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I think this analysis is truthy, as opposed to true. > did a half-assed PC design to rush something to market the alternative to "half-assed" and "off the she

I think this analysis is truthy, as opposed to true. > did a half-assed PC design to rush something to market the alternative to "half-assed" and "off the shelf" would have been "an IBM-wide committee taking 5 years to do an all-IBM device that cost $30,000." They "rushed it out" because the market was moving fast and a ponderous bureaucracy would have missed it. For a number of years, "IBM-compatible" was the buzzword in PCs. The market was simply too big for them to keep owning it. There were still good profits to be made on customers who prided themselves on being all-IBM. They could have led the army instead of being the army as they had in the mainframe days. That would have required a subtlety that just wasn't in them. The PS/2 and OS/2 were indeed mistakes and helped make them a joke.

Animats 4y ago
> the alternative to "half-assed" and "off the shelf" would have been "an IBM-wide committee taking 5 years to do an all-IBM device that cost $30,000." Which IBM did. They built the IBM Instruments Computer System Model 9000. Came out in 1982.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  A hot seller, that was. Wikipedia says: > Reasons cited for the failure of the System 9000 were its poor performance and high price, which led to the IBM PC being used where price was of concern, and to other 32-bit microcomputers being used where performance mattered.[10] IBM closed its Instrument division in January 1987, reassigning the approximately 150 employees that had worked for it to other positions. 150 employees? they'd use that many people to give names to the broom closets.