Path: dakota!portal!uunet!xrxedds!ihost!next32!dstrout From: dstrout@next32.isnet.com (Dave Strout) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc Subject: Steve answers Sun abuse Message-ID: <1992Apr20.201945.16542@next32.isnet.com> Date: 20 Apr 92 20:19:45 GMT Sender: dstrout@next32.isnet.com (Dave Strout) Reply-To: dstrout@next32.isnet.com (Dave Strout) Distribution: usa Organization: is a sign of a sick mind... Lines: 683 This just came across my desk, thought I'd pass it on. I don't remember seeing it on the net before. If it was, I appologize for the wasted bandwidth in advance. It's actually two seperate pieces, posted here as one. dave. <-------Cut Here----------> After a huge amount of work, the SunWorld Expo team pulled off a tremendous feat on the floor of SunWorld, while appearing calm and collected in a crowded booth in the heart of enemy territory. We more than accomplished our original goal: to make the Sun customer think of NeXT when they think of Sun. We had the second-largest booth (Sun had the largest), and we were the most crowded booth on the SunWorld floor. Customers couldn't help but notice us, from the leaflet that was shrink-wrapped into every copy of SunWorld magazine distributed at the show, to the 16-monitor video wall advertisement in the entrance, to the brochures distributed to hotel rooms, we certainly made a splash at SunWorld. Visitors to our booth were first greeted by a huge sign that read: "Environmental Study shows Damaging Effect of SUN." The constant stream of presentations given in the "theatre" at the back of the booth drew huge crowds, and spoke directly to those customers who were unsure about venturing into the booth for a one-on-one demo. Several people remarked that this was a big win. Special thanks go to Eric Bergerson from Objective Technologies and Diane Webb from ESL for giving the NeXT customer perspective. Eric did a tireless job of presenting and demoing all day, each day. Diane gave a great comparison of writing and deploying the same application on the Sun and the NeXT. It was great to hear war stories of trying to get office workers to use OpenWindows vs NeXTSTEP. We taught these Sun customers more than they ever wanted to know about the advantages of programming a NeXT, and using a NeXT. We also made our point with the 16-monitor Video Wall in the entrance foyer. On the last day, show management informed me that they were removing our video from the wall. They felt thet "it was not in good taste for a Sun show" that it was "too much of a Sun-bash." We are getting money back on this (I was appropriately indignant), but it was nice to see that we got to Sun enough that they put pressure on World Expo Corp to yank it (maybe we'll get some press on this?). In response, we put up a sign that said, "Get a free copy of the Video the Show Management won't even allow you to see" and promptly gave away 500 Videos practically all on that last day. NeXT machines also showed in 3 booths on the SunWorld floor: Hitachi, Auspex and DaDISP. Two of these were deals made on the show floor during setup. Hitachi wanted to hook up their CD-ROM player, so we gave them a 3.0 machine, turned it on, and it just worked. It was gratifying to hear the lead guy from Hitachi sing the praises of NeXT on the end of the first day: "It's my job to track the system vendors, and I have to say that you have the slickest stuff I've ever seen." Meanwhile, the SPARC that was in the Hitachi Booth was on the fritz, the SPARC could show a static image (they hid the keyboard and mouse), while the NeXT had all sorts of Demos on it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- March 24, 1992 Dear Customer, Sun recently circulated a "slander sheet" to its sales force, attacking NeXT on both professional and personal fronts. By all indications, this document originates from the top levels of Sun, and outlines Sun's case against NeXT. In this document Sun has fabricated many inaccurate claims about NeXT, our technology and our investors. The first page attacks me personally three times. This kind of unprofessional attack demands a clear response. Attached, please find our response to Sun's attack, and also a copy of Sun's original "slander sheet", so that you can personally see how desperate Sun has become in its fight against NeXT. We welcome any technology challenge from Sun. I will personally debate Scott McNealey on the merits of our respective products and services -- anytime, anywhere. But this kind of unprofessional "bullying" from Sun must stop. Sincerely, Steven P. Jobs Chairman and CEO NeXT Computer, Inc. ------------------------------------------------------------ Sun Declares War on NeXT Let's examine each of Sun's claims about NeXT in the order and exactly as they appeared in Sun's recent, inflammatory document. NeXT: The Company Sun's Claim: What are its long-term prospect [sic]? A company which is over 3 years old and thought by analysts to be making a last stand The Facts: NeXT sales grew more than 300% in 1991, to $127 million during a very tough year for the computer industry and the global economy. A February 7, 1992 IDC report on 1991 Worldwide Workstation/Workstation Server Market: The Year in Review offered these comments about NeXT: "Although the total market grew only 14% in dollars and 22% in units, several of the top eight vendors gained market share in 1991. Showing significant growth were NeXT, IBM, Silicon Graphics and Sun, in that order." This report goes on to say that "Both IBM and NeXT grew at over 50%, and became numbers four and five, respectively, in market share." IDC estimates that IBM outsold NeXT by a mere 250 workstations in 1991. Just as important as the financial results, however, are the reasons fueling them: that the NeXT platform offers the best environment for developing mission-critical custom applications; that these applications run seamlessly alongside high-quality productivity applications; and that NeXT is the first platform to make the power of Unix workstations available to anyone in an organization from novice computer users through expert developers. On every measurable level, NeXT's "long-term prospects" look rosy. Sun's Claim: Do you really want to put your future in Steve Jobs' hands? The Facts: NeXT is a company of approximately 600 people, with world-class talent in software and hardware engineering, manufacturing, sales and marketing, and operations. When customers purchase NeXT products, they reap the benefits of this combined talent. As founder and CEO of NeXT, as well as one of the computer industry's most highly acclaimed pioneers, Steve Jobs is a great company leader, whose leadership and vision provides direct benefits to NeXT customers. Why does Sun feel compelled to attack Steve Jobs on a personal level? Sun's Claim: What's this we hear about layoffs and Steve Jobs using his own money to meet last months [sic] payroll? The Facts: NeXT laid off thirty-five employees (only 5% of NeXT's workforce) in 1991. This, like layoffs at other companies such as DEC and Apple, reflects the effects of the recession on the computer industry during 1991. Our business is currently strong, and we foresee no further layoffs at NeXT. At the beginning of 1990, NeXT had 350 employees. During the past two years, NeXT has grown more than 50%, today employing nearly 600 people. Steve Jobs used none of his own money to meet last month's payroll. NeXT enjoys strong funding from Jobs, Ross Perot, and Canon -- whose combined net worth exceeds $15 billion -- as well as revenues from our strong and growing sales. Suffice it to say that NeXT's finances are very strong. Sun's Claim: Why did Ross Perot really resign from the Board? The Facts: Ross Perot resigned from NeXT's Board of Directors so he could devote his full attention to his new company, Perot Systems. Ross still owns as many shares of his NeXT stock as ever (11.3%), and has no intention of selling them. He is a trusted and close advisor to NeXT as well as a personal friend of Steve Jobs; the two talk weekly. Sun's Claim: Why is Canon looking for a buyer for its share? The Facts: This is totally untrue. Canon, a company having $20 billion in annual sales, actually increased its NeXT ownership during 1991 to almost 18% of NeXT. In January, Canon's president, Dr. Keizo Yamaji, travelled to San Francisco to address 3,500 people at the first NeXTWORLD EXPO. In his talk, Dr. Yamaji said, "We are committed to NeXT as a cornerstone in our computer strategy," and he reiterated his own personal pride at being able to contribute to NeXT's success. Sun's Claim: Why has Steve Jobs' primary market focus shifted from academics and scientists to investment bankers? The Facts: NeXT's market focus has expanded, not shifted. Four years ago, NeXT began by marketing its computers to higher education in North America, a strategy proven by DEC in the 1970s and Apple in the 1980s as a smart way to build a new computer company. NeXT has become one of the top workstations sold on college campuses in America and the number two computer of any kind (second only to the Macintosh) sold at leading universities such as Stanford and MIT. Higher education remains a healthy 20% of our total business, and we are committed to continuing success in this market. We expanded into the commercial and government markets -- including financial services, government and healthcare -- during 1991, and have seen tremendous success. Approximately 80% of our 1991 revenues came from these markets. As the first UNIX workstation designed to be used by mere mortals, NeXT has helped expand the workstation market by helping to define a new class of computers: professional workstations, which is being heralded as the most important workstation market of the 1990s. Our market focus will continue to expand into all areas where professional workstations solve real customer needs. NeXT: The Hardware Sun's Claim: Motorola / CiSC architecture? You must be kidding ... The "Turbo" version announced last week compares to our entry-line Sparc IPC as far as SPECmarks rating goes and does not break any price performance point. The Facts: This claim is not only false, it misses the points that are important to customers. Price/performance can be measured as dollars/MIPS and dollars/SPECmarks; let's look at some real comparisons: SPEC- $/SPEC- Model RAM DISK Price MIPS $/MIPS marks marks NeXTstation Turbo 16MB 250MB $ 6,995 25 $280 16.3 $429 Sparcstation IPX 16MB 207MB $11,995 28.5 $421 24.4 $492 NeXTstation Color Turbo 32MB 424MB $13,495 25 $540 16.3 $828 Sparcstation 2 32MB 424MB $20,495 28.5 $721 24.4 $840 As you can see, our new NeXTstation Turbo systems beat comparable Sun machines by a generous factor in $/MIPS. Yes, Sun's machines do offer the user 3.5 extra MIPS (which the user will never even notice), but at significant additional cost. But everyone knows that performance goes far beyond MIPS or SPECmarks or any other CPU speed measurement. The real measure of performance is, "can I use this computer to do what I need to do as fast as I'd like to do it?" NeXT's professional workstation customers are the best ones to judge this. We urge you to talk to some of them. Also, how many MIPS is a Sun computer running while customers wait two years for an application to be completed using Sun's tools? In addition to offering more performance per dollar, NeXT computers offer far better total value. Sun's UI layout tool, DevGuide, and a C compiler cost thousands of dollars extra. NeXT bundles Objective-C, C, C++, Interface Builder, and the Application Kit (an application framework) at no extra charge with every computer sold; NeXTSTEP 3.0 also includes the NeXT Database Kit (for database access), Pixar's RenderMan (for 3D rendering), and built-in Novell and Appletalk client services. But don't take our word for it. Sun's own magazine, SunWorld reviewed four Sun workstations in January 1992 and the NeXTstation Color Turbo in March. SunWorld ranked overall value (price, performance, ease of use, behavior, features) on a 1 to 8 scale (larger is better). The Sun community's own publication ranked the NeXTstation Turbo higher than any Sun workstation! NeXTstation Turbo 7.3 (List prices: $5995, $8995) SPARCstation 2 7.1 (List prices: $15495, $49995, and others) SPARCstation IPX 6.6 (List prices: $11995, $15495) SPARCstation ELC 6.1 (List prices: $4995, $6295) SPARCstation IPC 5.8 (List prices: $7995, $9995) Sun's Claim: Which RISC strategy? To be delivered when, knowing that source code compatibility will require a complete port of the OS, Mach, which is said to have fairly intimate dependencies on the current underlying hardware? The Facts: Mach reduces dependencies and makes porting the OS and applications very easy compared to older Unix architectures, such as Sun's. Today, NeXTSTEP runs on multiple platforms, including the Motorola 68040 family, the Intel 486 family, the Intel i860 family and other RISC processors1all radically different platforms. NeXT will announce its RISC plans during the next year. And the fact that most developers have ported their applications from NeXTSTEP on the 68040 to NeXTSTEP 486 in less than a day demonstrates how portable the NeXTSTEP environment really is. Sun's Claim: SPARC do [sic] deliver today performance and scaleabilty [sic] from the desktop to the high-end server. Future geneneration [sic] of chips are [sic] already available. The Facts: Sun is widely acknowledged (see First Boston's 12/91 report on Sun, for example) as having lost technical and price/performance leadership in RISC technology to IBM, HP, DEC and MIPS; Sun has "fallen behind the price/performance curve." (First Boston's cover quote.) Sun's Claim: SPARC International is by far the leading force in the Risc workstation market; 74% of market share in 1990, according to Alex Brown & Sons. Sun alone shipped a record of 49,000 SPARC units in last fiscal year. According to IDC, Sun's 1991 RISC workstation unit market share is 53.9% and a Wall Street Computer Review estimation gave Sun last year over 80% of the Unix market share in the Wall Street community. The Facts: Sun lost RISC market share last year. (See IDC's February 7, 1992 workstation market report.) As regards Wall Street, many publications report NeXT's growing market share (See, among others, Wall Street & Technology, March 1992, Global Investment Technology, March 9, 1992, Wall Street Computer Review, October, 1991, Trading Systems Technology Newsletter, May 20, 1991, August 12, 1991, September 23, 1991, February 10, 1992, March 23, 1992; Investment Management Technology Newsletter, January 24 1992, and Unix Today, October 14, 1991.). "Global Investment Technology's" March 9, 1992 cover story says it all: "NeXT Development ToolKit Spurs Software Boom in Capital Markets." In competitive "bakeoffs" at leading firms, NeXT consistently beats Sun. NeXT: The OS Sun's Claim: Mach: a research OS The Facts: Is this meant as a criticism? Mach was developed at Carnegie Mellon University as a federally funded effort to create a high-performance operating system combining the virtues of Unix with a more efficient architecture. Mach has been successfully commercialized, first by NeXT and more recently by most Open Software Foundation (OSF)-member workstation companies, including HP and DEC. Sun remains one of the few vendors retaining the older AT&T System V architecture in preference to the more efficient, portable and now standard Mach architecture. Sun's Claim: What will be the general market acceptance for an OS which does not support major industry standards, like POSIX, mandated by the US Government on all Federal system buys, and adopted by both OSF and Unix International? The Facts: We agree that operating systems must commit to POSIX to succeed in the federal marketplace; NeXTSTEP will be fully POSIX-compliant in 1992. The addition of POSIX compliance illustrates NeXT's broader philosophy toward standards: namely, to adopt all standards that offer tangible customer benefits. Among our government customers, POSIX clearly meets this criterion. Sun's Claim: Why go Unix Berkeley when the whole industry is going System V? The Facts: Debates about flavors of UNIX are irrelevant to most users, as long as fundamental standards such as TCP/IP and POSIX are implemented. The whole industry has not standardized on Sun's Unix. OSF was formed to offer an alternative to Sun-hardly a sign of any mass migration to Sun software technology. In any case, who cares? By focusing on variants of Unix, Sun is looking through the rearview mirror, not the windshield. At NeXT, we care about the underlying functionality available to users, not religious wars about UNIX flavors. Our commitment to the future has put us years ahead of our competitors, including Sun, in the important area of object-oriented systems. Sun's Claim: Solaris/SunOS: has withstood the test of Time The Facts: The test of an architecture is not its age, but how well it adapts to the future. We agree that Sun's UNIX architecture is an old one. So is MS-DOS. But no one suggests either one represents the future of computing. Not being object-oriented, Sun's architecture has shown itself to be less capable of integrating new technologies. Sun's Claim: Solaris 2.0 unites 80% of ten million UNIX users. The Facts: Solaris 2.0 isn't even shipping yet! Sun couldn't possibly unite 8 million users, since Sun shipped fewer than 190,000 computers of all kinds last year, and has probably shipped only about 500,000 workstations in all of its history. Even if there are ten million UNIX users (a very optimistic estimate), SunOS/Solaris 'unites' only a tiny 2% to 4% of them. Sun's Claim: Solaris 2.0 is the SVR4 "source platform: The Facts: So what? What are the benefits to users? Do they even know or care what this means? NeXT: NeXTstep What does SunWorld magazine think of NeXTSTEP? "Brilliant. The easiest Unix system on the market." (March 1992, p. 52). Sun's Claim: Intimately tied to the kernel, therefore fast but not easily portable away from the OS The Facts: This is simply not true. Mach insulates NeXTSTEP from hardware dependencies. NeXTSTEP is very portable, as shown by the recent announcement of NeXTSTEP 486 and the large number of implementations running in our labs. Mach is very, very fast, as Sun admits, which is particularly important for an object-oriented system such as NeXTSTEP, which depends on fast interprocess messaging. Sun's Claim: Is the Dos User willing to spend training time on a new proprietary Lotus, Frame or Wordperfect interface? The Facts: NeXTSTEP applications, being consistent, require little training time. Unlike Open Windows applications, NeXTSTEP apps use a core set of common objects, making them inherently consistent. DOS applications available for Sun computers often have no modern graphical user interface at all and are merely lowest-common-denominator ports of old DOS apps. Sun's first version of Lotus 1-2-3 didn't even support a mouse! Studies such as the one recently completed by Booz.Allen & Hamilton indicate that users far prefer NeXTSTEP applications to either native DOS programs or those few business applications available for Open Windows. (Sun's recent advertising claims that there are sixty such applications. Three hundred NeXTSTEP business productivity applications are shipping today.) NeXT doesn't mandate that a user give up DOS applications. If users want to run DOS apps within the NeXTSTEP environment, they can do so easily, using Insignia Solutions' SoftPC PC emulator. Even without SoftPC, all NeXT computers read and write DOS-formatted diskettes, so users can make a simple transition from DOS apps to vastly better NeXTSTEP apps. Some users may want to hang onto the character interface of early 1980s; we find that more prefer to easily learned, consistent and integrated applications. Actually, this is the first time we've heard that NeXT's superior ease of use was a reason not to buy our computers! Sun's Claim: Unix today without X? NeXTstep provides nothing beyond a limited third-party support: neither tools, toolkits, GUI's nor server extensions. All the fancy NeXTstep applications do not run on X. The Facts: Those users who need to run X applications alongside their 'fancy' NeXTSTEP applications have three excellent X/Motif implementations running under NeXTSTEP today, all of which can utilize X applications, development tools, and toolkits. Full cut-and-paste allow NeXTSTEP and X apps to coexist. Sun is absolutely right that "fancy NeXTSTEP applications do not run on X." They wouldn't be powerful applications if they did, since they would lack NeXTSTEP's object-oriented advantages: overall consistency (including user interfaces, dialogs, multimedia support), true extensibility, a unified imaging model (i.e., same imaging language, PostScript, to the screen and to printed output), and ease of use. SunWorld's Dave Taylor (March 1992) makes the same point: "It has been difficult . . . to endure the slings and arrows of Open Windows .. . . . The best analogy I can think of is that Unix remains a bunch of bricks without any mortar at all. It's a nice wall, but it sure doesn't make a good building to live within. NeXTstep offers the mortar that's missing in the X/Open Windows and X/Motif environments. Using the NeXT computer offers a computing experience -- a seamless computer experience -- that shames other advanced systems." (p. 53). Or, as SunWorld says elsewhere in the issue: NeXTSTEP has "almost the perfect interface. Consistent interface style across applications, a common underlying object-oriented OS, an astounding set of capabilities." (p. 52) "The smooth feel of the interface is light years ahead of anything else available for a Unix user, not just in GUIs like Motif and Open Windows, but even with the additional capabilities of Looking Glass, X Desktop, or others." (p. 52) SunWorld's overall assessment of NeXTSTEP's interface: "We have seen the future of [the] Unix interface. Too bad it's not on our Sun." (March 1992, p. 43) Sun's Claim: What about those myriad X applications available now and later? The Facts: What about them? Any X application available now or later can run using any of the X implementations available for NeXTSTEP. And what about the relative quality of Sun's X-dependent applications? SunWorld (March 1992) concluded that NeXTSTEP applications are "typically better versions than their non-NeXT peers. For example, the version of Adobe Illustrator for NeXT is more powerful than that on the Macintosh. FrameMaker is similarly easier to use and understand, being able to use the NeXTstep interface to maximum advantage. A further advantage of NeXTstep is that different applications can easily interact, sharing graphics, text, and other elements via the simple and pervasive drag-and-drop feature. Quite a bit more sophisticated than Open Windows, for example." (p. 54). Sun's Claim: NeXTstep provides a very limited drag-and-drop capability. The Facts: This is nonsense. I suggest that Sun's marketing department visit SunWorld magazine. According to the March issue of SunWorld, NeXTSTEP has "a well thought-out drag-and-drop implementation. For example, if you've received a multimedia message from someone, you can easily click on a graphic and drag it, as a TIFF object, into another document, without any further action." And every NeXTSTEP application works this way. Sun's Claim: With the exception of NeXTmail, NeXT does not provide tools like calendar manager, tasks manager, spreadsheets, [sic] that enable group activity over the network. The Facts: False, again. NeXT's third-party software developers provide exactly these tools. Adamation's group calendaring and scheduling tool, Whose Calling; Adamation's networked 'blackboard' tool, Live Wire; the group information manager, On Duty from DIT; Sarrus' Pencil Me In group scheduler; the Boss Logic Document Management System; the Boss Logic Workflow Management System; Visus Papersight; and Insight's Electrofile are among the many products listed in the 250-page NeXT Software and Peripherals Catalog. NeXTSTEP 3.0's Distributed Objects and Object Linking tools expand the ability of developers to create the industry's most advanced workgroup and workflow applications. And unlike Sun applications, NeXTSTEP applications, in true object-oriented fashion, do not need to be designed together to work together. Sun's Claim: NeXT provides overall a very minimal interconnectivity to the heterogeneous network. There is no IBM/DEC connectivity offer [sic] and limited or inexisting [sic] front-ends to both world. [sic] The Facts: NeXT, itself, in version 3.0 of NeXTSTEP provides connectivity to servers (Sun, Teradata, Pyramid among many others), database connectivity (Sybase and Oracle, among others), terminal emulation, connectivity to Appletalk and Novell networks and connectivity to heterogeneous UNIX networks via NFS as standard 'out of the box' capabilities. A number of third parties (e.g., Avatar, Conextions and Active Ingredients) provide tools connecting NeXT to IBM and DEC mainframes. NeXT: The Interface Builder Sun's Claim: The whole industry is going Object Oriented Environment and setting up the standards. Who wants to go Steve Jobs' way? The Facts: The industry has definitely endorsed object-oriented system software. We happen to have a six-year head start, and will ship our third-generation object-oriented system software within the next few months. After six years of development, NeXTSTEP remains the only true object-oriented system software on the market. Given that, why should customers wait five years for Sun to develop its first generation of real, extensible and integrated object-oriented systems software of unknown quality when NeXT is shipping its third generation of proven, award-winning software on multiple processor families this year? Among those who have recognized the superiority of NeXT's object-oriented system software are the Software Publishing Association, which gave NeXTSTEP the Fluegelman Award for innovative software, and Computer Language magazine, which awarded NeXTSTEP its Productivity Award for interactive application development environments. The industry has recognized the superiority of NeXTSTEP for the same reasons that Sun customers such as SBC/OC have switched from SunOS/Solaris to NeXTSTEP. Sun's Claim: C++ is the widely accepted language standard. Why is IB strongest with Objective C, an esoteric OO language with no industry support? The Facts: NeXTSTEP programmers can use a combination of standard ANSI C, Objective-C, or C++. The core code for Lotus Improv, for example, was written in C++. Why do we offer strongest support for Objective-C? Far from being an esoteric language, Objective-C is based on standard ANSI C and offers such essential object-oriented facilities like dynamic binding, which C++ lacks. (Dynamic binding allows objects to be bound to an application at run-rime, rather than compile-time, which allows applications to be updated and modified "on the fly.") And unlike C++, there is no steep learning curve for the programmer graduating from C to Objective-C. Microsoft's Bill Gates has said it best: "Not only is C++ difficult to learn, but the sophistication and high level of abstraction of C++ code make it even more difficult to design, debug, read and navigate than C code . . . The complexity of C++ has led many development teams to use only a subset of C++, often referred to as 'C-plus-plus-minus-minus.'" Object Magazine, March/April 1992, pp. 14-15. Unlike C++, Objective-C adds only a few simple extensions to Standard ANSI C. In any case, this discussion trivializes object-oriented development, since a programming language is only a small part of an overall object-oriented software environment. Object management tools such as Interface Builder, a rich suite of objects such as NeXTSTEP's Application Kit, and a fundamental messaging architecture (provided by Mach) are all equally important. Our industry's future lies in complete object-oriented environments, of which NeXTSTEP is the only currently shipping example. Sun's Claim: Is ODI, the Objects "store" for NeXTstep, going out of business? The Facts: 100% of the NeXTSTEP development environment is built and maintained in-house. Unlike Sun, which must rely on third parties to provide the basic components for its development environment, NeXTSTEP is an integrated environment developed by NeXT. NeXT uses no products from any company called ODI. Sun's Claim: How many services are available from NeXT? What does it take a developper[sic] to write its own services, as they become required by the application to be delivered? The Facts: There are many services available today, and almost every developer has added new services with each shipping application. "Services" is one of the most innovative features of NeXTSTEP. Every application, without modification, can use the services of other applications. Today, for example, out of the box, any application can mail all or part of a document to other users, can access Webster's Dictionary for spell checking, and can look up information in the Digital Librarian. Services provided by third-party applications are as varied as SQL database access, graphics archiving and optical character recognition. It takes a trivial effort -- a few lines of code -- for one application to offer services to all other NeXTSTEP applications. Sun's Claim: Beyond the ability to put a great demo together, what is the real training cost involved to get a developper [sic] up to speed on the Next environment? The Facts: NeXTSTEP not only allows you to develop your applications three to ten times faster than on Sun platforms (according to a study by Booz.Allen & Hamilton), it is the easiest-to-learn development environment. Typically, it takes C programmers only five days to learn NeXTSTEP, when they attend NeXT's Developer Camp. Here is what some NeXT customer have said about developing with NeXTSTEP: "NeXT is really making a splash in launching SBC's [Swiss Bank Corporation] business in interest rate derivatives. . . . Solo's team wrote the application in three months, which is half the time it would have taken on a Sun workstation," he says. "I've never developed something so substantive in so little time." - Wall Street Computer Review, Volume 9, No. 1 (1991), p. 46. "A group of 20 derivatives product traders began testing the applications six weeks after Phibro signed its business contract with Steven Jobs of NeXT Computer, Inc." - Wall Street & Technology, March 1992, p. 65. "The strongest selling point for us is the NeXTstep development environment. It allows us to develop applications in roughly one-third the time. On a NeXT, you are encouraged, coddled, and brought quickly up what would otherwise be a difficult learning curve in making good use of OOP technique. This is possible because object-orientation isn't just a veneer on the programming environment. The heart and soul of the NeXT is object-oriented. This allowed our developers to become OOP experts with relatively little pain. The benefits are monumental. It is inconceivable to me that we would ever go back to the days of functional programming." - Hadar Pedhazur, Vice President, Equities Technology, Equity Derivative Products, UBS Securities, Inc., quoted in July 17, 1991 Open Systems Advisor. NeXT's Developer Camp, a five-day course in NeXTSTEP object-oriented development, has already trained thousands of commercial and corporate programmers. Sun's Claim: NeXT is oriented around a single developper [sic] building an application. Where are the tools for allowing multiple developers to coordinate their development efforts? How will the prototype scale to large applications implying multiple developers? The Facts: By modularizing code into reusable objects, programmers need only know the interface -- the messages -- that objects understand. This approach allows programmers to break big problems up among a team. In contrast to Sun's inferences in the above question, object-oriented systems are ideal for collaborative development among programming teams. NeXTSTEP projects in government, corporate sites, and professional software development companies (including Lotus and WordPerfect) usually do involve programming teams, some quite large. -- Dave Strout NeXT Programmer dstrout@next32.isnet.com <-- Should work... ....uunet!ihost!next32!dstrout <-- Else try this....