Risc System/6000

[dcm]

In article <10307 at hoptoad.uucp> gnu at hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
>
>I like the way they adopted the Sun Marketing naming convention
>(SPARCstations and SPARCservers).

	Who knows?  Maybe someone at Sun heard about the new IBM
	machines and thought "what a great naming convention!" :-)

>>                          . . . a complete system starting at $12,995.
>
>Including OS and window system?  Manuals?  Ethernet?  Compilers?  In
>the original RT/PC announcement a few years ago, the lowball price
>didn't even include a keyboard or monitor, which cost $thousands!  One

	Have anyone seen a pricelist yet?  Does anyone know what
	the minimal configuration includes?  I don't...
	
	The nice thing about packaging is that it gives customers
	complete flexibility about what they get. The other option,
	which some computer manufacturers have taken advantage of,
	is to charge $X over the 'minimal configuration' and include
	the world, thereby forcing each and every customer to pay the
	$X regardless of what they want.  Which way is better?  Hell,
	I don't know.  I personally like the packaging.  As long as
	it's easy to get the packages I need and they're affordable,
	who needs *everything*?  Not every customer...

>analysis showed that if Sun had charged as much for Unix as IBM, they
>could've thrown in the workstation for free!

	Well, as everyone has pointed out, the RT was probably a flop.
	IBM is at least attempting to learn from their mistakes and do
	it better this time.  I can tell you they're serious about it.
	All we ever hear around here is "got to be better than the RT in
	every way".  I'm almost getting sick and tired of hearing it.
	It *is* a major consideration.

>Also, one breakdown I saw was that this system only has four slots --
>and all of them are in use.  No expandability.

	What are the four slots being used for in the configuration
	you saw?

>>               Documentation is available on a 5.25-inch compact disc
>> (CD-ROM) that may be accessed from the user's POWERstation or from a
>> network POWERserver.
>
>At extra cost

	I'm pretty sure they'll have on-line man pages too.  I don't
	think they'll force you to buy the CD-ROM to run 'man'.

>
>> IBM announced industry-leading graphical user interfaces . . .
>> available as separate licensed programs.  Customers can choose the
>> interface most applicable to their environments.
>
>At extra cost

	Well, at least the customer can *choose* their interface.
	They're not forced to pay for one(s) they don't want.

>
>>           IBM announced a one-year warranty that includes 24-hour,
>> seven-day-a-week availability of hardware service.  Full software
>> service is included in the license charge.
>
>License charge?  For a warranty?  Oh, I get it!  If you buy the Unix
>from them, you are forced to buy full software support for it!

	The way I read this paragraph is "the AIXV3 license charge will
	include full software service".  I'm not sure about the hardware
	service.  I imagine they'll do what everyone does:  offer a
	service contract.
 
>I heard from a usually reliable source that there are TWO people
>in the Bay Area who are trained to configure and repair these machines.
>That's a "significant increase" from last year, when there were NONE!

	Then again, the RS/6000 isn't being released in volume yet.  Give
	them a chance to get service people in place around the country.
	They're smart enough to know that service is very important.
	Possibly important enough to make or break the product.

>> IBM also announced SystemXtra for the RISC System/6000 family, a fee
>> service . . . . . . . . . . . .  total service solution . . .
>
>At extra cost.

	Don't most computer manufacturers offer a service program at a
	cost?  Or are they all free?

>John Gilmore      {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu      gnu at toad.com


	My point was not to stick up for IBM (or bash John).  At this point,
	I have nothing to gain from the success/failure of the RS/6000.
	I think we should wait and see how it turns out.  Maybe IBM did
	learn something from the RT experience.  Maybe not.  If it flops,
	then bash all you want.  I'll join you!
	
	But at least give them a chance...

		Craig Miller

p.s.	obviously, I'm not a spokesman for IBM.  Anything I said is IMHO.
--------
	Craig Miller
	contractor @ IBM Austin
	UUCP: ..!cs.utexas.edu!ibmaus!auschs!toysrus.austin.ibm.com!dcm
	"I don't believe in .signatures."