On Sunday 11 November 2012 16:39:56 Grant Edwards wrote:
> AFAICT, all CDC system software was awful.
I hope that isn't entirely true, because of this little tale.
Some years ago Empros (another CDC company, in Plymouth, MN) had a large
fraction of the world's electricity grid control market sewn up - until
their marketing department committed them to a contract they couldn't
possibly survive: they wanted the British grid system as a feather in
their cap (remember CEGB, anyone?) and assumed that they could profit
from the same old feature creep as they had everywhere else. Fatal
mistake, which cost them (I think) $36m in mainframe hardware upgrades
alone. They should have read our functional spec properly. ("When I hit
the Go button the effect must be shown on-screen within one second.") The
change-control board, constituted at Director level, considered just 12
changes, each costed and rubber-stamped. Everything else had to be
fulfilled in the contract.
How many computer systems use 10 programming languages? Just don't ask
me to list them after all this time.
I'm sure Empros's systems must still be keeping lights on to this day in
many parts of the world.
Just goes to show - choose your marketing people very carefully.
--
Rgds
Peter
