Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watdcsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!herbie From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS]) Newsgroups: net.works Subject: Re: IBM and the future Message-ID: <1098@watdcsu.UUCP> Date: Sat, 9-Mar-85 21:24:49 EST Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1098 Posted: Sat Mar 9 21:24:49 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Mar-85 07:43:51 EST References: <792@topaz.ARPA> <836@ames.UUCP> <426@terak.UUCP> Reply-To: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS]) Organization: U of Waterloo Lines: 60 Summary: In article <426@terak.UUCP> doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) writes: >> what interests me in the next ten to 15 years of computing is: >> 1) as micros approach mainframes in speed, what's ibm going to do? are >> they going to enter the supercomputer market by necessity? are ibm's >> somewhat stagnate views of computing going to affect the rest of the market >> with pc/370 ideas? > >IBM in the supercomputer market? Not very likely. IBM's strength is >in Business with a capital "B". They've failed pretty miserably in >past attempts to expand into other markets. About 15 years ago they >made a super number-cruncher called the 360/91. They sold 4 of 'em. yes, but no-one else sold any either and IBM wasn't seriously in there to sell more. according to informed rumor, the Sierra processors have changed the structure of the floating point hardware to significantly decrease the average processing time of the instructions, not that this is going to have cray worried or anything. until IBM decides it is profitable to do so, it will stay out of the supercomputer business. IBM will never go into the supercomputer market out of neccesity because it is they, more than anyone else, who control the direction and rate of progress of the microcomputer market. only when ALL OTHER manufacturers decide on something and move in that direction will IBM be forced to do anything. history has shown that this is not likely to happen and things will pretty much continue the way it has. when IBM decides it's time to make a supercomputer to challenge cray's, they will dominate the market in less than five years. whether this is good or bad remains to be seen. >A few years back they came out with a "home computer", the 16K IBM PC, >which had BASIC in ROM and a cassette port. Remember that? Nobody >bought it. Instead, businesses bought the PC with dual disk drives, >and then Winchesters. So IBM made another run at the "home computer" >market with the PC-jr. They didn't sell many of those until they made >it capable of running business applications like Lotus 1-2-3. >-- >Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug just as any company, IBM has done some pretty stupid things. what counts is that there are enough good things being done and marketed successfully to make up for it. all this talk about powerful microcomputers replacing mainframes is just talk until i/o devices of the speed and capacity of current mainframe peripherals is available at prices that the average consumer can afford. i have been using a microVAX for a bit (running Ultrix) and my number one gripe about it is that any disk i/o and my programs grind to a halt. if raw CPU power was all there was to IBM's, a lot of other people would have a dominant position in the mainframe market. business processing is dominated by i/o and that's where micro's just haven't caught up yet. optical disks may help, but they they'll also be available for mainframes first, so nothing's going to change much for most part. ramblings from the keyboard of Herb Chong... I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble.... UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!water!watdcsu!herbie CSNET: herbie%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet ARPA: herbie%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa NETNORTH, BITNET, EARN: herbie@watdcs, herbie@watdcsu