Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!psivax!uunet!mcrware!jejones From: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: AT&T Joining OSF Summary: a perhaps more accurate characterization Message-ID: <722@mcrware.UUCP> Date: 11 Aug 88 19:50:37 GMT References: <347@spies.UUCP> <670025@hpclscu.HP.COM> <24355@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <63717@sun.uucp> Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Des Moines, Ia. Lines: 22 In article <63717@sun.uucp>, pope@vatican (John Pope) writes: > In article <24355@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, madd@bu-cs (Jim Frost) writes: > > > >[...] IBM became big by being reliable; they never > >did anything really new so what they had was most likely going to > >work. > > Aren't you ignoring things like RISC and Virtual Memory?... No doubt many people will point at the Ferranti Atlas and Burroughs large systems (B5000 et seq.) as virtual memory systems predating the 370 by quite a few years. I think that a more accurate characterization of IBM is that they never bring out anything new until they have to. IBM "legitimatizes" innovations, whether they are IBM's or somebody elses, entering the market years after others have done so--look at personal computers, relational databases, virtual memory, and now RISC machines for examples. James Jones (whose opinions are his own, and not necessarily those of any other eukaryotic creature or legal fiction)