[Info-vax] Out with Hurd, in with OpenVMS

[Neil Rieck]

On Aug 15, 4:17 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam... at vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Michael Kraemer wrote:
> > after which he was ousted and left Palmer the mess
> > that finally killed DEC.
>
> Palmer was no CEO material, just like Curly Capellas was no CEO material.
>
> Gerstner took over IBM in a FAR WORSE SHAPE than Palmer took over DEC.
>
> Gerstner immediatly stopped the slash and burn that had been begun under
> his predecessor. Deals were already in place to split IBM into a
> gazillion pieces to downsize IBM so it could pay its debts.
>
> Gerstner was then a good enough leader to quickly realise that CULTURE
> was a big problem at IBM and that it needed to be changed. And he did
> that through good leadership and choosing the right people to support him.
>
> Of all people, Palmer, having worked at DEC and lived though the various
> Alpha vs Prism vs VAX 9000 debates, should have known that there was a
> big problem of culture and that Olsen's technique of internal
> competition no longer worked. But he was of no calibre to change that.
>
> So he changed the colour of the DEC logo, made the dot on th i round
> instead of square and then listened to Wall Street Casino Analysts who
> wanted to see heads roll. So he started to lay people off and sell off
> divisions.
>
> Yeah, Olsen failed to correct DEC's direction. But at the time he left,
> DEC was fairly easily correctable with the right actions.

Correct: Lots of people forget that IBM was pronounced dead-company-
walking until Gerstner turned it around. This was documented in a book
titled "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic
Turnaround (2002) by Louis V Gerstner, Jr".

The only difference between IBM and DEC is that Palmer carved up the
company, sold off pieces, then sold the remainder to Compaq.

A few years ago I read a book titled "DEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC: The
Lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation (2003, 2004) by Edgar
H. Schein". Every technical person should read this book because it is
an authorized postmortem of DEC which was encouraged by Ken Olsen. Why
would Olsen do this? He was well aware of what happened to DEC and
wanted it documented so that others wouldn't make the same mistakes.

Parts of the book dwell upon the competition between PRISM (the
project to move to 64-bit RISC) vs. Aquarius (the water cooled
VAX-9000). Many of DEC's VPs advised Olsen that numerous customers
wanted Aquarius which turned out to be false. Of special interest is
Appendix-E titled "What Happened? A Post Script" written by Gordon
Bell.

In the book "Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and
the Next Generation at Microsoft (1994) by G. Pascal Zachary" we learn
some things about what happened after a fraction of the PRISM team
begins working at Microsoft. Of special interest is the reaction by
Intel to some of Culter's hardware demos and recommendations. From
what I can tell, the DECies may have had almost as big an influence on
Intel as they did at Microsoft. I have always wondered if this is why
Intel "went back to the well" to scoop up the remaining talent at DEC/
HPQ during Alphacide.

NSR