Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!tivoli!alan
From: alan@tivoli.UUCP (Alan R. Weiss)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Motorola vs. Intel
Message-ID: <498@tivoli.UUCP>
Date: 22 Mar 91 14:58:56 GMT
References: <1991Mar12.015256.16098@ico.isc.com> <8024@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <1991Mar16.171033.380@am.sublink.org> <15745@megatest.UUCP>
Reply-To: alan@tivoli.UUCP (Alan R. Weiss)
Organization: Tivoli Systems Inc., Austin, TX
Lines: 56

In article <15745@megatest.UUCP> pat@megatest.UUCP (Patrick Powers) writes:
>
>The Wall Street Journal had a front-page article last week about the
>competition between Intel and Motorola for CPU sales.  It concluded
>that Motorola had been soundly trounced by Intel due to Motorola's
>emphasis on quality.  While Motorola delayed shipment until the part
>was defect free, Intel captured the market with imperfect parts.  As
>compensation, Motorola won the Baldridge quality award.
>
>The situation in the software industry is analogous.
>-- 
>--

I posted a *very* lengthy rebuttal to this bit of journalistic fluff.

If Dave of 88Open is reading this, can you post our discussions so
that people can see it (I neglected to save the file :-(

To summarize:  the subheadline that a focus on quality caused massive
schedule delays (dare we say a "fetish for quality") did NOT match the
facts presented in the article EXCEPT for POSSIBLY the MC68040
processor, and in that case Murray Goldman, Chief Honcho at Moto-Austin
SPECIFICALLY stated that this was NOT the case (it was due to the
"leapfrog effect" of dramatically increasing functionality and performance).

Note that Motorola has MANY products, and the article did NOT say that
the 88K series was delayed due to an obsession with quality.  Nor were
the DSP's, the specialized ASIC's, etc.  BTW, I phoned the Journal and
gave them holy hell for this, and the response was this:  the headlines
and subheadings are written in New York, and the story was written in
San Jose ....

The implication is as dangerous as it is incorrect:  shipping defective
software "early" == business success, while waiting to ship stable,
high quality software is a market lose?  Must we reiterate the market
failures associated with that strategy?

BTW, the fact that Intel tends to ship (slightly) defective microprocessors
early to market and fix them along the way has little to do with their
market success.  In fact, the RISC market is almost exclusively MIPS,
SPARC, Clipper (Intergraph), RIOS (IBM RS/6000), and H-P (Precision).
The i860, a screamer, has not had a lot of design wins.

Disclaimer: I speak only for myself. I have no connection with Motorola,
and am not a stockholder of record.  (I admire the firm for its
hardware engineering and battle with Japan, and deplore its random
drug testing policy, however.)

 
_______________________________________________________________________
Alan R. Weiss                           TIVOLI Systems, Inc.
E-mail: alan@tivoli.com                 6034 West Courtyard Drive,
E-mail: alan@whitney.tivoli.com	        Suite 210
Voice : (512) 794-9070                  Austin, Texas USA  78730
Fax   : (512) 794-0623
_______________________________________________________________________