[Am-info] Re: adopting alternative OSes

[Erick Andrews]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003 14:00:51 -0700, Mitch Stone wrote:

>I can't pretend to speak to internal IBM management issues, except to 
>observe that IBM's PC division was/is part of the greater company, and 
>if the company was committed to OS/2, so would the PC division be 
>committed. (People do after all generally prefer to keep their jobs.)

It would seem that way, unless you had been in the thick of big
corporations over the past decade or so.  In reality, it just did not
work out that way.

People mostly do prefer to keep their jobs, but that does not preclude
the day to day infighting, at least with my 4 decades of observation in
and out of big corporations.

Yup, I have seen the corporate infighting as viewed by those up and down
the corporate ladder as a cause for keeping their jobs.  The intensity is 
often defined by what rung you are on.  Most corporations are not a 
democracy.  I would also argue that since "Chainsaw Al", more and more,
stockholders have blackmailed *real* corporate productivity.  One example:
what ever happened to the 50+ mpg carburetor from yesteryear?

>I don't entirely agree that the IBM name worked against OS/2 in the OEM 
>world. It was after all the IBM name which give credibility to the 
>entire PC clone market. 

That was a long time ago.  I believe their name began to work against them.

>As we all certainly remember, PC clones were 
>for years marketed as "IBM-PC compatibles" and shipped with IBM PC-DOS 
>(aka MS-DOS). What did work against IBM was of course Microsoft's 
>half-nelson on the OEM industry. But, if any company had the 
>wherewithal to break that lock, it was IBM. 

I agree, except for your last sentence.

Today, I can only partly agree with that in theory.  Look at Enron, etc.  It's been
a gathering storm.  What would you attribute to this part of IBM's demise (up 
to and during most of Gerstner's reign), given the way the current PC market has
since evolved?  (And I doubt Apple was much less unscathed, but managed to
survive with a captured market, controlled the hardware too, visibly took some
of Gates' "investment", and danced to the musical-chairs management tune till 
Jobs came back.  All in all, Apple has so far survived).  

IBM became an "also-ran" in the PC market, hardware and software, save for post
"services".  I think they became a 1200 lb gorilla stuck in their own do-do.

>In order to do so, they 
>would have been forced to make choices we probably all probably agree 
>they should not have been forced to make, that is, between Windows and 
>OS/2. They would have needed the guts to get the glory and 
>unfortunately they didn't want the glory badly enough.

No doubt.  I need not trot out the conspiracy theories because their actions are
on record.  Results speak louder than IBM's tribulations with Windows v. OS/2 
v. AIX v. AS400, etc.  Now, the new IBM "rollout" is Linux.  It's about "service".

My point is that "corporations" do not make long term, committed decisions.  
Expedient power plays of real people inside the corporations are the order, 
most often externally influenced.  These people do have names.

[...]

-- 
Erick Andrews