What differentiates a Workstation from a PC?

[Kemp at DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL]

Greg Kemnitz writes:
 > Software for personal computers (MS-DOS machines, Macs, Amigas) tends
 > to cost generally less than one thousand dollars for all but the most
 > super-duper special puropse software.  However, virtually everything for
 > 'workstations' is atrociously expensive in comparison, if the software
 > exists at all.

Well, yes and no.  Software pricing is pretty arbitrary, related more to
what the market will bear than anything else.  For example, Access
Technology's 20/20 spreadsheet costs:

    $500  - IBM PC
    $600  - Sun-3, 386i, SPARC
    $600  - Xenix Single user
   $1200  - Xenix Multi user
   $4550  - VMS, VAX 750
  $42000  - VMS, VAX 8978

and Wolfram Research's Mathematica costs:

    $495  - Macintosh
    $795  - Macintosh with numeric coprocessor
    $695  - MS/DOS
    $995  - MS/DOS with 387 coprocessor
   $1295  - MS/DOS with Weitek coprocessor
   $1800  - Sun-3
   $2400  - Sun-4, 386i
   $8600  - VAX 750
  $42000  - VAX 88xx, 8974
 $240000  - Cray 2, Y-MP

Anyone who thinks these numbers are related to amortizing development
costs over units sold is dreaming.  Nonetheless, as what we think of as
"workstations" become more numerous, software prices will come down.  In
any case, I wouldn't call $600 for a Sun spreadsheet, or $995 for the
SunWrite, SunPaint and SunDraw package "atrocious", but I would call
Wolfram's $2400 for Sun Mathematica opportunistic price gouging.

As for software availability, sure you can only get Cricket Graph on the
Mac, but how many medical imaging packages can you buy for PC's.  It all
depends on what you want to do.  Someone said that the difference
between workstations and PCs was snob appeal.  Well if all you want to
do is spreadsheets, flight simulators, memos and email, and you buy a
workstation, then you are doing it for snob appeal.  But as Barry Shein
pointed out, some of us use workstations at work, and have grown
accustomed to the power of networked, multi-user computing.


Jeffrey Kegler writes:
 > 3) Prices.  When I want to find the cost of an add-on, I check
 > the ads in PC Magazine, etc.  Sun's price list is secret.  You wonder
 > why? (I hereby challeng Sun to allow its current price list to be
 > posted to the net.  No unauthorized posting please.  Let's argue facts
 > here.  Show me I'm wrong.)

This is ludicrous.  C'mon, Jeffrey, you think because Sun doesn't
advertise in the back of PC Magazine (or Byte) that it's price list is
secret???  I hope nobody posts it to the net, because the "Sun
Microsystems US Price List (End User and OEM Version)" was 40-50 pages
long, last time I looked.  In fact, because of the proliferation of new
products, Scott McNealy (Sun's president) recently quipped that Apple
has Sun beat on "revenue per pound of price list".  If you want a copy,
just walk in and ask for one.


John Nagle writes:
 > The real difference, at this point, is the distribution channel.

Yes.

When Sparcstation clones are sold at Computerland, I will be happy to
call them PCs, but I will still make a distinction between IBM
compatible 386 machines and Sun compatible SPARC machines.  The former
are the top of a line that runs up from the 8088, the latter are the
bottom of a line that goes up from desktop workstations to 20-30 MIPS
deskside workstations to 50-100 MIPS compute servers to the Prisma 200
MIPS mini-supercomputer, all of which will run the same applications
software.

If you want to look at current high end personal machines, pick up a
copy of MIPS Magazine "the magazine for 3 MIPS and up machines" (or
something like that).  The September 1989 issue compares a 33 MHz 386 PC
to the Sun Sparcstation, and finds, not surprisingly, that the
Sparcstation is faster and cheaper.

   Dave Kemp <Kemp at dockmaster.ncsc.mil> .