[TUHS] DEC and Dave Cutler (was Re: The John Snow's of the UNIX family)

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Paul Winalski wrote:
> DEC's downfall was a total lack of skill at marketing.  

I have a different view, having been at Sun when Sun was eating DEC's
lunch.  Sun made stuff that was just as good as what DEC built but they
were cheaper.  DEC couldn't adapt to decent machines that didn't cost
a big pile.

History repeats itself, Sun couldn't wean itself off $20,000 workstations
when you could get an almost as fast PC for 1/4th or less of that price
point.

I think perhaps the problem is that companies like that get big revenue
and can afford to do crazy amounts of engineering.  Then the market 
shifts and they can't really shift with it, they tell themselves they
don't want to ship junk.