> They misunderstood the PC. They thought it was just a toy and ignored it.
Not as I recall. Mainframe division understood it all too well. They fought like hell in the early 80s to stop it happening. And to stop microcomputers (the PC wasn't the first, or – as Bill Gates pointed out – the best) driving out the IT dept from banks and insurance companies, the main milch cows. Others in the company saw the victory of micros as inevitable, and wanted a slice of the action. So they set up Boca Raton behind a Chinese Wall. I think their battle cry was: No EBCDIC! The counter-arguments were quite persuasive (e.g. dispersal of the expertise concentrated in IT depts, so employees would get all these wonderful PCs but never learn how to use them) - but not persuasive enough, and their shock-horror projections all came to pass. Including the ill effects for customers. Wall-to-wall Excel has not been an unmitigated success. As for what happened next, I recommend Lou Gerstner's book: *Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?* Every old-school IBMer's darkest nightmare: a customer takeover. Lou even got IBM selling chips as a commodity. Well… you don't get rich selling clothes-pegs to gypsies. On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 at 13:59, Don Guinn <[email protected]> wrote: > They misunderstood the PC. They thought it was just a toy and ignored it. > > On Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 7:09 PM Björn Helgason <[email protected]> wrote: > > > When i was a product manager there I was told that when we wanted to sell > > something the selling price should deliver at least 10 times more than > > cost. > > > > Less than that they were not interested. > > > > We are not in the fingers and toes business I was told. > > > > That was 30 years ago. > > > > They have been going downhill ever since I left. > > > > Þann mán., 12. apr. 2021, 18:25 'Rodney Nicholson' via Chat skrifaði < > > [email protected]>: > > > > > “ 13 layers of managers.” > > > > > > The explanation of their survival is, I believe, their huge profit > > > margins. > > > > > > I still recall when they got a contract to electronically handle the > > > Toronto Stock Exchange trading system where they charged $18 per > > > transaction. Their cost of course was just a few electrons per > > transaction. > > > > > > They were in effect a monopoly at the time. And monopolies always > waste > > > huge quantities of resources, accordingly reducing everone’s living > > > standards. > > > > > > Rodney. > > > > > > > > > > On Apr 12, 2021, at 10:15 AM, Björn Helgason <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > > > apl lives on even if ibm goes away. > > > > > > > > it is really amazing that ibm is still around. > > > > > > > > 13 layers of managers. > > > > > > > > Þann mán., 12. apr. 2021, 13:51 Raul Miller skrifaði < > > > [email protected] > > > >> : > > > > > > > >> That's disappointing. > > > >> > > > >> Not surprising -- just disappointing. > > > >> > > > >> Still, there's J, there's Dyalog APL, there's GNU APL, and there's k > > > and q. > > > >> > > > >> Not to mention various hardware array concepts, such as greenarrays > > and > > > >> gpus. > > > >> > > > >> And, maybe, IBM will go back up at some point? > > > >> > > > >> Who knows... > > > >> > > > >> -- > > > >> Raul > > > >> > > > >>> On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 5:05 AM Björn Helgason <[email protected]> > > > wrote: > > > >>> > > > >>> https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/apl2-whats-new > > > >>> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >>> For information about J forums see > > http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >> For information about J forums see > > http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > >> > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > For information about J forums see > http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
