3 ms·

It's also an interesting twist on the Innovator's Dilemma. The lesson IBM CEO Tom Watson took from the project was: > Years later, when asked whether IBM would

by abraae 8y ago

It's also an interesting twist on the Innovator's Dilemma. The lesson IBM CEO Tom Watson took from the project was: > Years later, when asked whether IBM would ever engage in such a massive project again, one executive barked out, “Hell no, never again.” Watson tilted toward a similar reaction. Commenting in 1966, he said, “At our size, we can’t go 100 percent with anything new again,” meaning anything that big. After the 360, Watson made it a policy “never to announce a new technology which will require us to devote more than 25 percent of our production to that technology.” Yet if IBM had had the balls to hold onto that "bet the farm" spirit, then they might not be quite the sad husk of a formerly great company they are today.

xref 8y ago
Or they might have gone bankrupt decades ago :) the problem with betting-the-farm is you’ve gotta win every time, one miss and you’re kaput
- vmh1928 8y ago
  Yes. There's a bit of survivor bias in this story and a tendency to look back and think the outcome was inevitable. Although, if you look at the story of the PC Division, there are similarities even though the scale and risk are different. Both the S360 and PC were new creations built by empowered teams that addressed issues with existing technology. Standard interfaces and extensibility were a big part of the success of both stories. Not "open" in the sense we use the word today but standardized - the ISA bus allowed the extensibility of the PC via any number of peripherals, just as whatever the cabling spec of the S360 was for disk, tape, card punch, sorting and tabulating equipment. Enabled by software. A lot is made of the hardware story here, it would be interesting to have part of the operating system development story.
  - xref 8y ago
    I think it was mentioned in an earlier comment the book The Mythical Man Month is about the development of OS/360. I’ve never read it but it may be more “businessy” than what it sounds like you’re interested in

by abraae 8y ago

xref 8y ago

Or they might have gone bankrupt decades ago :) the problem with betting-the-farm is you’ve gotta win every time, one miss and you’re kaput

vmh1928 8y ago
Yes. There's a bit of survivor bias in this story and a tendency to look back and think the outcome was inevitable. Although, if you look at the story of the PC Division, there are similarities even though the scale and risk are different. Both the S360 and PC were new creations built by empowered teams that addressed issues with existing technology. Standard interfaces and extensibility were a big part of the success of both stories. Not "open" in the sense we use the word today but standardized - the ISA bus allowed the extensibility of the PC via any number of peripherals, just as whatever the cabling spec of the S360 was for disk, tape, card punch, sorting and tabulating equipment. Enabled by software. A lot is made of the hardware story here, it would be interesting to have part of the operating system development story.
- xref 8y ago
  I think it was mentioned in an earlier comment the book The Mythical Man Month is about the development of OS/360. I’ve never read it but it may be more “businessy” than what it sounds like you’re interested in