On 10/2/2015 6:49 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 10/02/2015 07:23 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
DEC, DG, Wang are at the forefront of technology. Big (and smart)
companies that will go on forever.

As Ken Olsen wisely pointed out "why would anyone want a computer on
their desk?" Such a great vision.

Nothing like going from 'America's most successful entrepreneur' to 'what an
idiot' in a few short years.

There is also a legend that Ward Christensen's proudest possession is a memo
from his boss at IBM telling him if he wanted to mess around with 8080's on his
own time it was okay but the microprocessors were never going to go anyplace.

IBM is about the only dinosaur left standing and I'm not sure why. 15 years ago
all our clients were running RS/6000 systems and we were developing for AIX. I
can't remember the last time we did an AIX build and we shut down the last
RS/6000 boxes three years ago. They may or may not boot anymore but it's an
academic question.

They were nice systems but when dealing with IBM you always got the idea you
were dealing with the red headed step child division until you saw the invoice.

IBM has a constancy. There is little fear that they are going to
"go away" and leave you "hanging".

The first time a client asked me, straight out, "What do we do if you get
hit by a bus?", I laughed. I thought it a joke. But, realized he was
deadly serious -- what *would* they do if I got hit by a bus? Sure, I
could arrange for all of the work I'd done for them (even those things
for which I'd not yet been *paid*!) to exist in an escrow account in
their behalf. But, there's no *entity* ready to step into my shoes
and finish the work -- in anything akin to the timetable on which they
had initially planned!

With IBM, if your tech/salesperson/rep got hit by a bus, a new "droid"
would magically appear and introduce itself to you. Nothing for you
to "worry about".

IBM's designs (those that I've been exposed to) are also pretty "vanilla".
And, their "process" is significantly disciplined so there isn't much
risk of something existing *solely* in ONE GUY'S head (making that
guy indispensible).

All of these things conspire to leave you with a reasonably "safe"
path forward -- regardless of what might befall the company or
its employees.