Re: Not "Satanism;" realism.

[Mitch Stone <mstone@vc.net>]

--- From a message sent by stan johnson on 1/2/99 9:55 PM ---

>I'd be interested in your reasoning. IBM does not, AFAIK, have a   
>reputation for willingly reducing prices <g>. I would surmise that,   
>absent competition from clones, the prices would be *VERY* high for   
>PCs or whatever was available. After all, the fact that M$ is an   
>extortionist monopoly of limitless greed does not make IBM the jolly   
>old elf. 

If you break out of the mind set that one hardware architecture must 
somehow prevail, then everything else falls into place. The success of 
the IBM-PC standard was by no means predestined; in fact, the PC was 
IBM's second effort in the desktop computer market. The first one fizzled.
 
>To the extent that your comments first quoted above are speaking of   
>rational design and well worked-out interrelationships, I would be   
>inclined to agree completely. IBM has many faults, but I've not heard   
>that poor engineering is one of them. If IBM had retained   
>ownership/control somehow, but licensed at little or no cost, things   
>might well have been much better. The microchannel, like the beta   
>tape format, would, IMO, be (probably is) an excellent subject for   
>university discussion. Some would add OS/2 to that honored list. 

Out of desperation to reach the market in one year, IBM designed the PC 
out of stock parts. The only bit of the machine not grabbed off the shelf 
was the ROM-BIOS. Many of the headaches associated with the PC 
architecture derive from that decision. In time IBM might have licensed 
the PC, but they never had the chance. Once the ROM-BIOS was cracked by 
Compaq, the jig was up.
 
>I don't understand however, if this is your meaning, how we'd be better   
>off if IBM's standards had been closely held, and other companies had   
>developed different standards. Wouldn't this lead to much greater   
>fragmentation of the market, less competition within a track, and   
>incompatibilities magnitudes greater than plague folks now? I thought   
>the general thinking was that true standards, not held in thrall by a   
>single company and especially not proprietary, was the desideratum? 

Yes, a more fragmented market, and more competition within type. This 
might have lead to a great number of incompatibilities, but I suspect 
not. A more diverse and fragmented industry would naturally discover 
incentives to cooperate on the creation and maintenance of common, public 
domain, low-level standards. A monopoly market has no such incentive, and 
in fact creates artificial barriers to the entry of new solutions. This 
retards innovation.

Mitch Stone
mstone@vc.net