🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 12 May 1999 16:26:29, "David T. Johnson" <djohnson@isomedia.com> 
wrote:

> abeagley@datatone.com wrote:
> > In article <7fla7m$mq7$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> >   nasty7@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> > > There was some sort of "client requesting page" (I believe it was
> > > MenSys), where you could "pre-buy aurora client". They said something
> > > about $100 (!), so that would not be this expensive.
> > >
> > > If you find such pages, pre-buy it. You will not have to actual buy
> > > it, if it's too expensive, but you are REGISTERING for it. So IBM
> > will
> > > release it. And if enough will register, it will be released REALLY
> > > cheap.
> > >
> > > (Actually I will buy it at nearly any price. OS/2 Warp 4 is running
> > > here so smoothly, it's perfect, I love this OS.)
> > >
> > 
> > If it were only US$100 (or even US$200), it would be OK. But IBM still
> > says that there will *not* be a client version of Warp Server for
> > e-business ("Aurora"). Aurora is priced at around US$1500, which makes
> > it far too expensive for a single user or even for a small network. But
> > IBM doesn't seem to be interested in single users or small networks.
> > 
> > However, IBM is saying (or at least, the IBM rep. who made the
> > presentation on Aurora and WorkSpace on Demand at last night's [May 11]
> > meeting of the Long Island [New York] OS/2 Users' Group meeting said)
> > that they will continue to fix and upgrade Warp 4 for at least a couple
> > of years and that some of Aurora's features will "trickle down" to Warp
> > 4. Look for a new version of a popular OS/2 program within the next
> > month or two.
> > 
> IBM is a very large company.  Historically, they are slow to make a
> decision and they never reverse course once the decision is made.  The
> "decisions" made by Lou Gerstner and IBM top management seems to be that
> 1) IBM will not sell OS/2 to end-users and 2) IBM will encourage
> existing large users to migrate to other platforms.  These decision are
> very similar to the infamous decision made about PC-DOS when Don
> Estridge was creating the original IBM PC product:  "IBM will not supply
> the operating system"  Well, Microsoft (all 10 employees) was happy to
> do it and the rest is history.  And who can forget the IBM PC jR
> computer with the infamous chiclet keyboard and crippled features?  This
> was an example of another famous IBM decision:  "The PC jr is only for
> *home* users," (whatever those were).  IBM probably spent a fortune just
> finding someone who would make that chiclet keyboard to their "home
> user" specs.
> 
> Now, with OS/2, the same process is in motion.  IBM people in Network
> Computing know it is a stupid decision to not sell the Aurora client. 
> It is an even dumber (if that is possible) decision to not update the
> current v4 client to v4.01 and include the fixpacks.  But Lou Gerstner
> and top management have DECIDED:  "No OS/2 Client."  And top management
> will implement these stupid decisions (and others) until they are forced
> out of their jobs or they run out of money, whichever comes first. 
> Unfortunately for OS/2, IBM is booming right now, along with the
> computer industry in general, and they have plenty of money to squander
> on stupid decisions.

I think that's really well said, and I love the way you nailed on the 
parallel to the PC-DOS/MS-DOS decision, one of business' all-time blunders.
And though there were plenty of people drawing IBM paychecks who could see 
how stupid (and uncalled for) it was at the time, (or at least they say so 
now) they either didn't say it or didn't say it loud enough to get through 
the fatty insulating layers of management blubber to the place where the 
decision was actually being made.

Just another reason why it's dangerous to your soul to take a job where 
you're paid beyond your needs. You've then got to wrestle with the very 
tough decisions about when to speak up, knowing that you could be 
shotgunning the toes off your career *any* time you open your mouth. (I can
guess that more than a couple of folks who ended up in the dock at 
Nuremburg had time to see that they had merely been taking the easy way out
over a long series of minor moral challenges.)

And for some strange reason we'll start to understand more clearly in a 
subsequent lifetime, the companies today that are easy to work for don't 
have huge bucks to throw at you, while the ones that make for hard choices 
all the time, and put that quart jar of TUMS on top of your desk, will pay 
*everybody* up and down so well that nobody at any level wants to shake the
bush or make a peep. 

Good luck,

Buddy

Buddy Donnelly
donnelly@tampabay.rr.com