Risc System/6000

[Shawn Hayes]

In article <1990Mar10.174015.16644 at sun.soe.clarkson.edu> abstine at image.soe.clarkson.edu (Arthur Stine) writes:
>From article <1443 at ks.UUCP>, by drake at sd2.almaden.ibm.com (Sam Drake):
>> In article <1990Mar9.015943.4351 at world.std.com> madd at world.std.com (jim frost) writes:
>> 
>>>Yep, but my sparcstation 1 worked right out of the box and hasn't
>>>crashed yet.
>> 
>> Hey, that one's hardly fair ... if you have a 6000 at all, today, you 
>> 
> It seems
>like a typical IBM tactic to pre-annonounce their machines in order to try
>to get some market share. Well, in the workstation market, I would predict that
>if a customer is looking at some machines, and he looks at DEC, Sun, HP, and
>IBM, the IBM wouldn't be the one he would pick right now because the
>machines that he can actually get his hands on are 'flaky'. Making bold
>promises like 'oh, it is a pre-release machine. it will be much better when
>
>
>-- 
>Art Stine
>Sr Network Engineer
>Clarkson U
>ABStine at CLVMS.Clarkson.Edu


You would be wrong in at least one case if you think people won't buy a 
pre-release machine.  My department is looking very hard at the RS 6000 for
our next generation product.  If we didn't have a machine to look at now, it
would be very unlikely that we would use it.  However, since IBM did as many
companies do, and let us see a pre-release version, we can make some hard
decisions based on the performance that we see now, and the price that they've
listed.  This has been standard practice with HP and other companies.  After
all if you're going to spend enough money any company would be foolish not
to let you see the latest hardware, even if it isn't completely finished.  I
think we're all smart enough to understand that bugs may still exist if the
product is over a month from going on sale.  NOTICE!!  It's not available
for purchase until April 29!!  IBM is giving people a chance to see the
machine to generate interest, but it also helps the people who need a machine
with the power/price ratio that the RS 6000 family represents.  (Yes, I am
pleased with what I've seen so far.  I understand the beta-test concept)

                                                        Shawn Hayes