Brian and John,
I agree.
Smart people can still be checkmated, as Kasparov has discovered.
DEC decided to attempt to establish its own standard, an uphill battle at best against the established one(s). It was not the only company to attempt that, and not the only one to fail. Now that their position is looking more and more hopeless, and the current management is close to being dumped, they are playing out a gambit designed, IMO, purely to keep the shareholders from dumping said management AND the board. Desperation appears to be the essence of all of these DEC moves.
I think DEC realizes it has no profitable business future in Alpha - and, at the same time, it is not the kind of company (in marketing and product service) that can compete well long-term in the cutthroat Intel box market. That leaves them few good winning (or even drawing) chances in the computer game. Hence the long-shot patent gambit, which may disappear as soon as the present management and/or board gets the heave-ho.
Palmer bet the company on Alpha alone - that was the real strategic error. All the later decisions were just attempts to make the best of that bad decision.
IMHO
Best regards,
Arno |
