3/50 --> 3/60 upgrade versus NeXT purchase

[Jonathan D. Trudel]

>Comments: Sun has a clear advantage over NeXT ...

>However, for
>those of you who don't mind rhetorical questions, let me pose one: If you
>were a university customer whose h/w and s/w needs could be met by either
>a NeXT purchase or a Sun upgrade, which package would you choose?

Well, since all of our suns have dimples (too cute to upgrade? :-) we can
only consider getting a NeXT and upgrading the memory of our 3/50's.  I
think that a lot of people are holding off on making any sort of decision
like the one you suggest because so much is going to happen this year as
far as Sun and NeXT are concerned.  To make a decision now would be
without value for this reason.

However, I and a lot of other people will probably take exception with the
method of your comparison assumptions.  You don't use comparable systems -
the NeXT has its optical drive (with a SCSI crontroller ?), and the 3/50
you chose does not include the price of a disk subsystem.  You should
include these when doing your comparison.

>Assumptions:

>1) Cost of a bottom end NeXT:	$6500 price to university computer store
>				$1300 20% markup (purely hypothetical)
>				$7800 total cost to university department

Purely Hypothetical?  Is that in order to skew the results?  I don't see
valid reason to add this amount.

			3/60 upgrade	NeXT
>Cost			$4655?		$7800?

If you subtract the price of the optical drive (I'll guess $1000), and
subtract the $1300 price markup, the Next's price for a system similar to
a bare-bones 3/60 is more like $5500, not $7800 as you suggest.

I'm still unconvinced one way or the other, though...