inc@fluke.UUCP (Gary Benson) (11/24/83)
In the posting re: Crown/Zellerbach entering the OA market, the query was
raised, "Where are they now" with regard to Exxon OA. Here's part of the
story:
After Qwip, Exxon felt they had enough of a handle on office automation to
offer a stand-alone word processor. The concept was hot, but apparently
the engineering and software folks couldn't bring it off. It used absolute
screen adressing that was *way* to complicated for simply getting text
onto the screen. Their intention had been to have various fonts available,
and eventually graphics/text processing and merging. They apparently got
the hardware going, and had already signed contracts with various venders
and suppliers for peripherals. However, the software guys just didn't do
their homework about those little details, "User Friendliness", and
"Deigning for Need". They just tripped off into a wild blue yonder and
tried banging out code that *worked*. Their just wasn't enough time to do
it right the first time, because IBM was starting to make big noises about
entering the market, and blow away the upstarts. Which is in fact what
happened to Exxon Office Systems. The IBM PC was released, and Exxon
watched while their prospective market died. They closed up shop about two
years ago, offering positions to those they could absorb, but mostly
laying off people.
I gathered most of this from Mr. Don Szambelan (Don the Swan), who saw the
predicament early enough to relocate to Minneapolis, where he was manager
fo Technical Training for CPT Corporation, who had their word-processing
act together in 1973. I worked for the Swan for about a year after he left
the sinking ship. He told me that you can definitely detect when a company
is going to fold by some easily observed phenomena:
People don't smile much; morale is low.
You don't hear comments like, "Boy, this new product is going to be
great!", because R&D is at a standstill. There are no rumors of new
products, and meetings tend to concentrate on finishing existing
projects, rather than planning new ones.
I pass these along, because for a time I was worried that CPT might be
headed in that direction, and really didn't have any way to judge if my
suspicions were justified. If you're thinking that your present employer
might be folding, you might look at it from that perspective. It turns out
that CPT was and remains healthy, and the criteria Don described were
adequate predictors. Bye -
Gary Benson
John Fluke Mfg. Co.
Everett, WA, USA