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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (49820)	7/26/2001 12:42:40 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

The morons at IBM Cary, Give ME a break! Morons at IBM? They are perhaps the technology company with the most patents under their belt. You can call them many things, but morons they are not. Many of the innovations AMAT etal have in their products are a result of IBM R&D. Do you read your posts before hitting the Submit button or just post any random thought that may enter your head?

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (49820)	7/26/2001 12:47:44 PM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Watch it Cary. You made another positive statement. >and evolved their software so that it is not garbage anymore.< Gottfried

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (49820)	7/26/2001 1:02:51 PM
From: Mark Marcellus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Give me a break! The morons at IBM didn't understand the implications of the operating system after 50 years in the business and allowed MSFT to supply the OS for the IBM PC. Not quite. The morons at IBM didn't understand the importance of the PC market, and they underestimated Bill Gates. (Plus there were internal turf issues which, more than anything, contributed to their failures over the next few years). They understood full well the importance of the OS. That's why they went with a proprietary OS with a closed (and supposedly impregnable) BIOS. If they hadn't understood the implications of the OS, they would have simply gone with an open UNIX standard and been done with it. You can say what you like about Gates, but he understood the landscape at a time when just about every other player in the business had their head up their ass. He knew he didn't need a superior OS, he just needed an OS which worked on a basic level, and for which he had control of the source code and the licensing. He scrambled to get into the IBM PC with what he had (or could steal), while others who could have beaten him out stood by and let it happen. I find it hard to blame him for that.

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (49820)	7/26/2001 1:44:27 PM
From: mitch-c	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Cary, you're somewhat right about IBM. The PC business at the time was viewed as cannibalizing the mini/mainframe markets, and so the PC development within IBM was very much a rogue, rebellious, shoestring operation. They slapped together a cheapo prototype, got buried in orders for it, and didn't look back. They should have. Because IBM had "the reputation" at the time, IT managers could do no wrong investing in IBM equipment. The PC penetrated the business world as the Apple IIc (and later the Mac) penetrated the academic/artistic world. However - IBM did something Apple didn't. They opened the hardware architecture to third party development - expansion cards, etc. (I'm not clear on it, but their licensing agreement with Intel may have forced this.) Thus, 8-bit ISA cards (and entire subsystems, like MFM hard drives and controllers) developed faster and cheaper during the PC's nascent period. For the IT guys and the CFO's, cost was everything, and TCO calculations were far off on the horizon. (IBM later tried to go the Apple route with a proprietary interface ... remember MicroChannel? By that point, though, they didn't have the market share clout to make it work.) Eventually, by FAILING to adopt and pursue the PC revolution, IBM lost its dominant computing role (remember that DOJ monopoly lawsuit?) and has transformed itself into a niche player with a consulting business. Apple, meanwhile, put short-term profit above market share, and priced themselves out of most business markets. So, two different companies' protection of profit (IBM -- mainframe business; Apple -- tight and expensive licensing) gave us the chaotic hardware situation we see today. Note that I said NOTHING about MSFT and one line about INTC and their contributions to this mess. In the beginning years of the PC industry, they were more parasitic to the decisions IBM made, and only came into their own after the "PC-compatible" won the market share war independent of IBM. So, I blame our current chaos not so much on MSFT, but on the IBM business mentality. It forced the original PC engineers to make design compromises that we live with today. (IRQ and DMA conflicts, for example?) MSFT was more an accessory after the fact. - Mitch