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

[Michael Kraemer]

JF Mezei schrieb:

> Digital was not some small corner store business outfit. It was a large
> multinational firm.

which makes matters worse, not better.

> When the board decided that Olsen was steering Digital in the wrong
> direction  it should have sought a new CEO of sufficient calibre to do
> the "steering back to life" job. Palmer was nowhere near this.
> 
> Perhaps the board wanted a "robot" CEO that would be steered/controlled
> by the board. I don't know.
> 
> The big question in my mind is whether at the time of Olsen's ousting,
> the board had already decided Digital had no future and should be broken
> up and sold, or whether they really intended to give Digital a fair
> chance to get back in business.

Or Palmer seemed to be right
(he had a semiconductor background iirc),
but the task was just too big.

I sometimes wonder what some armchair Usenet strategist
would have achieved in his place.
I.e. confronted with losses of the order of 10 to 20%
of the annual revenue, employees demanding their monthly
salaries, share holders demanding quarterly dividends,
a product portfolio difficult to market due to false decisions
made almost a decade ago, etc etc.