4 ms·

Analogies are a dime a dozen. If the #3 sprinter has the running shoes and water bottle that #2 is lacking ... Interesting bit (news to me) in the original pie

by ableal 17y ago

Analogies are a dime a dozen. If the #3 sprinter has the running shoes and water bottle that #2 is lacking ... Interesting bit (news to me) in the original piece: the Canadian purchased a perfectly decent operating system for future devices in early April for an estimated $200-million, when it bought a small player named QNX Software.

raganwald 17y ago
> Analogies are a dime a dozen Oh yes, absolutely. A witty analogy is often just that, a quip. I do think that many mergers motivated by the desire to dethrone the leader do wind up with an entity that is weaker than its constituent parts. IIRC, FSJ was talking about MSFT and YHOO merging to take on GOOG. In this case I think the analogy supports the article's conclusion, which is that RIM is in no hurry to buy Palm. If I can strain the metaphor, buying Palm would be like teaming up to run a race three-legged because you're thirsty and the other runner has a water bottle. Buying QNX was like buying a water bottle.
- ableal 17y ago
  Yeah, I knew it was a quip, and with this half-truth biz (cf. Karl Kraus), there's a lot to it. Even with perfect fits, companies manage to screw up. They are hopping around one-legged, figure that a left leg would go nicely with their right one. Buy left leg, insist on it wearing right-handed shoes (lots in stock). Shoot left foot off to make it fit. (snapping sound, strained analogy's back breaking ;-)
  - raganwald 17y ago
    Hahaha! Getting serious for a moment, I don't envy RIM if they buy Palm. Having bought QNX, a bunch of their engineers might have been disgruntled over the obvious message that their own stuff is junk and that the company doesn't trust them to fix it. Some will have bought into QNX, some will be resisting it. Then they buy Palm and all the engineers who bought into QNX suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them. While upper management are blinking in the flash bulbs, shaking hands at press conferences, and boasting about RIM's road map for taking over the world, middle management will be desperately trying to keep the talented people from quitting in disgust.
    - jlin 17y ago
      No, QNX and RIM actually came from the same birthplace - the University of Waterloo. I bet you the principles of each company even had beers with each other when they were in their salad days, debating technical decisions, or hashing over names for their respective products - So for RIM engineers, buying QNX is pretty much the equivalent of reuniting with your long lost twin brother. While they are in radically different industries, and have radically different products, the laser sharp focus on engineering is the same. And I bet you any RIM engineer you ask will definitively state that QNX is a much better real time OS [focus being on real time] than anything RIM has ever put out - it's akin to asking whether your kid brother who competes in the Olympics is good at their sport or not.
dagw 17y ago
I wonder how hard it would be to port the WebOS userland to run on QNX. That could turn out to be a pretty awesome platform for RIM to build on.

by ableal 17y ago

raganwald 17y ago

> Analogies are a dime a dozen Oh yes, absolutely. A witty analogy is often just that, a quip. I do think that many mergers motivated by the desire to dethrone the leader do wind up with an entity that is weaker than its constituent parts. IIRC, FSJ was talking about MSFT and YHOO merging to take on GOOG. In this case I think the analogy supports the article's conclusion, which is that RIM is in no hurry to buy Palm. If I can strain the metaphor, buying Palm would be like teaming up to run a race three-legged because you're thirsty and the other runner has a water bottle. Buying QNX was like buying a water bottle.

ableal 17y ago
Yeah, I knew it was a quip, and with this half-truth biz (cf. Karl Kraus), there's a lot to it. Even with perfect fits, companies manage to screw up. They are hopping around one-legged, figure that a left leg would go nicely with their right one. Buy left leg, insist on it wearing right-handed shoes (lots in stock). Shoot left foot off to make it fit. (snapping sound, strained analogy's back breaking ;-)
- raganwald 17y ago
  Hahaha! Getting serious for a moment, I don't envy RIM if they buy Palm. Having bought QNX, a bunch of their engineers might have been disgruntled over the obvious message that their own stuff is junk and that the company doesn't trust them to fix it. Some will have bought into QNX, some will be resisting it. Then they buy Palm and all the engineers who bought into QNX suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them. While upper management are blinking in the flash bulbs, shaking hands at press conferences, and boasting about RIM's road map for taking over the world, middle management will be desperately trying to keep the talented people from quitting in disgust.
  - jlin 17y ago
    No, QNX and RIM actually came from the same birthplace - the University of Waterloo. I bet you the principles of each company even had beers with each other when they were in their salad days, debating technical decisions, or hashing over names for their respective products - So for RIM engineers, buying QNX is pretty much the equivalent of reuniting with your long lost twin brother. While they are in radically different industries, and have radically different products, the laser sharp focus on engineering is the same. And I bet you any RIM engineer you ask will definitively state that QNX is a much better real time OS [focus being on real time] than anything RIM has ever put out - it's akin to asking whether your kid brother who competes in the Olympics is good at their sport or not.

dagw 17y ago

I wonder how hard it would be to port the WebOS userland to run on QNX. That could turn out to be a pretty awesome platform for RIM to build on.