Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!ames!cit-vax!news From: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Usenet netnews) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Many Questions/ some answers Message-ID: <1373@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> Date: Thu, 18-Dec-86 20:17:33 EST Article-I.D.: cit-vax.1373 Posted: Thu Dec 18 20:17:33 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 19-Dec-86 02:52:10 EST References: <650@imsvax.UUCP> Reply-To: tim@tomcat.caltech.edu (Tim Kay) Organization: California Institute of Technology Lines: 46 Summary: really? Organization : California Institute of Technology Keywords: From: tim@tomcat.Caltech.Edu (Tim Kay) Path: tomcat!tim In article <650@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: >The clones cost about half or a third what IBM's do and they (the >clones) don't break. IBM must be wishing they'd never heard the words >"PC" or "micro-computer" along about now. Without IBM's interference, >micros would never have achieved the standardization which is now >allowing them to challenge minis and mainframes. And IBM? They >invented the PC/DOS game and now they can't even play their own game >successfully and the game is threatening to destroy their big Fortune >500 mainframe business. Kind of like letting the genie out of the >bottle. You've said several very interesting things here. First of all, which is more reliable, IBM or compatibles? Business people often think that, if you buy a machine from IBM, it must be more reliable than a machine from some small company. And I have seen many a flakey clone. However, I have also seen many lemons from IBM. Big Blue seems to have very poor quality control regarding their PCs. They also offer (by recent standards) an unreasonably short warranty and a very expensive maintenance contract. I am beginning to think that IBM equipment might cost more to keep running. Next, I can't see how PCs are competing with minis and mainframes. An 80[23]86 at 8 or even 16Mhz still doesn't pack a fraction of the computing power of a Vax 11/780. And, for the work I do, a Vax is a small machine. A 3090/400 is roughly 50 times as powerful. Finally, what is the PC/DOS game? I would attribute the fall in IBM's stock prices to their inability to innovate. They have been playing the object-code compatibility game for a long time now. But in recent years, software manufacturer's have figured out how to write large programs that aren't dependent upon a particular architecure. In other words, IBM's monopoly has finially been broken by companies that have figured paths of access to IBM's customers. On the other hand, IBM is a LONG way from dead. Just because their sales didn't live up to their optimistic projections doesn't mean they are in trouble. Timothy L. Kay tim@csvax.caltech.edu Department of Computer Science Caltech, 256-80 Pasadena, CA 91125