AT&T Joining OSF

[Brian Holt]

In article <57 at minya.UUCP> jc at minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>In article <3d999147.d8e9 at apollo.COM>, gallen at apollo.COM (Gary Allen) writes:
>pretty much proven that IBM can market nearly anything they want, regardless
>of its quality.  Their products have covered the full range from super-shoddy 
>to incredibly-good, and this has relatively little to do with sales.  OSF,
>with IBM's sales budget, could sell a buggy, user-unfriendly Unix to much
>of the market and convince people that it was good.  (Can you say DOS or
>OS/2?  I knew you could! :-)  The idea that the "market" will drive out
>bad products is a nice piece of AdamSmithian Pollyanism, but the facts
>in the computer field (where most purchase decisions are made by managers
>who are ignorant of current computers) are clearly otherwise.
>
Now hold on a minute here.  I usually am perfectly willing to sit back and 
watch people spewing misinformation and arguing amongst themselves, but this
is a bit too much.  "OSF, with IBM's sales budget"... Huh?  I guess your following
sentence is true, but so is: "Mt. Xinu, with AT&T's gross income, could send
their whole R&D staff to Tahiti for 6 months".  

OSF is a corporation.  OSF is NOT IBM.  OSF is NOT DEC.  Or Apollo.  Or HP.
Or Siemens, or anyone else.  Those companies certainly founded it, but it
is an INDEPENDANT company.  Sure, they've got 100 million dollars or so
(or enough for about 1,000 person years of work before they need to have
an income), but that's it.  After that they are on their own.  They don't
have IBM's sales budget!

Now think about it.  On that $100 million (or so), they need to buy 
equipment, hire engineers, marketing hypes (er, types :-), buy Jolt,
and everything else.  Then keep it running until they can sell enough
to cover their expenses.  I promise they are going to listen to anyone
who is a customer of theirs, or even a potential customer.  That may 
be a lot of money, but it is not infinite.  And remember, they really
are serious about starting to ship code (something at least) in
18 months.

If you *really* want to influence it, send them your resume...

		=brian

Disclaimer:  my only connection to OSF is that my office-mate is on
loan to them for a few months, leaving me with a double office, and
I'd be perfectly happy if they slipped their schedules, as then I'd
have all this space to myself for even longer... Oh yeah, these are
my thoughts, not anybody elses.




-- 
Internet: brian at apollo.COM            UUCP: {decvax,mit-erl,yale}!apollo!brian
NETel:    Apollo: 508-256-6600 x5694  Home: 617-332-3073    FISA: 617-964-8938
USPS:     Apollo Computer, Chelmsford MA     Home: 29 Trowbridge St. Newton MA
(Copyright 1988 by author. Redistribution for non-commercial purposes allowed)