[TUHS] Re: Demise of AT&T

[Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com>]

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On Mon, May 19, 2025 at 9:43 AM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

>     > It wasn't just AT&T, IBM & DEC that got run over by commodity DRAM &
>     > CPU's, it was the entire Minicomputer Industry, effectively extinct
> by
>     > 1995.
>
> Same thing for the work-station industry (with Sun being merely the most
> notable example).
>

Indeed.  Extinction of existing practice by new technology happens all the
time and not just in the computer field.  Before sound recording and
playback was invented,  fancy restaurants, hotels, etc. hired orchestras to
play background music.  The phonograph put a huge number of orchestras out
of business.

There's a knee-jerk tendency in our industry for companies to respond to
new technology by retreating to the high end of the market in an attempt to
protect profit margins.  IBM did this when minicomputers came along; Apollo
did it when confronted with cheap workstations (Sun); DEC did it when the
PC appeared; Intel right now is attempting to do it to stave off
competition from ARM.  In all cases the effort has been unsuccessful and
usually has resulted in the death of the company (IBM has survived, but as
a shadow of its former self).

I think it was Scott McNealy who said (regarding protecting existing
products and profit margins) that a tech company must be prepared to eat
its own children.  If they don't, the competition will.

-Paul W.

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