[Info-vax] Steve Jobes [was: Apple says ...]

[John Wallace]

On Oct 10, 8:23 am, Michael Kraemer <M.Krae... at gsi.de> wrote:
> JF Mezei schrieb:
>
> > Michael Kraemer wrote:
>
> >>http://www.businessweek.com/1997/17/b3524142.htm
>
> > The following 2 paragraphs define DEC's problems really well:
>
> (snip)
>
> Internal competition between x86 and the homegrown chip,
> and competition between low-end/high-volume and low-volume/high-profit
> are issues all computer makers have to face, these are hardly
> unique problems.
>
> More interesting is the paragraph stating
>
> "But behind Alpha's poor market showing lies a broader business lesson:
> New technologies, no matter how whizzy, have an increasingly tough time
> finding acceptance against well-entrenched competitors ..."
>
> which means that no "marketing" effort could have helped Alpha (and DEC)
> out of its misery.
>
> And even more interesting, though off-topic, is the paragraph about
> Cutler being caught in the act stealing DEC's property.
> It's beyond me why people find this acceptable (and even praise him
> for allegedly inventing WNT as VMS++, thus doing more damage
> to VMS than Palmer ever could),
> whereas intel still is being bashed for allegedly copying Alpha,
> although there was never any evidence.

There was evidence that suitably directed marketing effort (find out
what the market needs that Alpha can do well, and make sure the
customers in that market are aware that it can do it) did lead to
Alpha doing well. From a purely personal point of view, Sun and IBM
customers were well impressed (as I said earlier). Some of them even
bought stuff. In another sector, the back end of the print industry
needed high performance in its PostScript-to-raster systems, either
for previewing on the desktop or for actual printer controllers. Alpha
and some smart software on NT meant that, at least till Gates pulled
the rug from under NT/Alpha, this was a succesful niche for Alpha.
What was *not* really appropriate was to try to sell Alpha PCs through
standard PC channels (such as Vobis).

As for Cutler: do you really not understand ? Then I'll try to keep it
simple.

Cutler (and ideas, and friends) were at Microsoft.

Palmer thought Gates could be a trusted ally both in promoting Alpha
and in selling DEC services and therefore didn't want to upset Gates
(this despite Gates' already clear history of untrustworthiness).

Palmer didn't expect Gates to say "You can be Larry's friend or you
can be my friend", but Gates did. This was in the context of a volume-
market-targeted StrongARM-based multi-purpose thin client that would
not run Windows NT, but be based on a set of multivendor standards
from companies including Oracle (AND Apple - on topic?). IE it would
challenge MS desktop dominance in the corporate sector. See e.g.
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/10/business/digital-employees-tell-of-threats-by-gates-over-product.html