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- Xref: sparky comp.unix.sysv386:17709 comp.unix.sys5.r4:1177
- Path: sparky!uunet!utcsri!utgpu!attcan!telly!evan
- From: evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch)
- Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.unix.sys5.r4
- Subject: Re: It's Time for a Shakedown (was Re: A few answers to Dell Unix FAQ)
- Message-ID: <2B4DA665.25B@telly.on.ca>
- Date: 8 Jan 93 16:05:55 GMT
- References: <6185@sixhub.UUCP> <2B4A5D07.3C71@telly.on.ca> <1993Jan6.143644.25001@crd.ge.com>
- Organization: Somewhere just far enough out of Toronto
- Lines: 96
-
- In article <1993Jan6.143644.25001@crd.ge.com>
- davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
-
- >I wrote:
-
- >| - The most current USL release
- >| - As much third-party hardware and software as possible
- >| - Reasonable prices
- >| - Reasonable VAR/reseller support
- >| - Reasonable end-user support
- >| - Stability and certainty based on past performance and future direction.
-
- >| Not one of the players so far supports more than two of the above
- >| criteria. Each has their own little niche, while none has even bothered
- >| to address the full job.
-
- >That's the bad thing about capatalism, consumers have to make choices.
- >And they have chosen to support all of the vendors, each picking the one
- >who provides the best mix of features.
-
- No they haven't. The vast bulk of consumers has made the choice of
- "none of the above".
-
- That's what I want to change.
-
- >| A single company doing all the business of the existing
- >| R4 vendors *might* have the clout and installed base to provide the
- >| resources necessary to being all of the above features I mentioned into
- >| a single, stable company.
-
- > This seems highly at variance to your next staement.
-
- >| [Univel's] product is pricey [...]
-
- Univel is far from perfect. To its credit, the company has developed a
- entry-level desktop version that will probably have a street price of
- about $375US, which is less than anything available based on AT&T/USL
- code.
-
- The server is certainly pricey, compared to some of the other offerings
- (hell, *anything's* pricey compared to Linux :-), but it's not far off
- SCO's prices. Still, I believe that the company will have to become more
- aggressive in its pricing (or talk to its parent companies about dropping
- prices for 4.2 licenses).
-
- > It sounds like reasonable price has just become optional.
-
- Not really. I'm not advocating a total monopoly. SCO and Solaris will
- still be there, not to mention NT and OS/2. There will be plenty of
- competition, including price competition, from all of these.
-
- Right now, there are just too many R4 companies with teeny-tiny differences
- between them and absolutely no marketing clout 'cause they can play in
- the big leagues. I don't mind two or three R4 vendors. But our curreent
- state of more than a half-dozen vendors is just too much.
-
- >Someone told me the server license was $20k, but I
- >hope that's source, since I can't imagine anyone paying it otherwise.
-
- The Univel server is $2500 *list*. Dealers (like us) will definitely
- sell for less than list.
-
- >If USL drops the runtime+net price of UNIX to <$100 they will start
- >selling in volume. At current prices you don't get people buying UNIX to
- >try it, they only buy it because they need it.
-
- Anyone that just wants to try UNIX won't go USL anyway, they'll go Linux
- or BSD or Minix or Coherent. There are lots of real cheap options if
- experimentation is all that's of interest.
-
- Since the low end is covered by all these guys there's no reason for
- Univel to start a fire sale. Part of Univel's higher price, no doubt, is
- for marketing that will indeed attempt to convince people that they need
- it :-).
-
- When was the last time anyone can remember that an R4 vendor placed an
- ad in a non-UNIX computer magazine? Even one?
-
- My premise here is that the comptetition/choice issue is now larger than
- "this R4 versus that R4", it's "UNIX versus NT" or "R4 UNIX versus Solaris
- and SCO", and that requires companies with at least a fighting chance of
- taking on SCO, Sun and Microsoft in the marketing trenches.
-
- The current R4 vendors have had many years to recognize this, and could
- have pooled resources to form an Intel equivalent to 88open. It is now
- too late for that.
-
- There is a window of opportunity provided by the delays in NT and the
- fighting between Microsoft and IBM. I believe that the R4 industry needs
- larger and more aggressive players (which, to me, means fewer players)
- if it is to take advantage of this window.
-
- --
- Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
- evan@telly.on.ca / uunet!utzoo!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504
- What's with all this multimedia stuff? Most vendors can't get *one* done right.
-