[Info-vax] Did Ken Olsen kill Alpha?

[Rich Alderson]

Michael Kraemer <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> writes:

> Bob Koehler schrieb:
>> In article <j7qf7f$alv$1 at solani.org>, Michael Kraemer <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> writes:

>>> The whole DECstation line was rather successful
>>> in the technical computing segment,
>>> but DEC treated it like a stop gap measure and it withered
>>> away as soon as the Alpha hype set in.

>>    I can't really blame DEC for not wanting to bet it's future on an SGI
>>    product. 

> Mips wasn't an SGI product, but an independent fabless chip firm.

>> I don't think anyone was surprised when SGI bought MIPS.

> Because DEC didn't want it but rather burned their money
> in a fruitless endeavour called Alpha.

>>    Meanwhile Ultrix-MIPS was "just another UNIX" in a market already
>>    dominated by Sun and others.  When we got Ultrix-MIPS, our customers
>>    complained that anything from DEC wasn't a "real UNIX".

> You obviously live in a different part of the universe.
> The people I know of didn't give a damn about what's a "real UNIX".
> As long as it was *IX and had good price performance.
> That's what DEC's Mips line had, if one put everything together,
> hardware, OS, apps (compilers). Istr it also beat the Sparcs of that
> era in raw performance.
> In particular DEC lovers liked the idea to stay with the same
> company when going from VMS to UNIX: same GUI, same apps (DECwrite etc),
> even the same keyboard, but much more bang for the buck.

> In hindsight, the Mips line was one of DEC's smartest moves.
> Too bad they blew it.

For that matter, MIPS own line of Unix-based systems was good enough that a
firm with which I'm quite familiar used them for their IT for several years,
until HP's PA-RISC servers brought in better price/performance ratios.
(Alpha was in the running for the replacement platform, as was Sparc.)

I know, because I helped do the benchmarks that drove the decision.

-- 
Rich Alderson                                   news at alderson.users.panix.com
    the russet leaves of an autumn oak/inspire once again the failed poet/
    to take up his pen/and essay to place his meagre words upon the page...