Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!fernwood!asylum!langz From: langz@asylum.SF.CA.US (Lang Zerner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NeXT Policy Message-ID: <5831@asylum.SF.CA.US> Date: 29 Sep 89 22:23:43 GMT References: <5572@tank.uchicago.edu> Reply-To: langz@asylum.UUCP (Lang Zerner) Organization: The Great Escape, Inc Lines: 32 In article <5572@tank.uchicago.edu> phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: >[...kudos to next re: their egalitarian approach to warranty service] > >My one gripe is that (students listen) a one-year extended warranty >is reputed to cost about $900. This is an awful lot for one of NeXT's >target customers (students). If you have been following NeXT's actions in the marketing and development areas and still believe that students are still NeXT's primary market, well, you aren't playing close attention. What vendors has NeXT signed on to develop for the cube since the original announcement (this would rule out, say, Wolfram)? Lotus, Frame, etc. -- the roster reads like the MS-DOS and Sun top 30 list (except for Microsoft. Heh). Point is, if NeXT is stressing business applications primarily, then businesses are a primary target. If they are not stressing academic/research applications primarily, then academia is not a primary target (would-be flamers note: I did *not* say that academia is not a target, just that it doesn't appear to be a primary one). >Failure to give long or cheap warranties clearly signals that NeXT does not >believe its hardware is reliable to new buyers. I don't know how long the standard NeXT warranty is, but if it is 90 days or more, it is plenty long. And, student financial hardships notwithstanding, $900 is not much to pay for a year's service contract. Businesses and research labs both pay ten-fold that amount for similar service on many similar systems. -- Be seeing you... --Lang Zerner langz@asylum.sf.ca.us UUCP:bionet!asylum!langz ARPA:langz@athena.mit.edu "...and every morning we had to go and LICK the road clean with our TONGUES!"