's fine to boast that the academia >loves the NeXT, but we need to convince the rest (i.e. the majority) that >the NeXT is here. Well not all in academia "love" the NeXT. There are quite of few people here at IU that are not for it and would rather have DECStations, or SPARCstations. Personally, I love my NeXT, but I would not go so far as to say that it (or he) has won the academic world over. >It seems that the journalism industry loves to knock a newcomer. Yes, >it's tough to crack into the computer industry with a new offering - >but the NeXT an exceptional new offering. It would appear by the article While I agree that the NeXT is a fabulous machine hardware wise, I think it has some major flaws conceptually. 1) X should have been supported by Jobs from day one. 2) Objective-C and NeXTStep as the main developement language and interface. Again, these are not just my personal views (the more I use IB, and OOP, the more I love it, but many around here do not.) >by Julie Pitta (Forbes) that she equates marketing skills with managing >skills. If that is the case, I must agree. Yes, credit Steven Jobs with >visionary greatness, and perhaps even managerial prowess - but a The thing that I found most striking about the article was Ms. Pitta's lack of knowledge of technical information. Namely this line: "Yet the NeXT ... still uses an off-the-shelf Motorola processor rather than a more powerful reduced-instruction-set processor of the sort Sun puts in its workstations." Off-the-shelf? Please, sounds like you can go to Radio-Shack, or a hardware store and pick one of these puppies up. (Please no flames about Radio Shack...it just seems a defacto standard to pick on). In anycase I'd hardly call an '040 chip in the manner. She makes it sound like a chip used to control a microwave, or toy airplane. >marketing wizbot, I think not *double sigh*. Come on Steve, break through >that reality distortion field you *seem* to be caught in and get yourself >some aggressive marketing! Sales will come, I believe that, but not without >aggressive marketing. You've convinced the academia, now convince the rest As the article points out only 15,000 machines have EVER been sold. I'd hardly call that convincing the market (academic or otherwise). If more sales don't start happening fast, I think we'll see the beloved black box go bye-bye. After all it must cost Steve and arm and a leg to keep those bleached oak floors nice and spiffy. >[rest and .sig deleted] Todd -- Internet: tagreen@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu NeXTMail: tagreen@lothario.ucs.indiana.edu BitNet: tagreen@iubacs.bitnet
francisr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Rob Francis) (04/22/91)
In article <1991Apr21.202955.18034@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> tagreen@lothario.ucs.indiana.edu (Todd Green) writes: >In article <1991Apr21.060729.21077@rick.cs.ubc.ca> h5346866@rick.cs.ubc.ca (bradley don head) writes: >The thing that I found most striking about the article was Ms. Pitta's >lack of knowledge of technical information. Namely this line: > > "Yet the NeXT ... still uses an off-the-shelf Motorola processor > rather than a more powerful reduced-instruction-set processor > of the sort Sun puts in its workstations." > >Off-the-shelf? Please, sounds like you can go to Radio-Shack, or a >hardware store and pick one of these puppies up. (Please no flames >about Radio Shack...it just seems a defacto standard to pick on). In >anycase I'd hardly call an '040 chip in the manner. She makes it >sound like a chip used to control a microwave, or toy airplane. ... The line that convinced me I should trust Ms. Pitta's article was: "J.D. Salinger wrote _Catcher_in_the_Rye, but what else has he done?" (-: 9 short Stories? Franny and Zooey? Raise High the RoofBeam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction? This is comp.sys.next.literary.favorites, isn't it? Rob
greg@sif.claremont.edu (Tigger) (04/23/91)
In article <1991Apr21.060729.21077@rick.cs.ubc.ca>, h5346866@rick.cs.ubc.ca (bradley don head) writes: > > It's fine to boast that the academia > loves the NeXT... and > You've convinced the academia, now convince the rest > of the world. I hate to tell you, but not all of us in academia are convinced. Technically, the machine looks real good, but recently the company seems to be as hard to deal with as Sun (which is the _worst_ I've ever experienced). Let me give you a couple of examples. We recently held an Academic Computing Symposium here. NeXT was one of the vendors scheduled for the exibit hall. Everything was properly arranged in advance. NeXT did not show. They didn't even call to say they weren't going to show. The Amigas ended up looking real good sitting next to the empty table marked "NeXT." NeXT also told us that as part of our reseller agreement they would fund a part-time student rep, the same as Apple and IBM. We found the student we wanted and started making our plans while awaiting an interview with a NeXT rep. We eventually were told that they were not going to fund it because we had not yet sold enough NeXT's. Your main point was that NeXT needs to work on its marketing. I think they need to work on their customer/account relations. Given that the Claremont Colleges have a collective total of only about 5000 students, most vendors don't treat us the way they treat a place like UCLA with 40000 students. But we do have one of the top ten ranked private liberal arts colleges in the country, and the number one ranked private engineering college. There is a growing feeling here that NeXT is completely thumbing their noses at us. If they don't shape up their customer relations, I wouldn't be too surprised if we dropped the NeXT resale agreement. And if they treat everyone else like they treat us... Greg Orman greg@pomona.claremont.edu Systems Manager greg@pomona.bitnet Seaver Academic Computing Services Pomona College Standard disclaimer-type stuff
tilley@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Richard Tilley) (04/23/91)
In <1991Apr22.163450.1@sif.claremont.edu> greg@sif.claremont.edu (Tigger) writes: >I hate to tell you, but not all of us in academia are convinced. Technically, >the machine looks real good, but recently the company seems to be as hard to >deal with as Sun (which is the _worst_ I've ever experienced). Let me give >you a couple of examples. [example deleted] >Your main point was that NeXT needs to work on its marketing. I think they >need to work on their customer/account relations. [stuff deleted] >If they don't shape up their customer relations, I wouldn't be too surprised >if we dropped the NeXT resale agreement. And if they treat everyone else >like they treat us... NeXT is up to their ears in orders right now. The increase in sales since the 040's started shipping in volume must be huge. They will get hungrier once that backlog is gone. However there are small changes in customer relations that wouldn't cost them anything. For example, we have a resale agreement but our bookstore doesn't handle NeXT's. Fine. One can order direct. But NeXT only gives educational discounts if a purchace order is used. There are only 5 machines in Winnipeg that I know of. They need some enthusiastic early adapters that will promote the machine. Hard to find amongst ancient faculty with fat grants. [pardon the stereotype. It's an average] They wouldn't discount an upgrade for the campus support person's [me] B-Land firesale cube. No students can buy slabs. Reason given is that they need a PO to show that it is for educational use. Whats wrong with a student number? Still. I am hopeful they will get friendlier when they get less busy. ... Richard <Tilley@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (04/23/91)
In article <1991Apr22.163450.1@sif.claremont.edu> greg@sif.claremont.edu (Tigger) writes: >the machine looks real good, but recently the company seems to be as hard to >deal with as Sun (which is the _worst_ I've ever experienced). I can't argue with you here. :-( > Given that the Claremont >Colleges have a collective total of only about 5000 students, most vendors >don't treat us the way they treat a place like UCLA with 40000 students. > And if they treat everyone else >like they treat us... NeXT treats us pretty well. Not as well as tiny Stanford, but pretty well. We have 30,000 students, but Stanford does own part of NeXT. -=EPS=-
greg@sif.claremont.edu (Tigger) (04/24/91)
Yesterday I posted a bit of a flame about the way NeXT seems to have been treating this campus recently. Today there were some developments. First, there is one thing I forgot in my post yesterday, and one thing that I didn't know. What I forgot is that our NeXT rep left the company about three weeks ago. What I didn't know is that the individual who has taken his place is not a trained sales rep, but (as I understand it), a technical rep who is filling in until NeXT can find a new sales rep. Given those circumstances it is not surprising that there have been a few crossed wires. We're less than a month from the end of our school year here, and hopefully over the summer everything can be ironed out. It would be nice to see NeXT outsell IBM in September's big "back to school" buying rush. The best part about the whole thing is that when I came in today I found mail from both our acting rep and a high-ranking individual at NeXT corporate. Perhaps this is no surprise to veterans of comp.sys.next, but I've only been reading for about a week, and I find such responsivness wonderful. I have bitched on occasion in other groups about other vendors (including the ones mentioned in my last post), but I have certainly never received any official response. I'm very impressed, and if NeXT can bring this level of service out into the field in person, they'll be doing better than just about any other computer vendor I've dealt with. All that said, I hope NeXT makes it. I've been hoping that for two and a half years now. We've ordered our first NeXT here at Pomona, and I can't wait until it comes in so that I can play with it. Greg Orman greg@pomona.claremont.edu Systems Manager greg@pomona.bitnet Seaver Academic Computing Services Pomona College Standard disclaimer-type stuff
hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) (04/24/91)
Since your complaining seems to have drawn some action, here is one from another recent NeXT-convert who needs some convincing that he made the right choice: I can't get most of my output printed properly via the serial port (either from dvips, or Writenow, or the Librarian, or SoftPC). NeXT admits that an upgrade to 2.1 would solve the problem (and Insignia tells me the same) but our Campus has not gotten the upgrade diskettes. How about placing the distribution on some Archive site? Greetings, Hardy -------****------- Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy); Department of Physics, University of California Irvine CA 92717; (714) 856 5543; hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET
Gerhard.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Gerhard Moeller) (04/24/91)
Hello everybody. (exspecially those guys who work for NeXT)
Just a few words from my point of view. (I'm German, studying Computing
Science at Oldenburg, FRG)
You are discussing if NeXT is treating you well or not. Ok, here's how
they treat us in Europe:
Students pay the same as any rich company or any person on the street.
There is NO special offer at all. (However, they promised to give 5%
off... - Probably after they raised the prices.)
For me it is cheaper to buy a color-SPARC than a color-NeXT. This is
because sun makes good university-offers. MOST companies (sun, apple,
etc.) have VERY GOOD OFFERS for students (up to 40% off). NeXT doesn't
seem interested.
Why? Well, I guess the problem is the following: Motorola is - as far as
I know - still not able to sell the 68040 processors in reasonable
amounts. NeXT sells more computers than they can build. In Germany the
industry seems to be a more profitable market than universities. And
there might be some other reasons as well...
BTW: A slab 8/105 costs 10.800 DM, which is about 6500 US$. A i486 WITH
interactive or SCO costs about the same. (But you wouldn't have the
other software ;-) - anyhow, many students I know would prefer a NeXT,
but they are ending up with a sun or a 386/486.) Please, do NOT start
discussing about advantages and disadvantages of those systems, I'm just
telling how the situation is like.
For me, it is a matter of principle: I cannot see why I should support a
company that doesn't support students.
Yours Gerhard.
PS.: Please excuse my bad English, but it's not my mother tongue.
PPS: I told that already to Greg Bailor, who is one of the officials in
Europe. If you are interested in his answer, just mail me.
(Greg: if you don't want me to post your answer, mail me.)
PPPS: I still try to get a NeXT from the US of America.
G.
--
+---------------------------< principiis obsta! >---------------------------+
| Gerhard Moeller, Teichstrasse 12, 2900 Oldenburg (FRG) [Geb. 02/21/68] |
| inhouse: gimli!gemoe uucp: ...(unido!)uniol!gmoeller |
|DOMAIN: gerhard.moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de |
|BITNET: gmoeller%arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de@DOLUNI1 (106495@DOLUNI1) |
+-----------------------> the medium is the message <-----------------------+klingspo@mozart.cs.colostate.edu (Steve Klingsporn) (04/25/91)
Steve Jobs is hardly a newcomer. Steve Klingsporn
Andy.Hewett@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Andy Hewett) (04/25/91)
Gerhard.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Gerhard Moeller) writes: >Just a few words from my point of view. (I'm German, studying Computing >Science at Oldenburg, FRG) >You are discussing if NeXT is treating you well or not. Ok, here's how >they treat us in Europe: >Students pay the same as any rich company or any person on the street. >There is NO special offer at all. (However, they promised to give 5% >off... - Probably after they raised the prices.) >For me it is cheaper to buy a color-SPARC than a color-NeXT. This is >because sun makes good university-offers. MOST companies (sun, apple, >etc.) have VERY GOOD OFFERS for students (up to 40% off). NeXT doesn't >seem interested. The same applies to University Departments (at least in Germany). There is NO discount for teaching or research or for anything. The only exception is if we are prepared to buy 20 or more (15% discount was the sum mentioned in an informal discussion). Of course, if I was buying 20 lampshades then there would also be some room for bargaining. Just in case there is any confusion, the systems sold in Germany are no different from the US models. Therefore there is not the excuse of translation costs for the OS or manuals, or different keyboards etc. >Why? Well, I guess the problem is the following: Motorola is - as far as >I know - still not able to sell the 68040 processors in reasonable >amounts. NeXT sells more computers than they can build. In Germany the >industry seems to be a more profitable market than universities. And >there might be some other reasons as well... Well, possibly another reason is the distribution structure. There are three authorized distributors in Germany and they control the market. Whatever the reason, this crazy kind of pricing non-policy is definitely putting people off. I find it a shame, but if it really is NeXT's idea to cut down on demand, then it is working. >BTW: A slab 8/105 costs 10.800 DM, which is about 6500 US$. A i486 WITH >interactive or SCO costs about the same. (But you wouldn't have the >other software ;-) - anyhow, many students I know would prefer a NeXT, >but they are ending up with a sun or a 386/486.) Please, do NOT start >discussing about advantages and disadvantages of those systems, I'm just >telling how the situation is like. I second this, I know of the benefits the NeXT environment can bring (i'm typing on one at the moment) over a i3?6 or Sun. But in a world where it is common practice among _reputable_ computer manufacturers to offer edu. discounts, to hear from a company (or its representatives) the phrase "there are NO edu discounts with NeXT" [this is not a quote just a paraphrase] gives the impression that NeXT are only interested in Business customers, at least outside the USA. >For me, it is a matter of principle: I cannot see why I should support a >company that doesn't support students. For me, I am finding it hard to support a company which claims to have Education as one of its major markets and then quite obviously tries to, relatively speaking, ripp-off its foreign educational customers. Maybe i'm getting this all wrong and it is only the distributors who are doing the ripping off, but it is kind of a strange situation. Yours in confusion, Andy Hewett. -- -----------------------------------------------------+------------------------- Andy Hewett | FB-10 Informatik DOMAIN: Andy.Hewett@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de | Universitaet Oldenburg UUCP: hewett@uniol.uucp | Postfach 2503 ... uunet!unido!uniol!hewett | 2900 Oldenburg TEL: (0441) 7982990/1 | Germany -----------------------------------------------------+-------------------------