Re: NT sales don't doesn't matter

Eric, I don't want to burn any more list bandwidth on this. I'm a VMS user,
and I have a certain respect for what NT is -- a much better version of the
windows/dos combination which users want to run on their $1,000 pc (and the os
now is priced accordingly). You don't get GPF's on NT 4.0/sp3 very often, in my
experience. It's reliable; far more reliable than DOS, Win 3.x, win 95, win 98.

Is it ready as a prime-time server system? No, certainly not. However, even as
a file/print server, SNA server, Exchange server, RAS server, it works well. If
you do run multiple servers, with a single function (or not too many) on each
server, it works. The reason you need to split out server functionality is not
just NT's fault -- its the fr**gng hardware it runs on. Can you imaging buying
a $500 board and running SNA over it? You can, on a PC, and you can support
more users than the pipe coming out of it could handle; but what would you
expect, re quality, on the hardware you bought, and the driver that came with
it? I've run NT server for many months without need for a reboot, and I am
running on your basic pc hardware, nothing real fancy. Put it on a DEC Alpha
box, and you can run a year without a reboot -- the hardware is much better.
Regretably, I haven't seen this from IBM pcs.

And, let's not fault MS marketing. Who else else has managed to get away with
the mantra "Just Good enough is Great for our customers!". I admire the
ability of a Bill Gates to drive that into more than $50 billion of personal
wealth. Sure, its a crock, and eventually, MS will go the way IBM went (IBM
doesn't rule the world anymore, does it)? Just my 3 cents. Carl Friedberg,
carl@comets.com

><     IMO, MS marketing has done a wonderful job of deflecting awareness 
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---