what machines will Sun be announcing

[Steve C. Simmons]

eli at ursa-major.spdcc.com (Steve Elias) writes:
>we've been stalling our impending purchases of more workstations... 
>heard about an April announcement...  it would be fabulous if they would
>announce swift new stuff in February, as well.

Chuckle.  Your note is a good reason why computer manufacturers try to
keep down the long-term announcements.  If Sun announced a $4000 68030
workstation today for delivery in June, what would happen to 3/50 and 3/60
sales?  Down the toilet, that's what.  Note that long preannouncements
were a major contributor to Kaypro's downfall.

Long pre-announcements are also very risky to ones credibility.  If you
announce a machine 6 months before scheduled delivery from development,
you have a high risk of being late.  If you announce one month, you're
pretty safe.  How would you feel putting off your Feb purchases for a July
machine that doesn't materialize until December?  More or less p-o'ed than
buying in Feb and seeing the announcement in November?  in June?  There's
no perfect answer, only hard choices.

Finally, long pre-announcements are a classic IBM technique to keep users
hanging onto one vendor.  By promising the moon next year, many buyers
hang onto their existing equipment rather than switch to a competitor.  Is
this good or bad?  IBM gets flamed and sometimes even sued by customers
and competitors over doing this.

Steve Simmons		          scs at vax3.iti.org
Industrial Technology Institute     Ann Arbor, MI.