Lou@cup.portal.com (William Joseph Marriott) (10/28/88)
There have been several posts here about the use of the cube's 256Mb drive for software dissemination. I won't bother to summarize the text here, except that there's been considerable talk about the "fertilized egg" method that Jobs supposedly proposes, and the disadvantages of that plan. The idea is you get all the software in the world on the disk that comes with the machine, and you activate it with a telephone call to the software company, which turns your demo program into a full-featured application. A lot of people have pointed out the disadvantages of such a system, particularly the hassle for those who wish to use the software product on one or more networked machines. Also, there is the problem of updating software that was released on old disks. No one has mentioned the hassle involved in "system software" updates. My own feeling is that this method leaves a lot to be desired, for the reasons already mentioned, and for another one not mentioned: If you took all the software currently available for, say, the Macintosh... would it fit on a 256Mb disk? Probably not. And you don't really have 256Mb to work with, not with the overhead for the Mach operating system. So unless you're gonna be prejudicial about who gets space on the NeXT "system disk," you have a pretty serious problem. Anyway, who wants dozens of megabytes lying around, a virtual waste until you become interested in the application? But there seems to be many other ways a user could get software. The most obvious to me is that built-in 9600-baud modem -- incomplete now, but no doubt operational once the NeXt box gets produced in quantity. Users could call the company at a toll-free number, purchase the software by entering a bankcard number or pre-purchase validation code, and begin receiving their package. As the transfer progressed, users could work with another application, or read a Shakespeare play. When the download was done, they would start printing the docs on their laser printer. You could transfer more than 1Mb of data in 15 minutes, and print a 400-page manual in less than an hour. Neither of these activities would prevent the use of the machine for other purposes. Alternately, companies could request that you send them a formatted (if in fact it requires formatting) opti-disk and have the company install the software on that disk. Really, users would require only two or three opti-disks: one as their working disk; another for backup; a third for software acquisitions. You could get by buying only one opti-disk *ever* if you felt comfortable about sending your backup opti-disk to software companies for software installataion. In any event, you're looking at a $100 (or less) investment over a very long time. Probably what you would spend for blank 3.5-inch disks over a two-year period. Another propostion yet is a "loaner" system: the company sends you a disk which you can use to install the program on your machine, then you return the disk. Yet another option: Dealer installation of software onto your opti-floppy. Finally, the company could provide the software, on a disk, for only a small extra fee. The cost of a printed manual is pretty substantial, particularly when you try and produce one of those glossy, spiral-bound jobs; including the documentation on disk could offset some of the costs of the media. If the media cost is truly prohibitive, then any of the above methods could be used to distribute low-cost software. But if the price curve for opti-floppy disks follows that of 3.5-inch disks, the impact will be very limited after a year or so, making the point moot. __________________________________________________________________________ _ Portal: william_joseph_marriott@cup.portal.com _ Bill Marriott Northwestern University: innen@nuacc.bitnet _ GEnie: W.MARRIOTT CI$: 72047,2770 __________________________________________________________________________