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

[JF Mezei]

Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

> I think that is a vast oversimplification.  DEC was a company out of 
> control!  There was a corporate "vision" of becoming the new IBM.

Started in mid 1980s. This was the main cause for DEC refusing to see
PCs and the other minicomputer makers as competition, they only saw IBM
as competition. And this partly explains why Olsen went for the 9000
MAINFRAME instead of the other projects.


> Palmer just made the funeral arrangements!

Yep, that is all he did.

One expects a CEO to be more than a funeral director (unless your name
is Palmer or Capellas).

Palmer could have changed corporate culture.
 He could have told the troups that IBM was no longer the only
competitor and that you had to compete against everything.

Instead of competing against the PC, Palmer just threw in the towel and
started to make PCs and cannabalised all its own office products. Note
that at the time he took over, DEC's desktop software was still WAY
AHEAD of what Microsoft had on windows 3.1 . There was a window of
opportunity, Palmer didn't take it, and once Windows 3.11 became better
than the abandonned DEC desktop software, it was easy for Palmer to
delcare there was no future for VMS/Alpha on the desktop.