This is NeXTs-Window-of-Opportunity-(was:-The-next-NeXT-CPU in view mode; [Up]
Date: Sun 02-Oct-1991 22:25:53 From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) Subject: NeXT's Window of Opportunity (was: Re: The next NeXT CPU <1991Sep30.215856.4488@kithrup.COM> <1991Oct2.215009.27278@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> In article <1991Oct2.215009.27278@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> songer@ei.ecn.purdue.edu (Christopher M Songer) writes: Hence the comparison of the AMD chip with the R4000. Now would be a bad time for Next to make a processor switch. The future of too many chips is in question. Let's face it, ACE sounds good, but it is still vapor. The 88K is questionable. The 040 runs the OS at reasonable speed. You don't buy a Next for the hardware, you buy it for the software. I hope NeXT can avoid this attitude that Apple has. I want great hardware as well as great software. Now is the time for NeXT to move to RISC. It will give them a more competitive price/performance ratio. Apple will have 040 machines this month, and Radius is making a multiprocessor 040 board for the Mac that will ship early next year. NeXT has a chance to make it big if they compete with the workstation vendors in price/performance and with Apple in system software. Their "window of opportunity" begins today and ends when either Apple/IBM releases their Pink machine, Sun has enough mips in a CPU to make X Windows behave like a Mac, or Windows NT runs on the MIPS R4000 or 586(whichever comes first). NeXT will make more of an impact on the industry if they move while the "window" is still wide open. Btw, quite a few people buy the NeXT because it has more powerful hardware than an equivalently priced Macintosh. -Mike
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.