SVR4 shipping, sort of, allegedly; Microport is baaaaack

[Mark McWiggins]

Surprised I haven't seen this here before now, and it seems definitely
of interest to the net ...

Microport (+1 800 FOR UNIX) is back out of Chapter 11 (or whatever chapter
they were in) and shipping a "developer's release" of SVR4 with the
kitchen sink (TCP/IP, NFS, RFS, X, Streams, everything I can think of
but DWB).  I asked when and the guy said "now."  Don't know what
"devleoper's release" means ("buggy?" "don't even think of calling for
support?" (1/2 :) ).  Now for the bad news: it comes on tape only, and 
costs $2500.

UHC (+1 713 782 2700) is shipping a similar package, allegedly on August
15 (though yours may take 4-6 weeks because of their overwhelming backlog,
she said).  They'll ship on tape or floppies and want $2995,  although
they supposedly have a "VAR program" through which I presume you could make
a better deal.

Disclaimer and editorial: I don't have any association with either of
these two companies, and may never.  Gosh, these prices seem a little
steep, to say the least.  Have Everex or Intel or Dell made an announcement
that I missed?

If I run the numbers:

		386/25 VGA				$2500
		300 MB disk				$1500
		Tape drive				$1000
		Unix SVR4				$2500

		Total					$7500

		
I could buy a better-performing Sparcstation SLC for about this (by the time
I added disk & tape), and no doubt a Data General or MIPS for somewhere in
the same range.

Maybe the support costs for a 386 Unix vendor trying to handle questions on
all those assembled-in-pieces systems are so stratospheric that the workstation
vendors are getting a serious competitive advantage, with their relatively
few possible configurations?

I must be missing something ...
-- 
Mark McWiggins			Integration Technologies, Inc. (Intek)
+1 206 455 9935			DISCLAIMER:  I could be wrong ...
1400 112th Ave SE #202		Bellevue WA  98004
uunet!intek01!mark		Ask me about C++!