UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) (10/03/90)
And now for something completely different. A friend of mine, a high priced lawyer in a big downtown firm, wants to buy a computer. He and his law firm are both pretty computer illiterate. He has narrowed it down to a MacII or a NeXT. He'll spend about $7,000 and can get the educational discount due to a faculty appointment at the local U. I know this doesn't give you much to go on, but hey. Should he get the NeXT? lee
daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) (10/03/90)
In article <90275.162540UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes: ... >A friend of mine, a high priced lawyer in a big downtown firm, wants >to buy a computer. He and his law firm are both pretty computer >illiterate. He has narrowed it down to a MacII or a NeXT. >He'll spend about $7,000 and can get the educational discount due >to a faculty appointment at the local U. >I know this doesn't give you much to go on, but hey. >Should he get the NeXT? Sure, provided he budgets another $7,000 for a consultant (like you, natch!) to train him. Novice users, particularly executives and professionals, often have grandiose expectations. Tell him it's like buying a Formula 1 race car: he needs some expert instruction. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS College Station, TX 77843-3112 CSNET: daugher%cs.tamu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET ---Not an official document of Texas A&M---
barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (10/03/90)
In article <90275.162540UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes: >And now for something completely different. > >A friend of mine, a high priced lawyer in a big downtown firm, wants >to buy a computer. He and his law firm are both pretty computer >illiterate. He has narrowed it down to a MacII or a NeXT. >He'll spend about $7,000 and can get the educational discount due >to a faculty appointment at the local U. > At that price, he can't get _any_ Mac II fx (a diskless one with any decently large monitor is > $7000) so his only option is a Mac IIci, which with an 80MB drive and 13'' color or 15'' mono monitor will run him at least $5600. That tops off to an even $7000 if you add in the Apple ``Personal LaserWriter'' SC (which is slow, and non-PostScript). But, for $5600, he can get the NeXTStation Color---if color is important to him. He doesn't need the full distribution, so the standard 105MB drive with 35MB + floppies is probably enough for now. (Once his demands grow, he may want to add an external drive.) Throw in the NeXT laser printer, and that puts you right at $7000. And what you've got is roughly 2--3 times better on all specs than the Apple system. (e.g, 3x as fast, 2x the RAM, largwer screen, printer twice as fast, almost twice the resolution, PostScript over QuickDraw...) not to mention a free copy of Improv and other bundeled stuff (dictionary,...) And, if color is not important to him, that frees up about $2300---thats enough to buy him a document scanner (Canon Image Scanner, $1550) and fax support (Mirage Fax, $895)! (But, if he wants to get carried away, he could buy the Visus Scanner, Fax Modem and support software (with filing, OCR, etc) for about $3500---only $1200 over budget; maybe on budget if they give academic discounts.) (With the Mac option, no color doesn't really free up anything, because a decent sized BW monitor is the same price as their small color monitor.) ----------- In short, for someone with no bias toward Mac (e.g. working in a all Mac office), its _obvious_ that NeXT gives you much more for your money---and much more period. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet)
UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) (10/04/90)
Fifteen or twenty people have responded to my vague question about a NeXT for a lawyer. Thanks, netpeople. You've been wonderful as usual. Briefly, most said to go for it. A few said no, get the Mac. The basic reasons were about what you'd expect if you know the two machines well. The Mac might be easier for a novice to keep alive, and more likely to offer some particular piece of software. The NeXT has the fundamental Word Processing and Spreadsheet, and is feature for feature a better machine. The main contribution to the decision that we hadn't thought of is that the NeXT is a better status symbol, probably, at least til they go belly up 8-) Thanks again. lee