4 ms·

What did?

by sqldba 11y ago

What did?

Jedd 11y ago
This is a profoundly complex question. Or, rather, answer. : ) Everyone knows one Ken Olsen quote, though few people know it's taken hugely out of context[1] - it was quite prescient at the time (and the next few decades) though with a bunch of RPi / IoT / HUE gear in my home now, perhaps he was wrong after all. Mind, his anti-TCP position is almost as naive / famous -- but aligned with several other CEOs of large organisations that are still with us. Is there ever a single sound-byte-able response to the question 'what killed company X?'? Probably not. Perhaps they backed the wrong architecture. Or they naively went up against Microsoft (a very different beast to the cuddly MS of today). Or they disrespected their customers just a wee bit too blatantly. Or their QA dropped unforgivably (or at least uncompetitively) low. [1] http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp
- scholia 11y ago
  DEC was in the minicomputer and workstation businesses. It got squeezed to death between IBM at the high end and the upward expansion of the PC business at the low end. A $25,000 MicroVAX was cheap and wonderful when it could replace a $250,000 mini, but not very attractive once a $2,500 PC-based server could do the same job. DEC also had a bit of a NIH problem. For example, it did its own (expensive) PC, which wasn't IBM PC-compatible. Later, it launched Windows NT machines based on its own 64-bit microprocessor, the DEC Alpha. Then it did its own version of the ARM chip, the StrongARM (which later reappeared as the Intel XScale before being sold on again). DEC also lost its star software designer, Dave Cutler, the man behind DEC's biggest success -- VAX VMS -- by cancelling his project. Bill Gates promptly hired him, and said he could bring whoever he wanted to Microsoft. Cutler wrote Windows NT, which ultimately freed Microsoft from its huge problems with IBM and OS/2, and provided a transition path from DOS-based Windows to a real OS. For younger readers, the top workstation companies were DEC, Sun, HP, Apollo, Silicon Graphics etc. The top minicomputer companies were IBM, DEC, HP, Wang, Data General, Prime, Nixdorf, NCR etc. Not many survivors from that lot, but they were big and powerful at the time.
  - Jedd 11y ago
    Interesting. I worked with VMS back in the v.late 1980's - it was quite lovely, but that feeling was based on experiences with C64, CP/M and MS-DOS. Somewhere in the back room I still have two Multias, which you mention, and were famous for running Microsoft NT (albeit briefly). Are you confident of the NT back-story? My understanding (and I ack that much of this is heresay thwarted by time) was that MS had long since planned their IBM-non-friendly exit from the OS/2 co-venture (certainly pre-dating Dave Cutler's hiring). The timing doesn't seem to match up - though I concede my memory is a bit fuzzy, plus things moved at a different pace back then.
    - ghaff 11y ago
      Yeah, I'm not sure how big a role Cutler leaving played. DEC (and the other minicomputer makers) generally missed the shift from vertical integration to horizontal integration but what exactly that should have meant for the strategy of a company like DEC is a complicated question. With 20-20 hindsight, there are a number of paths they could have followed although many seem counter to the DNA of a company like DEC such as becoming a Dell. As an interim step, they could probably have invested more in Unix early-on. Ken Olsen's "Unix is snake oil" quote seems to be as lacking in context as his quote about computers in the home. [1] [1] http://sinix.org/blog/?p=16 http://sinix.org/blog/?p=16
      - scholia 11y ago
        > DEC (and the other minicomputer makers) generally missed the shift from vertical integration to horizontal integration Great comment, and absolutely right. I seem to recall that Andy Grove wrote a whole book about that ;-) With hindsight, I should have recast my NIH statement, because those developments may have been a function of the desire to own as much as possible of the vertical stack.
        ghaff 11y ago
        I forget which book by Grove it was but I remember reading it when I was doing some strategy research for a client once. You may be right that DEC's NIH was something of an outcome of vertical integration. It was widespread in that sector and just generally there wasn't anything like the sort of coopetition that would come later. I still remember at Data General getting an absolutely flaming email from a sales rep because we had OEMd a LAN board from DEC for a system after we had switched to some sort of industry standard bus. The email was to the effect that "We're fighting with these guys every day and you guys in corporate turn around and stab us in the back by buying their products."
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

What did?

by sqldba 11y ago

What did?

Jedd 11y ago

This is a profoundly complex question. Or, rather, answer. : ) Everyone knows one Ken Olsen quote, though few people know it's taken hugely out of context[1] - it was quite prescient at the time (and the next few decades) though with a bunch of RPi / IoT / HUE gear in my home now, perhaps he was wrong after all. Mind, his anti-TCP position is almost as naive / famous -- but aligned with several other CEOs of large organisations that are still with us. Is there ever a single sound-byte-able response to the question 'what killed company X?'? Probably not. Perhaps they backed the wrong architecture. Or they naively went up against Microsoft (a very different beast to the cuddly MS of today). Or they disrespected their customers just a wee bit too blatantly. Or their QA dropped unforgivably (or at least uncompetitively) low. [1] http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp

scholia 11y ago
DEC was in the minicomputer and workstation businesses. It got squeezed to death between IBM at the high end and the upward expansion of the PC business at the low end. A $25,000 MicroVAX was cheap and wonderful when it could replace a $250,000 mini, but not very attractive once a $2,500 PC-based server could do the same job. DEC also had a bit of a NIH problem. For example, it did its own (expensive) PC, which wasn't IBM PC-compatible. Later, it launched Windows NT machines based on its own 64-bit microprocessor, the DEC Alpha. Then it did its own version of the ARM chip, the StrongARM (which later reappeared as the Intel XScale before being sold on again). DEC also lost its star software designer, Dave Cutler, the man behind DEC's biggest success -- VAX VMS -- by cancelling his project. Bill Gates promptly hired him, and said he could bring whoever he wanted to Microsoft. Cutler wrote Windows NT, which ultimately freed Microsoft from its huge problems with IBM and OS/2, and provided a transition path from DOS-based Windows to a real OS. For younger readers, the top workstation companies were DEC, Sun, HP, Apollo, Silicon Graphics etc. The top minicomputer companies were IBM, DEC, HP, Wang, Data General, Prime, Nixdorf, NCR etc. Not many survivors from that lot, but they were big and powerful at the time.
- Jedd 11y ago
  Interesting. I worked with VMS back in the v.late 1980's - it was quite lovely, but that feeling was based on experiences with C64, CP/M and MS-DOS. Somewhere in the back room I still have two Multias, which you mention, and were famous for running Microsoft NT (albeit briefly). Are you confident of the NT back-story? My understanding (and I ack that much of this is heresay thwarted by time) was that MS had long since planned their IBM-non-friendly exit from the OS/2 co-venture (certainly pre-dating Dave Cutler's hiring). The timing doesn't seem to match up - though I concede my memory is a bit fuzzy, plus things moved at a different pace back then.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    Yeah, I'm not sure how big a role Cutler leaving played. DEC (and the other minicomputer makers) generally missed the shift from vertical integration to horizontal integration but what exactly that should have meant for the strategy of a company like DEC is a complicated question. With 20-20 hindsight, there are a number of paths they could have followed although many seem counter to the DNA of a company like DEC such as becoming a Dell. As an interim step, they could probably have invested more in Unix early-on. Ken Olsen's "Unix is snake oil" quote seems to be as lacking in context as his quote about computers in the home. [1] [1] http://sinix.org/blog/?p=16 http://sinix.org/blog/?p=16
    - scholia 11y ago
      > DEC (and the other minicomputer makers) generally missed the shift from vertical integration to horizontal integration Great comment, and absolutely right. I seem to recall that Andy Grove wrote a whole book about that ;-) With hindsight, I should have recast my NIH statement, because those developments may have been a function of the desire to own as much as possible of the vertical stack.
      - ghaff 11y ago
        I forget which book by Grove it was but I remember reading it when I was doing some strategy research for a client once. You may be right that DEC's NIH was something of an outcome of vertical integration. It was widespread in that sector and just generally there wasn't anything like the sort of coopetition that would come later. I still remember at Data General getting an absolutely flaming email from a sales rep because we had OEMd a LAN board from DEC for a system after we had switched to some sort of industry standard bus. The email was to the effect that "We're fighting with these guys every day and you guys in corporate turn around and stab us in the back by buying their products."

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]