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From: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.dec,comp.sys.hp,comp.sys.next.misc,comp.sys.sgi.misc,comp.sys.sun.misc,comp.unix.aix,comp.unix.aux,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.ultrix,comp.unix.xenix.misc,comp.unix.sys5.r4,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.mach,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Need information on computer marketplace
Date: 14 Apr 1993 22:44:37 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 109
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <1qi44l$7bg@lll-winken.llnl.gov>
NNTP-Posting-Host: gauss.llnl.gov
Summary: Gathering information for talk on the future of UNIX
Keywords: Future of UNIX, POSIX, OSF, Mach, Windows NT
Hi,
Sorry for the very large cross posting here. I'm doing some research
on a presentation I'm going to make on the future of UNIX at a workshop
at the end of this month. I would be very greatful for any information
people can give me or point me at regarding the attached questions.
Please email me directly and I will summarize my results by mailing my
presentation to all who ask for it. Since my presentation will be on
either the 22nd or 23rd of April, I won't be able to post it until
afterwards.
Also, if you feel that it would be more appropriate for me to post my
presentation, please tell me. If I get enough requests, I'll post it to
the same news groups.
Finally, I know that I'm asking a lot and I won't blame you if you feel
that I need flaming my hubris. However, I'll be very greatful for any
help you can offer. Thanks for your time and help!!
Casey
-----
All questions are requests for worldwide numbers unless otherwise
stated. However, if you have American numbers, or some other geographic
market, I'm still interested and will try to use such numbers to
construct a minimum worldwide market estimate.
OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS:
====================
The following questions are designed to try to determine what the
current small to medium computer hardware market looks. I.e. what
hardware is out there being used.
1. How many 386 and 486 IBM PC and clones are in use in the market?
This includes any operating system and all home, business and
research systems.
2. How many Macintosh II class and better machines are in use? This
includes any operating system and all home, business and research
systems.
3. How many ``UNIX systems'' are in use? This includes all
traditional monolithic BSD, Mach, SysV, etc. based systems, but
shouldn't include UNIX running on IBM PC compatible or Macintosh
systems. This includes all home, business and research systems.
The following questions are designed to try to determine the
demographics of useage for the above systems.
4. How many of the above systems are being used in technical research?
a. Operating system research?
b. General computer science research?
c. General scientific research?
5. How many of the above systems are being used in hard real-time
production uses?
6. How many of the above systems are being used in business?
7. How many of the above systems are being used in the home?
SUBJECTIVE QUESTIONS:
=====================
The following questions are designed to try to determine which markets
some of the various operating systems may be able to penetrate.
Please provide your opinion on these questions for any operating
system you think is relevant. (Yes, I know that's rather open ended,
but this is the subjective section after all. :-))
8. What is the ``cost'' of the operating system?
a. Its purchase and upgrade price/year?
b. The amount of time necessary to install and maintain it?
9. How ``useful'' is the operating system for research?
a. Operating system and OS related research? (i.e. the OS
must be ``modified'' or extended in some manner to
accomplish the research. If you claim that this can be
done with dynamically loaded OS modules or user-level
tasks in a micro-kernel OS, that's fine.)
b. General computer science research?
c. General scientific research?
10. How ``useful'' is the operating system for hard real-time production
uses?
11. How ``useful'' is the operating system for business?
a. Electronic communication: email, graphics, animations,
sound, teleconferencing, etc.
b. Document preparation: WYSWIG editing, multimedia,
hypertext, collaborative development, etc.
12. How ``useful'' is the operating system for home use? (Writing,
paying bills, education, kid's homework, entertainment, etc.)