Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!nntp.coast.net!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!cph-1.news.DK.net!dkuug!dknet!usenet
From: "Kim G. Frei" <kimf@avs.uniras.dk>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 14:10:55 +0200
Organization: AVS/UNIRAS A/S
Lines: 46
Message-ID: <3180BD4F.41C6@avs.uniras.dk>
References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <yfgbuktfn1w.fsf@time.cdrom.com> <4l89ov$g5i@river.biddeford.com> <31784FD9.28AA98F6@lambert.org> <4lmdpp$qg4@river.biddeford.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ask.uniras.dk
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (X11; I; IRIX 5.3 IP22)
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22455 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:862 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3547 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3406 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:18260 comp.os.linux.advocacy:47271
george p swanton wrote:
>
> In article <31784FD9.28AA98F6@lambert.org>,
> Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> wrote:
> >george p swanton wrote:
> >
> >[ ... ]
> >] [...] Operating systems dont 'sell', applications do.
>
> >Stop there. Not to be obtuse, but if that's the case, why does
> >Microsoft advertise Windows 95 and Windows NT at all?
>
> Because they hyped the bleep out of NT and it more or less
> just lay there? NT is technically superior to WfWG/W3.1/W95 but
> people weren't willing to pay for 'just' technical superiority.
Actually, what I hear is that people chose the Wintel conglomerate
over one of the UNIX workstations *and* over Intel/Unix because the
pricing on application software. So Terry is right when he says that
people are not willing to pay the price just to get something
technically better. It looks like Microsoft shot their own foot with
the announcement of NT and '95 so close to each other. Hi Hi.
Also, pricing may be the reason that NT for other platforms don't take
off. I feel with those guys who abandoned the Unix workstation market
to reap the NT Alpha, Mips, PowerPC, whatever market. Many of them had
very very rude things to say about Unix when they joined the holy
NT caravan, so how are they going to return to that market?
What makes it even more fun is the latest development of software
pricing seen in Linux Journal. All the proprietary Unixes are, say,
$395 pr. application, Win* around $295 and Linux typicaly $195. Now,
I'm really looking forward to see people abandon Win* in favor of
Linux 'cause it's cheaper ;-)
[snip]
>
> gps
-kim
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Kim Frei Tel: +45 45 99 95 99 AVS/UNIRAS A/S
kimf@avs.uniras.dk Fax: +45 45 99 95 00 Blokken 15
DK-3460 Birkerod
Opinions are mine(TM) Denmark