AT&T Joining OSF

[D.Rorke]

> In article <57 at minya.UUCP> jc at minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
> >In article <3d999147.d8e9 at apollo.COM>, gallen at apollo.COM (Gary Allen) writes:
> >pretty much proven that IBM can market nearly anything they want, regardless
> >of its quality.  Their products have covered the full range from super-shoddy 
> >to incredibly-good, and this has relatively little to do with sales.  OSF,
> >with IBM's sales budget, could sell a buggy, user-unfriendly Unix to much
> >of the market and convince people that it was good.  (Can you say DOS or
> >OS/2?  I knew you could! :-)  The idea that the "market" will drive out
> >bad products is a nice piece of AdamSmithian Pollyanism, but the facts
> >in the computer field (where most purchase decisions are made by managers
> >who are ignorant of current computers) are clearly otherwise.
> >
> Now hold on a minute here.  I usually am perfectly willing to sit back and 
> watch people spewing misinformation and arguing amongst themselves, but this
> is a bit too much.  "OSF, with IBM's sales budget"... Huh?  I guess your following
> sentence is true, but so is: "Mt. Xinu, with AT&T's gross income, could send
> their whole R&D staff to Tahiti for 6 months".  
> 
> OSF is a corporation.  OSF is NOT IBM.  OSF is NOT DEC.  Or Apollo.  Or HP.
> Or Siemens, or anyone else.  Those companies certainly founded it, but it
> is an INDEPENDANT company.  Sure, they've got 100 million dollars or so
> (or enough for about 1,000 person years of work before they need to have
> an income), but that's it.  After that they are on their own.  They don't
> have IBM's sales budget!

No, they don't have IBM's sales budget per se, but neither does Microsoft
and they managed to sell a few copies of DOS.  Now why do you think that
was?  The point is that there are still many MIS manager types that can
only see the color blue when making computer purchasing decisions.  So
when such a manager decides to go shopping for a UNIX-like system who
is he going to call?  And what UNIX-like system is his friendly IBM
rep going to sell him (after trying very hard to convince the
MISmanager (sic) that MVS and VM are really still sufficient to
meet all his needs)?  This, of course, assumes that there will be
some sort of OSF product to sell, something that I'm not yet fully
convinced of.
> 
> Now think about it.  On that $100 million (or so), they need to buy 
> equipment, hire engineers, marketing hypes (er, types :-), buy Jolt,
> and everything else.  Then keep it running until they can sell enough
> to cover their expenses.  I promise they are going to listen to anyone
> who is a customer of theirs, or even a potential customer.  That may 
> be a lot of money, but it is not infinite.  And remember, they really
> are serious about starting to ship code (something at least) in
> 18 months.
>
Well, you certainly sound like the official OSF spokesman here -
surprising considering your disclaimer below.
YOU "promise".  Well, I guess I've got it on good authority then.
I presume you can read the minds and control the behavior of the top
OSF management and that's how you can make promises and confidently
assure us that they are "serious" about shipping code.

I do agree that $100 million is a relatively small investment
considering the parties involved.  How many times that do you
figure they will jointly spend on development of proprietary
systems over the same period of time?  This reasoning is what
has led many observers to question the sincerity of some
of the member's commitment to open systems.

 
> If you *really* want to influence it, send them your resume...
> 
> 		=brian
> 
> Disclaimer:  my only connection to OSF is that my office-mate is on
> loan to them for a few months, leaving me with a double office, and
> I'd be perfectly happy if they slipped their schedules, as then I'd
> have all this space to myself for even longer... Oh yeah, these are
> my thoughts, not anybody elses.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Internet: brian at apollo.COM            UUCP: {decvax,mit-erl,yale}!apollo!brian
> NETel:    Apollo: 508-256-6600 x5694  Home: 617-332-3073    FISA: 617-964-8938
> USPS:     Apollo Computer, Chelmsford MA     Home: 29 Trowbridge St. Newton MA
> (Copyright 1988 by author. Redistribution for non-commercial purposes allowed)

Disclaimer:	These are my opinions and not necessarily those of my
		employer.


Dave Rorke
AT&T Bell Laboratories
attunix!der