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

[JF Mezei]

Michael Kraemer wrote:

> 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.

I suspect everyone on c.o.v. has wondered that.

Personally, even back then, customers wsere demanding more competitive
pricing and demanding DEC start to compete against Microsoft instead of
just focusing on high end stuff. People has also been demanding more
"industry standard" stuff (aka: disks, memory available from 3rd
parties). Digital eventually did the 3rd one, but not the first 2.

I am quite confident that if the CEO of Digital had demanded of his
troups to start making affordable/competitive equipment that is not
crippled in any way, that they would have come through with flying colours.

The problem with Digital is that it had some loyal and rich customers
willing to pay IBM pricing, and Digital was not willing to make the leap
of faith between high-margin-low-volume to low-margin-high-volume.

DEC was squeezed out of existance by IBM at high end, and the rest of
the world at the low end.


Competition is a weird thing: it drives profit margins down. If you are
unwilling to compete you are put out of the market. If you are willing
to compete, your profits go down but you survive.