🚀 go-pugleaf

On 05/21/2018 02:06 PM, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> In the 1950s and 1960s, computers were the hot growing thing,
> and a lot of companies got into them.  Some were large, some
> were small.
> 
> Two big companies were GE and RCA.  Both had extensive product
> lines that already served industry, so they should've known how
> to market and support complex technical products.  GE, among
> other products, sold power plants.  RCA sold television stations.
> 
> Anyone care to comment on what went wrong with them?
> 

As far as GE goes, upper management never wanted to get into the 
computer business. It was snuck in thru the back door and never had 
higher-level support.

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> In the 1950s and 1960s, computers were the hot growing thing,
> and a lot of companies got into them.  Some were large, some
> were small.
>
> Two big companies were GE and RCA.  Both had extensive product
> lines that already served industry, so they should've known how
> to market and support complex technical products.  GE, among
> other products, sold power plants.  RCA sold television stations.
>
> Anyone care to comment on what went wrong with them?

I've repeated periodically before ... one of the former co-workers said
his father was (economics professor) involved in the gov. anti-trust
case against IBM. He relates that executives from the other companies
testified that by the late 50s, all the computer makers realized that
product line compatibility was single most important factor (customer
computer uptake was rapidly expanding and increasingly, customers needed
to upgrade). They claimed that only IBM executives were able to force
plant managers (of different models in product line) to conform to
product line capatibility.

because customers were spending so much resources with upgrading
computers to handle increasing wirkload ... IBM had significant
marketing advantage with story about product line compatibility.

a few past refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#60 Was FORTRAN buggy?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#8 what does xp do when system is copying
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#45 360 programs on a z/10
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#14 360 programs on a z/10
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#50 System/360--detailed engineering description (AFIPS 1964)

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On Mon, 21 May 2018 11:06:20 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>In the 1950s and 1960s, computers were the hot growing thing,
>and a lot of companies got into them.  Some were large, some
>were small.
>
>Two big companies were GE and RCA.  Both had extensive product
>lines that already served industry, so they should've known how
>to market and support complex technical products.  GE, among
>other products, sold power plants.  RCA sold television stations.
>
>Anyone care to comment on what went wrong with them?

Robert L. Glass talks about some of the seven dwarfs, including RCA, in
Computing Catastrophes (1983).

On Monday, May 21, 2018 at 3:13:41 PM UTC-4, Lynn Wheeler wrote:

> I've repeated periodically before ... one of the former co-workers said
> his father was (economics professor) involved in the gov. anti-trust
> case against IBM. He relates that executives from the other companies
> testified that by the late 50s, all the computer makers realized that
> product line compatibility was single most important factor (customer
> computer uptake was rapidly expanding and increasingly, customers needed
> to upgrade). They claimed that only IBM executives were able to force
> plant managers (of different models in product line) to conform to
> product line capatibility.
> 
> because customers were spending so much resources with upgrading
> computers to handle increasing wirkload ... IBM had significant
> marketing advantage with story about product line compatibility.

I don't know about the GE product line, but RCA followed
with a S/360 compatible design in their Spectra series.

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com Wrote in message:
> 
> I don't know about the GE product line, but RCA followed
> with a S/360 compatible design in their Spectra series.

GE gave up. They had just made an enormous investment in a product
 line that was supposed to be 7094 compatible. But
 wasn't.

Which was part of the problem. Their often appealing looking
 architectures got worse and worse as you got to board and code
 level details.

Sarr


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On 2018-05-22, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> On Monday, May 21, 2018 at 3:13:41 PM UTC-4, Lynn Wheeler wrote:
>
>> I've repeated periodically before ... one of the former co-workers said
>> his father was (economics professor) involved in the gov. anti-trust
>> case against IBM. He relates that executives from the other companies
>> testified that by the late 50s, all the computer makers realized that
>> product line compatibility was single most important factor (customer
>> computer uptake was rapidly expanding and increasingly, customers needed
>> to upgrade). They claimed that only IBM executives were able to force
>> plant managers (of different models in product line) to conform to
>> product line capatibility.
>> 
>> because customers were spending so much resources with upgrading
>> computers to handle increasing wirkload ... IBM had significant
>> marketing advantage with story about product line compatibility.
>
> I don't know about the GE product line, but RCA followed
> with a S/360 compatible design in their Spectra series.

...which they sold to Univac when they decided to get out.
Univac folded it into their S/360 compatible line, and their
VMOS (Virtual Memory Operating System) became Univac's VS/9,
when their own 9700 and OS/7 tanked.

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