Interesting discussion, but don't forget software was free until on June 23, 1969, when IBM announced its unbundled offerings! The computer manufacturers then separately priced their software but at it is what sold the hardware for some time thereafter.
It was, for quite some time, always safe for business to buy IBM, regardless of price. But the 1970s represented a transition period when independent software vendors starting selling software for specific machines but then thanks to Unix (?) across hardware. There were plug compatible computers for IBM and even DEC. The price of the hardware was such that this was business oriented commerce and I think hardware drove the sales, but with specific software sometimes being a requirement for a specific application. The advent of personal computers in the late 70s made computing available to the home but I'm not sure whether the impulse to buy was the hardware, Apple v IBM. or software, possibly games or more likely software one needed at home for work purposes, WordPress, VisiCalc, etc And the plug compatible PCs changed the market all again. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Tarek Hoteit <ta...@infocom.ai> Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2024 10:16 AM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: [cctalk] PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s) I came across this paragraph from the July 1981 Popular Science magazine edition in the article titled “Compute power - pro models at almost home-unit prices.” “ ‘Personal-computer buffs may buy a machine, bring it home, and then spend the rest of their time looking for things it can do’, said …. ‘In business, it’s the other way around. Here you know the job, you have to find a machine that will do it. More precisely, you have to find software that will do the job. Finding a computer to use the software you’ve selected becomes secondary.”. Do you guys* think that software drove hardware sales rather than the other way around for businesses in the early days? I recall that computer hardware salespeople would be knocking on businesses office doors rather than software salesmen. Just seeking your opinion now that we are far ahead from 1981. (*I do wish we have female gender engaged in the classic computing discussions threads as well. Maybe there is.) Regards, Tarek Hoteit AI Consultant, PhD +1 360-838-3675
