From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2017 09:05:51 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Why did PDPs become so popular?
Message-ID: <20171228140551.B6F9418C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Paul Winalski

    > Lack of marketing skill eventually caught up to DEC by the late 1980s
    > and was a principal reason for its downfall.

I got the impression that fundamentally, DEC's engineering 'corporate culture'
was the biggest problem; it wasn't suited to the commodity world of computing,
and it couldn't change fast enough. (DEC had always provided very well built
gear, lots of engineering documentation, etc, etc.)

I dunno, maybe my perception is wrong? There's a book about DEC's failure:

  Edgar H. Schein, "DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC", Berett-Koehler, San
	  Francisco, 2003

which probably has some good thoughts. Also:

  Clayton M. Christensen, "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies
	  Cause Great Firms to Fail", Harvard Business School, Boston, 1997

briefly mentions DEC.

	Noel