4 ms·

For most of their existence, DEC had very aggressive IBM like sales people. They sold large systems. When they tried the Rainbow, they pretty much did everythin

For most of their existence, DEC had very aggressive IBM like sales people. They sold large systems. When they tried the Rainbow, they pretty much did everything wrong. They didn't have a sales staff that knew how to sell a $2000 computer. You'd call them about the Rainbow and they wanted to send a sales team. Also, the Rainbow alienated the hackers at the time by its closed nature compared to the IBM PC. For example, you could only use DEC floppies that cost significantly more than normal ones.

bosswipe 6y ago
Closed systems didn't stop Apple.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  The early Apples were not that closed. There were many third party peripherals available. And you didn't have to use Apple-brand floppy disks.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    And they got close to failing anyway. Apple survived in part by lasting long enough for there to be a consumer market for whom openness was irrelevant but who were willing to pay a huge premium for design.
    - ido 6y ago
      I think the parent is talking about the Apple II and you are talking about early Macs?
      - vidarh 6y ago
        My comment was more of an additional reason (on top of the openness of their earlier computers) for why arguing that closed systems didn't stop Apple is not a great argument. Apple got incredibly close to failing. Had it not been for Microsoft's investment they very well might have. Their closed approach took a long time to start paying off, and so using Apple as an example for why DEC's closed approach wasn't a problem doesn't really add up.
- birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
  They did. Apple got beaten by the PC. Apple is back because they learned their lessons and picked a market that is more forgiving for closed systems. But they won't succeed forever. Just now they had to maintain their lead by vertically integrating processors. This has positioned them against the entire chip market where everybody is threatened by Apple. Can Apple outspend everybody else, including the entire Chinese and Korean economy? Sooner or later, the open market will have the better components, just like the PC market. How many more buffers does Apple have to stay in front?
  - oblio 6y ago
    They only need to fail once in a big way, while the others can fail multiple times, because they are many, in short.
    - visarga 6y ago
      When you have 2T market cap you can afford more than one big fail.
      - axiolite 6y ago
        Market cap is just public opinion, one bit of negative press can destroy it. To handle failures you need cash on hand, which can't get suddenly erased. Apple has plenty, but not 2T.
  - microtherion 6y ago
    You're articulating an investment thesis that has been fairly popular the last 20 years: That other tech companies are protected by impregnable moats, while Apple is perennially one botched product away from going out of business. But it seems to me that the company is in reality demonstrating far greater resilience and versatility than the cliches would have it. Consider "picked a market": In 2005, I was joking that my job (macOS Engineer) was "writing firmware for iPod docks", because back then Apple was perceived as a Music player manufacturer that built computers as a hobby. Then, for a good decade, everybody decided Apple was a phone manufacturer. The increasing share of iPhone revenue was seen as an alarming sign. The last couple of years, iPhone revenue share decreased slightly, and that was seen as an alarming sign as well... go figure. Now (after having done a casual drive by on the fitness tracker and mid-range watch industry), Macs are getting talked about again. You see this as a desperate lunge for survival. I beg to differ. As a more specific argument, competing against the open market was a disadvantage for Apple when they were low volume, in the PowerPC days. But at this point, I believe they have sufficient volume to maintain custom components. The rest of the industry still has greater volume, but they have to live on lower margins, and are lacking some of the synergies working for Apple, so it's not a given to me that Apple is truly at a disadvantage. However, at the level of semiconductor manufacturing as opposed to design, the considerations are somewhat different (no clear long run advantages for anyone, no clear benefits to vertical integration, open market wins in the end), which is, I think, why Apple is still outsourcing that step.
cafard 6y ago
P.J. Plauger wrote somewhere of DEC's "large and dedicated sales-prevention force".

bosswipe 6y ago

Closed systems didn't stop Apple.

throwaway201103 6y ago
The early Apples were not that closed. There were many third party peripherals available. And you didn't have to use Apple-brand floppy disks.
- vidarh 6y ago
  And they got close to failing anyway. Apple survived in part by lasting long enough for there to be a consumer market for whom openness was irrelevant but who were willing to pay a huge premium for design.
  - ido 6y ago
    I think the parent is talking about the Apple II and you are talking about early Macs?
    - vidarh 6y ago
      My comment was more of an additional reason (on top of the openness of their earlier computers) for why arguing that closed systems didn't stop Apple is not a great argument. Apple got incredibly close to failing. Had it not been for Microsoft's investment they very well might have. Their closed approach took a long time to start paying off, and so using Apple as an example for why DEC's closed approach wasn't a problem doesn't really add up.
birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
They did. Apple got beaten by the PC. Apple is back because they learned their lessons and picked a market that is more forgiving for closed systems. But they won't succeed forever. Just now they had to maintain their lead by vertically integrating processors. This has positioned them against the entire chip market where everybody is threatened by Apple. Can Apple outspend everybody else, including the entire Chinese and Korean economy? Sooner or later, the open market will have the better components, just like the PC market. How many more buffers does Apple have to stay in front?
- oblio 6y ago
  They only need to fail once in a big way, while the others can fail multiple times, because they are many, in short.
  - visarga 6y ago
    When you have 2T market cap you can afford more than one big fail.
    - axiolite 6y ago
      Market cap is just public opinion, one bit of negative press can destroy it. To handle failures you need cash on hand, which can't get suddenly erased. Apple has plenty, but not 2T.
- microtherion 6y ago
  You're articulating an investment thesis that has been fairly popular the last 20 years: That other tech companies are protected by impregnable moats, while Apple is perennially one botched product away from going out of business. But it seems to me that the company is in reality demonstrating far greater resilience and versatility than the cliches would have it. Consider "picked a market": In 2005, I was joking that my job (macOS Engineer) was "writing firmware for iPod docks", because back then Apple was perceived as a Music player manufacturer that built computers as a hobby. Then, for a good decade, everybody decided Apple was a phone manufacturer. The increasing share of iPhone revenue was seen as an alarming sign. The last couple of years, iPhone revenue share decreased slightly, and that was seen as an alarming sign as well... go figure. Now (after having done a casual drive by on the fitness tracker and mid-range watch industry), Macs are getting talked about again. You see this as a desperate lunge for survival. I beg to differ. As a more specific argument, competing against the open market was a disadvantage for Apple when they were low volume, in the PowerPC days. But at this point, I believe they have sufficient volume to maintain custom components. The rest of the industry still has greater volume, but they have to live on lower margins, and are lacking some of the synergies working for Apple, so it's not a given to me that Apple is truly at a disadvantage. However, at the level of semiconductor manufacturing as opposed to design, the considerations are somewhat different (no clear long run advantages for anyone, no clear benefits to vertical integration, open market wins in the end), which is, I think, why Apple is still outsourcing that step.

cafard 6y ago

P.J. Plauger wrote somewhere of DEC's "large and dedicated sales-prevention force".