[comp.unix.i386] Re^2: SVR4 shipping, sort of, allegedly; Microport is baaaaack

mark@intek01.uucp (Mark McWiggins) (08/01/90)

larry@nstar.uucp (Larry Snyder) writes:

>mark@intek01.uucp (Mark McWiggins) writes:

>>Microport (+1 800 FOR UNIX) is back out of Chapter 11 (or whatever chapter
>>they were in) and shipping a "developer's release" of SVR4 with the
>>kitchen sink (TCP/IP, NFS, RFS, X, Streams, everything I can think of
>>but DWB).  I asked when and the guy said "now."  Don't know what
>>"devleoper's release" means ("buggy?" "don't even think of calling for
>>support?" (1/2 :) ).  Now for the bad news: it comes on tape only, and 
>>costs $2500.

>$2500 for Microport - is that list price?  Is there a discount
>for VAR's and or developers?

No discounts and no reselling for this release -- I called back and they said
they're only SELLING to developers right now.  He said it's for "those who 
want to get the jump on the competition" and that "we're shipping a lot."

He said the "commercial release" plans aren't final yet, but probably would
list for $1600 or so.  I asked what's included in the "developer's release"
and not in the "commercial release" and he said that decision hadn't been
made yet.

I also spoke again with a lady at UHC.  She seemed a little more flexible
in talking about VAR programs and whatnot, but it's all still up in the
air.  They're also not shipping until August 15.

I got an insight from the UHC lady into the basis for these stratospheric
prices: she said that AT&T is offering their SVR4 binary for $5000!  I took
this as a signal that AT&T doesn't want to be in the binary business anymore,
but apparently UHC and the reborn Microport took it as a green light to
price themselves right out of the market.

I received a piece of E-mail from a guy claiming out that the sublicensing
fees for V.4 are actually LOWER than those for V.3.2.  I think I'd read
this somewhere else, also; can someone post the True Facts?

Also, it would really help if anyone from Everex, Dell, Interactive, and/or
Intel would post some inkling of their plans.

-- 
Mark McWiggins			Integration Technologies, Inc. (Intek)
+1 206 455 9935			DISCLAIMER:  I could be wrong ...
1400 112th Ave SE #202		Bellevue WA  98004
uunet!intek01!mark		Ask me about C++!

bill@alembic.acs.com (Bill Hatch) (08/02/90)

As a uport V386 owner -- i can not understand why anyone would even
consider the purchase of a microport release when you can get
open desktop , multi-user, sw dev system, DWB, and much more from
SCO for about $2800.    As per the recent news articles, microport
wants $1600 to $2500 for a product "to be defined".  

bill hatch

paul@dialogic.com (The Imaginative Moron aka Joey Pheromone) (08/04/90)

In article <1990Aug2.003304.19278@alembic.acs.com> bill@alembic.acs.com (Bill Hatch) writes:
>As a uport V386 owner -- i can not understand why anyone would even
>consider the purchase of a microport release when you can get
>open desktop , multi-user, sw dev system, DWB, and much more from
>SCO for about $2800.    As per the recent news articles, microport
>wants $1600 to $2500 for a product "to be defined".  
>
>bill hatch

SVR4 is a very different beast from SVR3, which is what you would get
from SCO. If you are a developer, with applications that would benefit
from such new features, you want it ASAP. As a user, I wouldn't even
*think* of getting SVR4 for at least a year -it'll take at least that
long to even become stable, let alone have applications that
specifically need it. Note that both supposed suppliers (microport &
UHM (?)) were specifically *developer* releases.

--
Paul Bennett	      |  			| "I give in, to sin, because
Dialogic Corp.	      |   paul@dialogic.com	|  You have to make this life
300 Littleton Road    | ..!uunet!dialogic!paul	|  livable"
Parsippany, NJ 07054  |	 			|  Martin Gore

aab@cichlid.com (Andrew A. Burgess) (08/04/90)

In article <1990Aug2.003304.19278@alembic.acs.com> bill@alembic.acs.com (Bill Hatch) writes:
>As a uport V386 owner -- i can not understand why anyone would even
>consider the purchase of a microport release when you can get
>open desktop , multi-user, sw dev system, DWB, and much more from
>SCO for about $2800.    As per the recent news articles, microport
>wants $1600 to $2500 for a product "to be defined".  
>
>bill hatch

Several things come to mind. 

One, SCO modifies (some would say mangles :)) the UNIX that they get from ATT 
(security, mmdf, microsoft C compiler).

Two, SCO won't be upgrading to S5R4 for a while. They have said on the net
(I believe) that they will add R4 functionality to their port of R3.2.
I personally don't trust them to get things (BSD file system and utilities,
job control, fill in the blank _____) as right as the real S5R4.

People are interested in the little guys like Microport and ESIX
because they can give you alot of bang for the buck.

I paid about $1200 for a developers version of SCO S5R3.2 without X window.
I would love to know how much ESIX S5R4 will be. Now, you can apparently
get a two user version of ESIX S5R3.2 with X for $400 and uucp the gcc 
development tools for free.

Andy

-- 
Andy Burgess
Consulting Software Engineer
uunet!silma!cichlid!aab
aab@cichlid.com

bill@alembic.acs.com (Bill Hatch) (08/05/90)

In article <1990Aug3.214737.7651@cichlid.com> aab@cichlid.com (Andrew A. Burgess) writes:
>I would love to know how much ESIX S5R4 will be. Now, you can apparently
>get a two user version of ESIX S5R3.2 with X for $400 and uucp the gcc 
>development tools for free.
I think that you need a local c colpiler like cc to install gcc from
scratch (with ld, and ar).  You also need the c libraries libc.a and
libm.a from your SW development kit inorder to use gcc.  There is no
free sw development kit from the free software foundation; they do offer
some nice extensions to your existing sw development kit.

bill hatch