FLAME Concerning Apple's pricing of A/UX 2.0.

[Tim Endres]

FLAME ON

Apple, once again, has a marketing department with its head up
its collective asshole! Their recent pricing of A/UX 2.0 is an
obvious gouge, attempting to recoup development efforts.

We have been developing for two years now, a full communications
system which will revolutionize the typesetting industry. We have
a system by which people click a mouse button, and their entire
typesetting job, full specification and shipping instructions
included, is piped via high speed modems to the typesetter. There,
it is automatically spooled and typeset, and then shipped with an
invoice and shipper that are printed automatically.

The heart of the system is a UNIX based CPU which receives the
incoming data, and spools to the printers, and performs administrative
funcitons. We have, for obvious reasons, been focusing our development
on A/UX, and until recently thought this is the system we would ship.

We spent months getting the pricing of our product to be competitive.
We are competing with products based on 386 technology.
Our pricing was based on being able to bundle A/UX for under $250.
Now we find out that A/UX 2.0 is $800 minimum, and Apple has no
alternative.
No "binary only" pricing.
No "limited user" pricing.
No "quantity" pricing.
No "VAR" arrangement pricing.
NOTHING!!!

We are now priced uncompetitively. We were paying a premium for
requiring Apple Hardware (ever price a MacIIx against a 386?).
We are now redisinging the system to run on Sun's Sparc SLC!
Gees, you mean I can pay $6000 for a 2MIPS box running an
out of date SystemV, or pay $5000 for a 12MIPS box running
BSD 4.3? And get real support?!

If Apple does not get this one figured out, they can forget
ever making A/UX a viable platform, since no developer in
their right mind will want to add $800 to their product in
exchange for basically being able to run the Finder!

I am afraid that John Gilmore's observations of a year ago
continue to bare true within Apple's A/UX market thinking.

Developers! BEWARE OF A/UX 2.0!
Apple can not support it, they can not price it, they will not
sell it! And your product will sink along with its sales!

FLAME OFF

Tim Endres.
Number One Graphics
East Lansing, MI.