Re: More IBM firings

On 13/11/2008, at 5:17 AM, Bruce Vining wrote:

The two terms I have historically associated with 'oh oh' are "mature" and "tactical". I readily agree that "strategic" doesn't guarantee success, but I've never seen strategic mean dead.

I think this is an external perception rather than an internal fact. IBM products need to be strategic in order to be successful at obtaining funding for future development. However, it seems to those outside IBM that "strategic" products are "dead" products. SAA, OS/2, Token Ring, etc. all were strategic and all died. Thus the perception (and joke) that when IBM states a product is strategic is is code for impending death.

Of course, being flagged as strategic is not the cause of the death. The death occurs for other reasons. SAA was IBM only, OS/2 was crippled by a PC division that wanted to also sell WinDOS, Token Ring was crippled by being more expensive than Ethernet, etc.


Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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