aberno@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Anthony Berno) (10/13/90)
I'm planning to buy a NeXT in fall of 91 (when I have the money) and I was wondering if anyone could offer an opinion on my pet paranoia about the future of NeXT: UNBUNDLING. With the Macintosh, for quite some time, MacPaint and MacWrite were bundled as an incentive to buy. When the Mac finally took off, they were unloaded to other companies for them to sell. That was OK, as there is a lot of cheap Mac software around. However, as you all know, software packages for the NeXT are quite pricey due to the small market. I have heard that Allegro common LISP (which is being dropped in System 2.0) costs $1500! Being a poor student, it is the software costs that are really going to break me after I spend my summer's earnings on this machine. If much more stuff is unbundled, I'm going to have to consider another machine entirely! What do the experts say on this matter? (Incidentally, this is my first ever message on Usenet. Yay!) -Anthony Berno