NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/sys/next/advocacy/3444

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-23 | 5.4 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!optilink!brad
From: [e-mail] (Brad Yearwood)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: the REAL problem is...
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 23 Dec 92 09:37:35 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA
Lines: 88

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gavin Bowie) writes:
> > The NeXT has and continues to have excellent potential.  But the
> > problem is that potential is all it has.  Unless some big apps come out
> > for the NeXT (or some fast, and very much needed, relief via software,
> > for example, Microsoft Word or Excel on the NeXT), or something happens
> > to get a lot of people into the NeXT, it will become another has-been
> > with a good idea.
>
> YES, but even if Word/Excel come out as NeXTApps, why should I purchase a
> NeXT to run them?
>
> NeXT needs something that will make it worth buying.
>
> So far, the GUI and NeXTMail is what I see as the NeXT's ONLY Advantage.
> What can a NeXT do that another platform won't (easily) do
> and WHY do I need it?
> and WHY should I buy 200 of them to give to everyone in my office?
>
> ps I dont give a damn about development.
>  Unless someone (else) is doing it FOR ME, making an app that I can either
>  Use or Sell.

To the extent that InterfaceBuilder, the rich application kit class library,
and the elegance of Objective-C to glue it all together make an application
programmer's life more productive, then NeXTstep can make an organization more
productive.  That is NeXT's advantage in what they have taken to calling
"mission-critical applications".  (I'm not fond of this particular term,
because it smells badly of MIL-STD-2167A, but has nothing to do with it.)

Many organizations these days employ large numbers of people transliterating
between a customer on a telephone, and a computer terminal fronting a large
information system.  As market demands change, and as new services arise,
the responsiveness of application developers is key to allowing a company
to bring information and services products to market quickly.

If application developers are given very powerful tools for GUI construction
and database access, then they might be able to spend more time on making
the information system flexible and responsive, and less time on the
rudiments of retrieving some data and painting it on the screen.  They
can then spend some time on electronic data interchange to reduce the
number of layers of phone/computer terminal transliteration required to
build whatever the customer just ordered.

I understand that the company handling administration for our 401(k) plan
is installing a couple of dozen NeXT systems.  They've either been hornswoggled
by a bunch of starry-eyed techies, or they think black is a really cool color
and will pay any amount to have black machines, or they recognize that one
of the principal values of their type of business is a good information system,
which is nicer if it can be delivered onto the same screen as an OK intra-
office mail package, some general desk aids, and something to write letters
with.

A real problem in market penetration for any significant new system is that
various big-seller applications have become de-facto standards, as have
their (proprietary) file formats.  If I am to submit a document to the
controlled-state engineering documents system here, it must be a MS Word for
Mac file.  Fortunately, due to the fine efforts of the people at ARDI, I
can run MS Word for Mac directly on my fast, well-networked, Webster'd, big-
screened, virus-free NeXT while a compile is running in another window,
while other people slave away in front of tiny-screened, slow, virus-infested,
molasses-in-January-disked, dribblenetted Quackintoshes.

Unfortunately, most people are not willing to pay $6-7K for a computer
for general office support.  I was hoping that the last Expo would bring
a $3300 system, because that's where the price/performance numbers needed
to fall a year ago, and that's about the most I can see anyone being willing
to spend for this sort of seat.  Instead, NeXT raised the ante by around $1K,
raised the performance by a modest amount, and kept the same suicidal list-
price small quantity commercial end user distribution strategy.  That's the
way a lot of us buy systems: one at a time, as we hire people.  No spectacular
mother lode deals - just sustained incremental business.

Meanwhile, Sun and the Sparc cloners have put up a strong price/performance
challenge on the Unix workstation front if you can stomach a certain amount
of heavy handed caprice in your software planning, Macintoaster prices are
lower, 486 clones are flowing in rivers-full, most of their brainistors
destined to waste idly away running Windows, SUNovellix promises to add
entirely new dimensions of fear, uncertainty, doubt, and general hype with
the introduction of Brougham Ghia Opera Classic System V Release 4 Version 3
Wegotcha 2 Bytheshortones 1 Luser 0 Desktop Blastoff Edition, fine Corinthian
leather binding option $1495, and Chairman Bill appears to be very eager to
bestow NT upon any junkyard dog masquerading as a developer who can come up
with a clunker clone, a CD-ROM drive, and a couple of hundred spare bucks.

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

Brad Yearwood   [e-mail]    {uunet, pyramid}!optilink!brad
Petaluma, CA