Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!art
From: art@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Al Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.encore
Subject: Re: is there interest ... NP/1
Message-ID: <43596@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 29 Nov 89 22:27:05 GMT
References: <8911291654.aa28195@CC2.PICA.ARMY.MIL>
Reply-To: art@cs.bu.edu (Al Thompson)
Followup-To: comp.sys.encore
Organization: Boston University
Lines: 34

In article <8911291654.aa28195@CC2.PICA.ARMY.MIL> mchinni@PICA.ARMY.MIL ("Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E") writes:
>[...]
>What makes you think that Gould was in trouble and was "brought down", and that
>the NP line was loosing a lot of money. The story I heard (and read in a UNIX
>trade publication) was the Gould, Inc. was bought by a Japanese Mining Corp..
>Since Gould Inc., Computer Systems Division (CSD) had several contracts in
>place at the time with the DoD, the sale required DoD approval. DoD said, the
>sale would be approved -IF- CSD was sold off to a U.S.-owned company. Encore
>then bought CSD.
>
>{ My opinions start here }
>Encore then found itself with two competeing UNIX lines - their's and CSD's.
>Therefore, since their's was their's and CSD's was the former competitor, CSD's
>had to go. I get this opinion from:
>	- talks with CSD service reps. who mentioned that no further upgrades
>		(other than bug fixes) are to be done for the CSD UNIX line
>		(PowerNodes and NP/1s) 
>	- talk in this list with mention made of further upgrades for the Encore
> 		UNIX line.
>
>Assuming that the basis for my opinions is true (not neccessarily a vaild
>assumption). My conclusion is that the decision to close down the CSD UNIX line
>may have been made in part for business reasons, but that the other part was
>the opportunity to kill off a competitor. 
>
>This may sound harsh, but has anyone ever heard of a company buying a
>competitor, and then replacing it's own established product line with the line
>of its new acquisition (and former competitor).

I attended the Encore annual meeting and Encore's CEO, Ken Fischer
addressed this very point.  He said that the Gould product line was indeed
losing money and "something" has to be done.  Fischer did not indicate
that he considered CSD to be a competitor, rather he felt it opened a
potential new line of business for Encore.