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From: blenko@rochester.UUCP (Tom Blenko)
Newsgroups: net.arch,net.followup,net.micro
Subject: Re: AT&T vs. the toolkit approach
Message-ID: <7378@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Jun-84 22:27:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: rochester.7378
Posted: Tue Jun 12 22:27:09 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Jun-84 06:57:59 EDT
References: <77@mouton.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
Lines: 45


	I think that AT&T is responding to the marketplace - not the
	hacker marketplace, but the real world one they hope will buy
	their machines.

Where are all these real-world people? Apollo has some 2000 units in
the field. Sun has a couple of hundred, I would guess. How many of
these are give-aways? How many went to hackers of one sort or
another? How many are actually used by these application-oriented
people? Would you put up with Unix for $20K with only binaries,
even though you DO know something about it?

	Essentially, MSD*S comes with very few programs and as
	therefore quite cheap to license on a mass basis (I heard
	$8/CPU for lots of CPUs).  Everyone buying personal computers
	running MSD*S or equivalent then goes out and pays extra for
	the programs they really want.  I think AT&T is trying to
	structure their marketing the same way.

OK, if you believe AT&T wants the OEM market only (that's not what you
imply, or what I believe). Otherwise, Johny Smith, Inc. can port all
those Unix commands, and undersell AT&T any day of the week. And AT&T
also isn't prepared to ship lots of end-user-type application software.

I've worked for two companies that shipped Unix boxes, and this
approach was discussed at both. It was strictly a martketing scheme to
get a little sugar on top (or make the basic machine look cheaper,
however you like).

	In some ways this seems to be a sign of a willingness of AT&T
	to help it's System V resellers.  If only 3B's had System V
	then they could give away the software if you bought the
	machine.  However, if other companies port System V to other
	machines, then AT&T stands to gain more by not making it too
	expensive to put on those other machines, hence the MSD*S type
	strategy of buy what things you want.

If System V resellers aren't selling 3B's, just cheap AT&T (system)
software, how does AT&T make any money? AT&T certainly isn't going to
guarantee that their Unix commands will run on everyone else's
hardware.  And if AT&T is charging a bundle for the commands anyway,
why wouldn't the reseller port the commands herself, and take the
profits instead of handing them on to AT&T?

	Tom