My 2c: there could be a market for corporate net pc for
the vast majority of office workers who arent doing anything
serious with their computer (not graphics, numbercrunching etc.)
The trend these days is for every office dsk to have a computer
on it, for simple things. Thats incredibly expensive to maintain.
Now (sorry JR Kary) NexT/Rhapsody has some of the best-working
features I've seen for upgrading remote computers over the
ethernet; robust and works and its built in as an installation
option from the start (to instaall next over the network). So
a major corporation could have a proper macs running next
for the serious users and IS manager and net PC easily maintain
ed by the Rhapsody based server for the rest.
Bearing in mind that apple macs always were a bit of an
`appliance' = self-contained not easily modifiable due to
prop. hardware, which is also why the nontech creative types love them, the
next pc would be popular for such non-intensive office workers
and work well as part of an IntRAnet
But for the general household, I dont see this. Main reason,
the network today is way too slow to be your lifeline. When
ADSL 6 Mhz modems become the norm in 1999 things will be
different but at the moment home net pc's are ahead of their
time. Second reason, the home buy cares too much about value
for money and will always be better off buying a second hand
mac or cheaper intel box than a deliberately crippled netpc.
You need good graphics, lots ram big hard disk etc to have
fun at home.
So, I'd say a good strategy for the corporate market.
Since wintel own this office desktop market (graphics and
edu users aside who need proper computers) this is all new
turf for appl and it can only gain market share.
Shahn
P.s. re cyberdog -- we were talking whats in
the o/s not add-on progs, since email has to be interoperable
throughout the whole (at least mac) community. S |
