Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!ico!vail!rcd
From: rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ERISC???
Summary: Sorry for the momentary lapse in irrationality
Message-ID: <16211@vail.ICO.ISC.COM>
Date: 13 Oct 89 21:22:19 GMT
References: <16190@vail.ICO.ISC.COM> <4424@bd.sei.cmu.edu>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO
Lines: 23

> ...rcd@ico.ISC.COM (dat's me) writes:
[about the EE Times nearly content-free cover story on IBM's "America"]
> >The machine won't be out until some time next year...
> >Sigh...this sort of non-journalism doesn't do anyone--even IBM--any good.

I had been thinking that YA announcement of this long-delayed machine would
just make people more pessimistic that it ever will show.  However...

firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:
> Alas, I beg to differ.  We have seen this strategy before from the
> dinosaurs, and it is very effective.  What three-piece-suited executive
> is now going to order an R3000 or a SPARC, when in 12 months' time
> (or more like 18), Big Blue is going to come out with the Real Thing?

I concede that Firth is right.  I was reasoning about the situation...for
example, that there's nothing remarkable about a someday-machine having
better performance than a now-machine, or that the complete lack of either
cost or performance info might be unnerving.  But I was clearly being a
Pollyanna; that's NOT how people think about machine acquisition in
general, and especially when IBM is one of the potential players.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...No DOS.  UNIX.