Paul, about: "They (DEC) have been trying, nearly single handedly, to convert an entire industry to
their Alpha chip, when their competition (Intel)..."
There used to be an expression in the electronics/computer industry that, whatever your product, you ultimately were competing with IBM. More and more now, it appears we can substitute Intel for IBM. The list of Intel competitors goes from the chip companies such as Motorola, TI, AMD, Cyrx, Japan Inc., to the workstation people Sun, SGI, DEC as you say, IBM, back to the chip companies such as those that make graphics chips that may be threatened by MMX like Cirrus, S3...
The one thing different now is that companies are in many more alliances than in the old days. Sometimes the alliances are between companies who may normally compete, e.g., Intel supplying Pentiums to DEC, even though DEC would like to kick intel's butt with the Alpha chip. What's it all mean? I don't know except that Intel has got to stay nimble as hell in all this, not get complacent or fail to see some markets dry up when others take off. This did happen to IBM, but, they've made a pretty good comeback, so far. Will Intel start to lose it? I don't think so. From what I've seen of their people up and down the organization, they're too good.
Tony
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