From: arsouth@watson.ibm.com (Andrew R. Southwick)
Subject: Re: Will the real Taligent please stand up? (was Re: PowerPC or Mac???)
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 03:18:44 GMT
News-Software: IBM OS/2 PM RN (NR/2) v0.16 by O. Vishnepolsky and R. Rogers
Reply-To: arsouth@watson.ibm.com (Andrew R. Southwick)
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In <1992Dec14.050708.1488@cubetech.com> andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew Loewenstern) writes:
>In article <168BBDAAD.UC525655@mizzou1.missouri.edu> UC525655@mizzou1.missouri.edu (Mark Eaton) writes:
>>Hmm. I guess the combined resources of Apple and IBM won't be any
>>help to Taligent? Yeah, NeXT could easily stay ahead of two giants,
>>especially now that they'll be supporting two platforms. Don't
>>expect NS 3.0 for awhile now that they'll be worrying over NS486.
>
>Hello??

>What makes you think that these two companies are going to come
>together and actually make this work?
>
>1)  The last thing Taligent CEO Jaseph Guglielmi worked on was Office
>Vision.  After spending $300 million they never shipped anything.
[cleverly avoiding a possible minefield, Andrew moves on to point two...]

>2)  Here you have a company, Apple, which basically taught it's
>employees to hate I.B.M. for years and years (I've seen a slide that
>Guy Kawasaki stole from Apple which had a big stylized blue person
>wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase with a big red circle-slash
>around it and the Apple logo in the lower right hand corner). 
Yup, every single Apple employee HATES every single IBM employee.  Totally, 
utterly, without question.
Apple is not dealing with IBM, the mainframe company.  They are 
co-developing an OS and a new architecture.  The OS is not the next 
generation of VMS for a 360/370 compatible architecture.  It is a joint 
product of the company that revolutionized the (commercial) desktop with a 
easy-to-use and very successful GUI, and the founder of the current PC 
market.
The PowerPC is being based on technology developed for IBM's RS/6000 line,
considered an extremely advanced and powerful architecture.  Even people 
I knew who hated everything IBM had done before the RS/6000 were impressed
with its sophistication.  What makes you think that the PowerPC would be a 
flop?

>... But
>suddenly these companies are buddies and everyone's supposed to get
>along??  That doesn't happen.  When IBM bought my uncle's company
>(ROLM) several years back, everything was supposed to be great and the
>two companies would work together to make better products.  This
>didn't happen.  The ROLM people wanted to do things for the ROLM
>subsidiary, and the IBM people were still faithful to IBM.  When was
>the last time you saw something neat from ROLM?  In any event, IBM is
>NOTORIOUS for having problems with divisions and subsidiaries
>competing with eachother.  What makes you think this is going to be
>different?

>Look at what's happening.  This is obvoiusly not a "joint venture"
>this is "lets put our guys together and see if we can steal a lot of
>technology from the other."  IBM talks about folding OOP bullshit into
>OS/2, and Apple talks about doing the same thing with System 7.  Where
>is the joint product.

The joint product is neither OS/2 nor System 7, so what's your point here? 
Do you expect me to think that IBM and Apple are going to be worse off if 
they share technology?

>I bet nothing comes of Taligent but a major "lovers spat" where IBM
>and Apple come out with separate, competing products.

Apple is not Microsoft, and IBM has done a great job with OS/2.  In my 
opinion, OS/2 beats the pants off Windows.  Why?
-its an operating system, not a DOS application.  This is a HUGE advantage
-HPFS
-multiple DOS sessions
-"a better DOS than DOS"
Go see the os2 advocacy board for more.
The reason why I bring this up is because OS/2 and Win3.1 are the two end 
products of the dissolved IBM and Micro$oft joing venture.  MS has the 
market share, but who really has the better product?

>if I may quote Steve Jobs: "Name one really sucessful product that
>came from an alliance... I can't think of one sucessfil product in the
>history of our industry that ever came from an alliance.  Or any other
>industry, either.  Toyota and GM? - no.  I'm sure there are some
>examples bit they're not standouts.  The statistics are not in favor
>of these industry alliances."

So?  The statistics?

>But, if you want to toss all of the speculation aside and simply look
>at the facts: "I guess the combined resources of Apple and IBM won't
>be any help to Taligent? Yeah, NeXT could easily stay ahead of two
>giants, especially now that they'll be supporting two platforms."
>
>Who has been shipping an OO-OS for nearly FOUR years now, and who
>doesn't have s***?  You tell me.

Being newer technology, I have more faith in Taligent and Pink than in 
NS486.  For good examples, look at the German navy after WWI, Japan after 
WWII, the Mac after the PC, NeXTStep 3.0 after NeXTStep 1.0, ...

>>Mark Eaton                    | Opinions? We're not allowed to have
>-- 
>Andrew Loewenstern       |   can go straight to hell!"  - Ron Pomeroy

"The 1980's were the me generation. The 1990's are the me-too generation."
                               - G. Donald Moncreaff
--------------------------------------------------------------
My views are my own; behaviorists can stick THAT up their ***!
Andrew R. Southwick