CompuServe Messages

Ben, While I respect your opinion (hmmm, gotta move this thread to Soapbox), it is filtered through your marketplace, products, and experience. For example … The company I work for, C4 Imaging Systems, does not have an NT or a Win31 or a Win95 product. We do have products that are NeXTStep based, Solaris based (front ended by Mac 8500s), and (for sale mostly in Germany) DOS based. Last month we sold 30 units of our NeXTStep product. We didn't sell 1 NT product (because we don't have one and there has been no demand for one). You say "30? Big deal" … well, the package goes for $200k a pop. It all comes down to market. If you're selling shrink wrap product, the mass market OS/hardware is what will sell. If you are selling turnkey solutions, the OS/hardware makes no difference as long as it gets the job done. NeXTStep has fantastic development tools (and Objective C is a h*ll of a lot nicer to use than C++). Whether the BeBox, the new Amiga, or any other product will succeed in the marketplace can't be predicted accurately from either your experience or mine. MicroSoft (with Cairo) is moving to where NeXTStep has been for years (distributed objects) and where Be, Inc. says they are now (objected oriented OS). Microsoft is, as usual, playing catchup. They sell shrink wrap well … that doesn't mean that no one else can compete and succeed. -Steve Ahlstrom