wjw@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) (09/11/90)
In article <ASHERMAN.90Sep10201322@dino.ulowell.edu> asherman@dino.ulowell.edu (Aaron Sherman) writes: >mike@tuvie (Inst.f.Techn.Informatik) writes: > > > This would keep the standards-hounds happy, while letting people still get > > real work done. > Standards are necessary if you want to live in a heterogenous environment. > I guess you won't buy a VCR if it isn't able to play some other > manufacturer's cassettes. Same thing for computers! > >Sure, but I'd rather buy a VCR that played ALL manufacturer's cassettes. >Besides, look at what standards have gotten us with VCRs. Beta is a LOT better >than VHS. But, because VHS is THE STANDARD, Beta goes away (exept in a few >areas out West where quality won out). > Well let me tell you a little story, (And it not a fairy-tail): Not so very long ago there is/was this company. I will not mention their name, BUT they invented the casette-player, the cd-player, and lot and lots more which we use on a regular basis. Rumour has it that that company is going to lay off several thousands of employees, because of mis-management! It was in the days of BETAMAX video, and VHS was glowing on the horizon. The engineers went into their labs to do thier daily duties an came up with the best home-video system ever designed. They called it VC-2000 and it would probably last at least this long! So they went to the market, but there were no piggies who would buy thier system. You ask why, well the've never really found out (so they say). But again rumour has it that there was not enough support (Read prercorded tapes) for that product. So a lot of investment went down the drain, a very good product is now rotting on some poor peoples shelves. But the company is now happy making VHS-recorders. What is there to learn: It is not only the quality that sells the product, but quantity is going to have it's own way with the product. And now there's the chicken and the egg problem: HP is only going to keep and fix Domain/OS if there's a large customer basis for it. And that basis is not going to grow if Domain/OS is not compliant with the things that are out on the market in large volumes. (Read: *REAL* Unix!) END of the tail! So I for one forsee a very dark future for Domain/OS, which all it's valuable sides. I'll feel sorry if it goes, and if it does our group will probably not buy any Hapollos since they are usually to expensive. So close your eyes, let the sandman do it's work, and sleep on HPapollo! Hope you feel very sad with this tail, Willem Jan Withagen, Eindhoven University of Technology DomainName: wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl Digital Systems Group, Room EH 10.10 BITNET: ELEBWJ@HEITUE5.BITNET P.O. 513 Tel: +31-40-473401 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands