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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Walt Corey who wrote (40765)	5/7/1998 10:44:00 AM
From: Paul Merriwether	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

<<Is that from personal experience or are you a windows-weenie. I've been in this field for 25+ yrs and in PC development since MSFT was a penny stock. >> ummm. When eggzactly was msft a "penny stock"? Were you looking at its pre-ipo price, or are you talking about the 11 odd splits that they have had since ipo, or are you saying that $100 = 10000 pennies? :) <<There are alot of companies that made billions writing better compilers, better sorters better everything than IBM >> FYI, compiler was a new-fangled concept in the "hey-day of ibm monopoly". People didn't have "better compilers", they were lucky to have ANY compilers. By the time compilers became semi-stable, and those assembler programmers started trusting them, the world had VAXes, DGs etc. Also, what the heck is a "sorter"? No wonder you like Dell!

To: Walt Corey who wrote (40765)	5/7/1998 10:54:00 AM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Is that from personal experience or are you a windows-weenie. Hmmm... I started programming in 1966, have worked mainframes, mini, and microprocessors, was the lead designer on a metal-up combined hardware/software system with downtime requirements in the seconds per year category (I did both OS and core hardware design). We were also an early user of 8008, 8080 and 8086 technology for dedicated controls, and we were working with MSFT when they were in Albuquerque - if you remember those days there were not a lot of tools vendors, it was roll your own in the microprocessor space. Microsoft started as a bunch of disorganized hackers. By the mid-80's they had gotten a little bit of organization, and were developing a concern for the development process and the quality of their products, but only in comparison to the others in their space. Novell was the only class act in the game at that time. It was not until the last 5 years that they got serious about developing well integrated quality products, and only a few of those products are near market today. OS/2 failed because IBM was too greedy and would not bring the 1.3 rev to market because it would have cannibalized some of their other product lines, the same reason they did not bring RISC to market in a competitive product (IBM invented RISC but tried to keep it 'in the box'), did not bring SQL to market in a competitive way (IBM invented SQL but wanted to protect VSAM and ISAM markets), etc. etc. But OS/2 was not my idea of a well designed SW product either... It took 5 years to get some very simple problems solved. There is no comparison between the quality of software for the high end and that done by mainstream vendors like Microsoft. This would be like comparing construction quality on electronics in a NASA Mars probe to that which comes in the dashboard of a GM car. Sure the NASA stuff is a lot better but how many people would pay a million dollars for a radio? Microsoft sets their goals and standards based on what the market demands, if they didn't do that they would be losing share. Netscape lost because they quit inventing and tried to ride their one-trick pony. Their executives decided that becoming instant billionaires was more important than staying true to their original vision.