Re: More IBM firings

[Simon Coulter <shc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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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