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Re: [PLUG] OSX "middleware"?
On 25 Feb, 2005, at 08:51, Art Alexion wrote:
I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but these sorts of marketing
decisions that override engineering considerations fascinate me.
Throughout history, Marketing has always trumped Engineering.
Ford may have been first, but GM became the automotive powerhouse
solely because marketing decided that people wanted something other
than "black." Chrysler "always" had the best engineered cars, but
nobody managed to sell them. Detroit forgot what marketing was all
about and ceded their dominance to Japan and Germany.
Univac's was always considered superior to IBM -- except that Univac
was run by engineers who had no clue about how to sell what they had.
IBM did.
Back in those days of heady engineering accomplishments, there was IBM
and the BUNCH --
Burroughs, Univac, NCR, CDC, Honeywell
... guess which company is still around today.
Digital died primarily because it could not market its way out of a
paper bag. They passed that disease along to Compaq who passed it along
to HP.
Neither Michael Dell nor Bill gates are "Engineering Giants" -- but
both are marketing geniuses.
The only reason that Linux became a household word was because a
certain evangelist [who, I think is still on this list :)] got Linus on
the Cover of Forbes, Fortune and Time (I think those were the covers).
And as they say, the rest is history. [Many of us in DECUS had long
before recognized what Linux was all about, but the marketing folks in
DEC could only say "VMS." Finally, after much finagling, Maddog managed
to get him an Alpha to develop on. And early versions of Linux were
ported from Alpha to x86 as a result.]
Jobs is an interesting situation. He himself is a brilliant marketer
who happens to also understand how to hire brilliant Engineers. Despite
his anal retentiveness, he seems to be giving both Gates and Dell a run
for their money. ... Is he hatching another "oh by the way" deal with
Sony based on the new Cell processor? We'll see if the next Mac comes
with a Blue-Ray or HD-DVD drive option, or is plug compatible with the
PS3.
T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
magill@mcgillsociety.org
magill@acm.org
magill@mac.com
whmagill@gmail.com
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