Risc System/6000

[Sam Drake]

In article <1990Mar10.174015.16644 at sun.soe.clarkson.edu> abstine at image.soe.clarkson.edu (Arthur Stine) writes:
>Well, then why did IBM announce it sooo early, if they aren't prepared to
>ship 'production' quality machines? Advice: if your product isn't ready
>then don't announce it and ship some 'pre-release' machines and then turn
>around and complain when users criticize it for not working right. 

The RISC System/6000 machines were announced on 15 Feb, with availability
dates generally listed as second quarter 1990.  I think if you look at what
most vendors of computer hardware are doing today, you'll see that a lag time
between announcement and availability of only 1 quarter (3 months or so) is
not "sooo early".  Many products are being announced by many companies many
Years before they actually ship.  Your sentiment is well taken ... but I think
you're aiming at an innocent party.

Every customer that has a '6000 today got it knowing full well that it was
an early ship machine.  If your organization didn't have a relationship
with IBM, you wouldn't have the machine at all today; you'd be waiting
until 2Q90 along with everyone else.  If your organization wanted a fully
tested machine, it should have said, "no thanks, we'll wait for the 2Q90
date".  Since your organization has a 6000, I assume you agreed to take a
pre-release machine; and so I really still think it's unfair for folks to
be saying, in effect, "hey, the early ship machine I asked IBM to send me
isn't fully tested".  Naturally it is not, and both you and IBM knew that
when the machine was delivered.  To complain about it now is just not right.

The bottom line is that pre-release software and hardware ... by definition ...
has bugs.  Every pre-release machine by every manufacturer has had bugs.
This says NOTHING about the quality of the final, generally-available product;
you can't extrapolate at all about what 2Q90 machines will be like from 
what early machines are like.  

If you order and receive a machine after the general availability
date in 2Q90, and it has bugs then, by all means flame away.  

Opinions are entirely my own; I do NOT speak for my employer.  Really!


Sam Drake / IBM Almaden Research Center 
Internet:  drake at ibm.com            BITNET:  DRAKE at ALMADEN
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