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From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger)
Subject: Re: Amiga OS *IS* state of the art, but the NeXT is better
In-Reply-To: greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu's message of 5 Apr 91 08:54:19 GMT
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Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 17:46:00 GMT
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In article <46749@ut-emx.uucp> greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) writes:


   Sales figures, profits, etc.  Such things are important to developers.  They
   have to know what to expect when they go to market.

   You see, keeping such data secret allows Steve Jobs to ignore the fact that
   NeXT isn't making any profits, nor have they ever done so.  It allows him to
   pull his creditor's chains just a bit longer.  It allows him to talk companies
   (with a bit o'the green in his hands) into developing, promising them many
   returns for their time invester.

   Steve Jobs' whole marketing strategy is based on secrecy and dishonesty.  You
   want an example?  Ok.  Consider the big educational discount hype.  Ol' Steve
   is trying to sell a crippled system (only 105MB drive, no compiler, no man
   pages, Mathematica's gone, Lotus is gone -- you get the license for the
   compiler and the man pages but you're SOL until you invest in another drive)
   as the perfect student's machine.  WHAT?!?!  In addition, the average student
   doesn't have internet access (ask most college students if they know what the
   internet IS) so the only software they can get is commercial and EXPEN$IVE!


Let's consider the big educational discount.  A 68040(has FPU built
in) machine with a 105MB hard drive, 8MB of RAM, a DSP, , a 2.88MB
floppy drive, a 17" 92dpi monochrome monitor(2 bit gray scale) with
only part of the software installed.  What kind of Mac could you get
for that price($3300)?  Of course we aren't interested in the Mac
here.  I think $3300 will buy you a 105MB 25MHz Amiga 3000(how much
RAM?  -- with Unix?).  8MB of RAM and a 105MB hard drive is not
optimal, but it is quite usable.  How much space do you have free on
your hard disk? 

You can get software from friends or a local users group, if one
exists.  How did Amiga users deal with this when the Amiga was first
released?

-Mike

BTW: Lotus Improv was shipped free to users who bought their machines
before March 31.  It wasn't included on the HD.

