80 ms·

Great read. In the end, it seems like a classic failure to resolve the innovator's dilemma. IBM decided that the future of computing would revolve around mainfr

by lbarrow 13y ago

Great read. In the end, it seems like a classic failure to resolve the innovator's dilemma. IBM decided that the future of computing would revolve around mainframes because they liked mainframes, not because that's where the facts led them. And ultimately they paid the price for it.

smacktoward 13y ago
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who'd grown up on mainframes. The systems you're used to are fabulously expensive, sure, but their operating systems have sophisticated architectures that allow them to easily juggle multiple users running multiple programs while maintaining the security of the system overall. They are the completest expression ever realized of forty years of progress in the field of information technology. Then, one day, someone drops a PC in your lap. You are horrified. It's a single-user, single-tasking system with absolutely nothing stopping the user from trashing everything by running the wrong program. To you, this new... thing, whatever it is, is barely worth the name "computer." It feels more like a toy -- like something you would give to a child to play with. Certainly nobody would ever run critical systems on it, you think. And here's the thing. You're absolutely right! All your concerns are one hundred percent valid. But it turns out that nobody cares; the PC is much, much cheaper, and it lets everyone have their own dedicated hardware right on their desk running any software they care to install, instead of time-sharing a mainframe and begging for permission each time they want to try a new program. Or, put more bluntly, it lets them escape from having to deal with the corporate IT priesthood (i.e. you) anymore. The market speaks! You are derided as a pointy-headed nerd and swept into the dustbin of history. Now fast forward ten or fifteen years. People start taking all those PCs they bought and hooking them together into networks... and suddenly all those things you were worried about back in the day come roaring back to bite them. Users discover that their machine stops talking to the network when they click and hold the mouse button, because the OS can't walk and chew gum at the same time. And the complete lack of security makes their machines super easy to compromise. The PC vendors panic. They scramble to rewrite their old systems into systems that can live comfortably on a network. And when they're done, they roll out systems that look an awful lot like what you were insisting the baseline for a "real computer" was fifteen years ago. The world cheers and lines up to buy back all the sophistication they had happily thrown away before. In other words, it's not so much that the IBMers were wrong, it's that they were early. When OS/2 arrived, the world didn't understand yet why it needed something like OS/2. And by the time it did, OS/2 didn't exist anymore. But in this business, being early is effectively the same thing as being wrong. The market doesn't give out points for foresight.
- npsimons 13y ago
  The market doesn't give out points for foresight. Indeed; in fact I'd argue the market (and society in general) flat out punishes foresight, especially when it's right. What's that old Heinlein quote about Cassandra? And I think this is why so many nerds/engineers are "unsuccessful", at least by market definitions, or why they end up bitter: they'd rather be right than rich. Just look at the deriding RMS gets, and yet "Right to Read" has more or less come to pass.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  This is the cycle of our industry. A beautiful thing is created. It is very expensive. It is sold to very few customers at very high margins. The very high margins subsidise the further perfection of the beautiful thing. An ugly thing is created. It is very cheap. It is sold to very many customers at very low margins. The very large revenues subsidise the further papering-over of the flaws of the ugly thing. Eventually, the ugly thing utterly supplants the beautiful thing. A few wistful old high priests mutter about the beautiful thing. Meanwhile, billions of dollars and millions of hours are wasted working around the flaws of the ugly thing and reinventing, poorly, the features of the beautiful thing.
- yuhong 13y ago
  This reminds me of MS's PX00307 that I found and linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3441885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3441885 with my comments pointing out the flaws in the thinking.
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  The same thing happened with digital cameras. I remember hearing people scoff at them and thinking "wait and see, folks."
- quanticle 13y ago
  The funny thing is, replace PC with tablet, replace mainframe with PC, replace Windows with Android and your story still holds true. History doesn't repeat itself. But it sure does rhyme.
agumonkey 13y ago
It also rings to me as a story about artificial limitations. They were scared another program could do more for less. IBM is doing good today I think, I wonder if they'd fare better going the Apple/Google 'making people's live better' myth/motto, even at the ~sacrifice of their traditional comfort zone / cash cow.

by lbarrow 13y ago

smacktoward 13y ago

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who'd grown up on mainframes. The systems you're used to are fabulously expensive, sure, but their operating systems have sophisticated architectures that allow them to easily juggle multiple users running multiple programs while maintaining the security of the system overall. They are the completest expression ever realized of forty years of progress in the field of information technology. Then, one day, someone drops a PC in your lap. You are horrified. It's a single-user, single-tasking system with absolutely nothing stopping the user from trashing everything by running the wrong program. To you, this new... thing, whatever it is, is barely worth the name "computer." It feels more like a toy -- like something you would give to a child to play with. Certainly nobody would ever run critical systems on it, you think. And here's the thing. You're absolutely right! All your concerns are one hundred percent valid. But it turns out that nobody cares; the PC is much, much cheaper, and it lets everyone have their own dedicated hardware right on their desk running any software they care to install, instead of time-sharing a mainframe and begging for permission each time they want to try a new program. Or, put more bluntly, it lets them escape from having to deal with the corporate IT priesthood (i.e. you) anymore. The market speaks! You are derided as a pointy-headed nerd and swept into the dustbin of history. Now fast forward ten or fifteen years. People start taking all those PCs they bought and hooking them together into networks... and suddenly all those things you were worried about back in the day come roaring back to bite them. Users discover that their machine stops talking to the network when they click and hold the mouse button, because the OS can't walk and chew gum at the same time. And the complete lack of security makes their machines super easy to compromise. The PC vendors panic. They scramble to rewrite their old systems into systems that can live comfortably on a network. And when they're done, they roll out systems that look an awful lot like what you were insisting the baseline for a "real computer" was fifteen years ago. The world cheers and lines up to buy back all the sophistication they had happily thrown away before. In other words, it's not so much that the IBMers were wrong, it's that they were early. When OS/2 arrived, the world didn't understand yet why it needed something like OS/2. And by the time it did, OS/2 didn't exist anymore. But in this business, being early is effectively the same thing as being wrong. The market doesn't give out points for foresight.

npsimons 13y ago
The market doesn't give out points for foresight. Indeed; in fact I'd argue the market (and society in general) flat out punishes foresight, especially when it's right. What's that old Heinlein quote about Cassandra? And I think this is why so many nerds/engineers are "unsuccessful", at least by market definitions, or why they end up bitter: they'd rather be right than rich. Just look at the deriding RMS gets, and yet "Right to Read" has more or less come to pass.
jacques_chester 13y ago
This is the cycle of our industry. A beautiful thing is created. It is very expensive. It is sold to very few customers at very high margins. The very high margins subsidise the further perfection of the beautiful thing. An ugly thing is created. It is very cheap. It is sold to very many customers at very low margins. The very large revenues subsidise the further papering-over of the flaws of the ugly thing. Eventually, the ugly thing utterly supplants the beautiful thing. A few wistful old high priests mutter about the beautiful thing. Meanwhile, billions of dollars and millions of hours are wasted working around the flaws of the ugly thing and reinventing, poorly, the features of the beautiful thing.
yuhong 13y ago
This reminds me of MS's PX00307 that I found and linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3441885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3441885 with my comments pointing out the flaws in the thinking.
mixmastamyk 13y ago
The same thing happened with digital cameras. I remember hearing people scoff at them and thinking "wait and see, folks."
quanticle 13y ago
The funny thing is, replace PC with tablet, replace mainframe with PC, replace Windows with Android and your story still holds true. History doesn't repeat itself. But it sure does rhyme.

agumonkey 13y ago

It also rings to me as a story about artificial limitations. They were scared another program could do more for less. IBM is doing good today I think, I wonder if they'd fare better going the Apple/Google 'making people's live better' myth/motto, even at the ~sacrifice of their traditional comfort zone / cash cow.