"Ron Seybold" <[log in to unmask]> wrote in message news:a6qk5501703@enews1.newsguy.com...
> Hello Friends:
>
> Greg Cagle writes that in 1989, Apollo's customer base showed
> character by doing these things:
>
> "people bit the bullet, did what they had to"
>
> and went along with HP's plans to discontinue their product.
>
> What were the costs of biting, and that doing? Who lost work, spent
> money earmarked for growth? The two above phrases don't begin to
> suggest how much effort Apollo customers spent switching off their
> systems, machines whose biggest sin appears to be "they weren't fast
> enough." Even at that, it's a sin more serious than the 3000's --
> "you're not something we can sell in big enough numbers anymore,"
> says HP.

Ron, the Apollo platform had another key issue that I didn't expand
on. It was (drumroll) PROPRIETARY. It a fabulous windowing system
and desktop, miles ahead of X11 and Motif. But it was PROPIETARY.
Apollo Domain was a network operating system long before Sun claimed
to be that. But it was PROPIETARY. THAT was the biggest sin.

What were the costs? A lot of people had to go buy new hardware and
software from HP. And Sun. And IBM.

> It's 12 years after the Apollo elimination, and HP customers have the
> Internet as a tool to gather as a group. Commodity computing is the
> rage at HP now, but that is pitted against the advantage the Internet
> brings to a customer. Commodity assumes you all pretty much want the
> same product, so distinguishing models can be dropped. Your specific
> needs are not as important as the needs of the many.
>
> Standing up for what you need is noble, too. Character can be
> demonstrated in many ways other than laying down.

Ron, people had jobs to do and work to get done. End of discussion.
--
Greg Cagle
gregc at gregcagle dot com

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