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Path: digifix!not-for-mail From: Conrad_Geiger@NeXT.COM (Conrad Geiger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.announce Subject: Windows NT vs. NeXTSTEP Shootout Results Date: 14 Oct 1993 22:55:41 -0400 Organization: Next Announcements Lines: 387 Sender: sanguish@digifix.com Approved: sanguish@digifix.com Message-ID: <29l3fd$52h@digifix.digifix.com> Hello, Everyone has been asking how the recent NT vs. NeXTSTEP user group meeting went recently. Below are what some of the attendees (both PC User Group and NeXT User Group members) said about the Windows NT vs. NEXTSTEP Shootout that occurred at the Rocky Mountain NeXT User Group (Denver/Boulder, Colorado) meeting in late September. Every seat was taken for the event even though it was held on a Friday night! Conrad Geiger International NEXTSTEP User Group Program P.S. I would like to offer a special thanks to the Rocky Mountain NeXT User Group and to Timothy Miller of that group for helping to organize the event! ________________________________________________________________ Unedited PC User Group comments as recorded by the PC user group president Russ Louie: "We finally got to see visually what we've been hearing about in the media." "Very visually-oriented interfaces." "Looks like it (NeXT) is easy to program." "Beautiful development (NeXT) environment." "Disappointed that NeXT not portable to NT." "I like the tool bar down the side." "...from the presentation, it looks like NeXT is a development environment while NT is more a network environment. I don't see much overlap." "Didn't like NeXT's display of files. I like to see the hierarchy. I like the graphical look of Windows better." "It seems operating systems are looking more and more alike. One can learn one operating system and then apply 25-50% of that learned knowledge towards another." "Many thanks to the NeXT Users Group and John Stoddard for a look into the future of operating systems. Although the casual user is still trying to learn DOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1, it is obvious that one day they will need to learn NeXTSTEP, Windows NT or some hybrid of the two." _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Comments from rmNUG (Rocky Mountain NeXT User Group) members: Begin forwarded message: Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 08:33:11 -0600 From: "Barbara L. Dijker" <barb.dijker@labyrinth.com> Subject: Re: Feedback on NT vs. NEXTSTEP Shootout We had about 100 attendees. Guesses put the spread at 50/50 or 60/40 PC to NeXT folks. They were very receptive. Anyway, I think it was a great success. The PC group was very attentive and seemed open minded. I think many of them had _never_ seen NeXTSTEP before and were surprised that it appears to be a much easier to use (more intuitive) interface with features they never even dreamed of - like the seamless drag-dropping. The icing on the cake was the notion that the 16-bit Windows emulation on the NT is the _same_ code as SoftPC on NeXTSTEP. If Chris [Huston, rmnug-er who spoon fed questions to highlight areas not mentioned in the demo, like MABs] hadn't monopolized the questions, maybe we could have heard more of their real concerns - other than third-party apps. I hope you can also collect some feedback from the PC folks as well. I talked to their pres and he was quite happy with the turnout and how the program went. Unlike rmnug, their group is very non-technical ... Begin forwarded message: Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 00:21:29 -0600 From: jamie@schmendrick.rmnug.org (Jamie Krutz) Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT ...Billed as an NT vs. NEXTSTEP shootout, the evening was more of a love fest where strengths and weaknesses of each were calmly discussed. Due to limited time, only a quick view was given of each, with NEXTSTEP getting a somewhat more comprehensive overview. NT was revealed to be essentially MicroSoft's breakaway version of OS/2, rather than having much at all to do with MSWindows (not NT) beyond a similar look to the GUI. It was noted that both NT and NEXTSTEP use software emulation, from the same supplier, to run MSDOS/MSWindows applications. NEXTSTEP's interface and development strengths were highlighted, and NT's suitability for servers was discussed. Unlike NEXTSTEP, NT apps will have to be recompiled torun on different CPU architectures, but NT will initially support more CPUs. The presentation was well received by the IBM-PC clone user group, who are facing interesting OS choices these days. In passing, MSWindows (not NT) did not get much respect from anyone. Begin forward message Date: Sat, 2 Oct 93 16:36:48 -0600 From: Chris Huston <earth2!chris@rmnug.org> Subject: Re: Feedback on NT vs. NEXTSTEP Shootout ...I would like to see a more combative fire and brimstone presentations from both sides. Begin forward message Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 00:35:59 -0600 From: rlove@raptor.rmnug.org (Robert B. Love ) Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT There were plenty of "Oohs" and "Ahs" when the Interface Builder was demoed.... Begin forward message Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 10:08:54 -0700 From: perkins@spot.Colorado.EDU (Tyler Perkins) Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT Windows NT has a LONG way to go to compete with the friendliness and functionality of NEXTSTEP. Although some nice features were demonstrated regarding configuration and security, it seemed that much of NT has to do with solving problems that simply don't exist for the NEXTSTEP user. Clearly, NEXTSTEP is much better thought-out, being so well integrated from the ground up. NT on the other hand, has had many more constraints placed on its design. In the arenas of development and user-interface, of course, there is no contest -- NEXTSTEP! Begin forward message Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 10:37:46 -0600 From: leif@pattern.rmnug.org (Leif Smith) Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT Thanks for organizing the NS/NT show. I was amazed at the number of people who showed up. Seems like there is a lot of interest in high-end OS. Patrick Howlett, head of WhizBang Communications in Denver is about to start building NS capable PCs. He's building machines for OS/2 now but would like to concentrate on NS. He kept saying "phenomenal" to things shown in the NS demo. Begin forward message Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 11:26:06 -0600 From: Aaron Gordon <aaron@ouray.Mines.Colorado.EDU> Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT It seems like the event needed to be longer for both presentations. It would have been nice to highlight what each does better than the other. My overall impression (coming from the NeXTSTEP camp) is that NT is halfway there (DOS is not there at all and NeXTSTEP is almost all the way there). Begin forward message Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 14:44:46 -0600 From: "David R. File" <david@alembic.com> Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT My 2 CeNT's... ... NT is a very powerful product - if they would totally revamp the GUI, make it object-oriented & give it a real UN*X kernel - I just might consider using it. NT is geared for a different market than NS/FIP. Most Windows users will want to wait until Windows 4 (Chicago?). ... NT is great if you are an efficient Windows programmer, absolutely need 32-bit apps and have a Sequent server with multiple i486 chips. The only reason a typical Windows user would want to upgrade to NT: to stop the crashing. Begin forward message Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 08:37:05 -0700 From: karl@khaos.com (Karl Hanzel) Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT It really didn't come across as a "shootout"... no bullets were fired. If either gang came out looking better, it was probably NeXTStep with Brent as the gang leader, not just because he gave a really excellent demo, but also because the "opposition" gave us some great plugs/endorsements, both in their presentation as well as through the Q&A session that ensued. I would highly recommend that other NUG's consider staging a similar event... we may well win some favor! Begin forward message Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 00:27:24 -0700 From: jbuske@mountain.rmnug.org (Jeff Buske) Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT I would first like to say Job Well done!! I was very pleased with the attendance, your advertising paid off. Due to the very nature of Next Step One is hard pressed to cover any thing in a few minutes. I did feel that too much time was spent with programming, considering the audience. A box with sound would have been very help full. Considering the screen has a bit hard to see. Time spent showing off basic ease of use and consistent interface would have worked well. All and All the a good number were covered (taste). The NT chap got too deep into the guts of the machine for my taste. I work with the stuff all day I could care less what IRQ line the serial port is connected to. This is handy for figuring out how things are configured. The infinite number of cheap (un or poorly documented ) cards is the a major curse of the PC world. And will be a major source of trouble for NEXT and MS. With MS going after the server market, I'm not sure what this does for Joe computer user. Considering the user interface I'm not user MIS people will like to use it. The user interface of NT was in my opinion ugly, considering the number of good interfaces they had to study. The use of command,alternate and control keys that are not clearly documented and come from folk lore. Makes things very unintuitive, requires a memory of an elephant. I think both the PC and NeXT group benefited from the interchange. Well Done... Begin forward message Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT Reply-To: Karl.Sierka@Labyrinth.COM Return-Receipt-To: Karl.Sierka@Labyrinth.COM Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 07:37:51 -0600 It was off to late start, about 15 minutes late, mainly because I was late in getting there with the food. People were milling about and arriving late, too, and grabbing something to eat, such as cookies, water, or candy, on the way in the door. The PC users seemed very quite, almost subdued and were not mingling very much. The NeXT people were all over the place, talking about things, like they normally do. The room was packed. There were no seats left, and some people who arrived after the lights went down just sat along the aisle. The guy from Colorado Springs, Troy, sat next to me in the aisle, since I was sitting in a seat right on the aisle. The intro was from Tim Miller, the rmNUG club Treasurer, since he was mostly responsible for coming up with the idea, organizing and setting up the meeting. He talked about his work as an Open Systems Consultant, and gave us all a quick tour through some of the terminology used in the industry to describe what Open Systems are about. Then, the NeXT guy stepped in. This was the first I had ever heard of him, so I did not go up to him and say hi. I thought Tim Carlin was going to be there to do the NeXT side. His presentation went through some of the nice GUI and Multi-Media features of NeXTSTEP, demoed some of the Apps, talked about the seamless integration afforded by the consistent use of the AppKit by all applications, and then finished up with a short demo of the Interface Builder. Then, the NT guy stepped up to the plate. He mainly wanted to just answer questions, since he had no tour map in mind before he began speaking. He just sort of went into the GUI, we all saw how ugly it was, and then he started talking about the Systems Administration tools. Several questions came up concerning integration with other Unix machines, and the speaker threw in that it would integrate wonderfully and be compatible with everything that is out there in Microsoft land now, except that he did not mention Macintoshes. He said there were lots of 3'rd party programs that would be ported to it, including Interface Builders and such. He talked about some security issues, and mentioned that NT was certified C2 secure, and was pushing for the C1 rating. He said every software object inside it had Access Control Lists, and you could easily create groups and ACL's that would not allow anyone to look at anything. He said the NT was basically the same thing as NeXTSTEP, a 32 bit multi-tasking, object-oriented, message passing, micro kernel, with built-in support for linear, symmetric multi-processing. He said the kernel was the same thing, but it started from sources created by Microsoft, not Carnegie Mellon University. Ie, it did not come from a MACH 2.5 heritage, like NeXTSTEP and others. He said that Microsoft was trying to leverage NT into the server markets first, and I pointed out a rumor that they had just dropped the price of NT about 17 times for a 1000 machine license. I also pointed out that that sounded an awful lot like dumping to me. (I thought that was illegal in this country?) Several other questions were asked, including a question from me concerning the ease with which ISV's could write software that could be used in a networked environment, without having it be pirated. The implication of that question was asking whether NT would allow a network based, floating licensing to be implemented. The speaker was not sure what the answer was. He did mention that NT was a single-user operating system out-of-the-box, but that a third party had already found a way to implement remote logins via telnet to an NT machine. If it really was a single-user machine, then that would pretty much take care of the licensing issues, since the ISV's would know that their software could not be used by multiple users on the same machine, since each machine is a single user machine, just like a PC. A nice round of applause was handed to both speakers. After the talks, I asked the NT guy if the NT machine was doing Display Postscript on the screen, and he said it was not. Then, just before adjournment, we raffled off a NeXTSTEP developer evaluation kit for NT486, with the Book, CD, and everything.... It was very good meeting. Begin forward message Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 09:00:50 -0700 From: Wayne P. Rogers <rogers@togo.Colorado.EDU> Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT Thanks for setting up the NT-NEXTSTEP shootout. At least on a small local scale, it helped to inform PC users about NEXTSTEP. After seeing the demonstration of NT and listening to the somewhat cynical remarks by the NT speaker, the event made me much more optimistic about the future of NEXT.... Begin forward message Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 20:59:06 -0600 (MDT) From: Troy Weingart <troyw@csn> Subject: Re: NT vs. NEXTSTEP SHOOTOUT Great job! I really enjoyed the presentations. My overall feeling is that NeXT need not worry about MicroSoft. NT appears to have a good core (kernel), but the interface is still ugly and a kludge.
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.