From: swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren)
Subject: Re: History was made today...
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 00:37:53 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In article <1gon7oINNshk@mirror.digex.com> hacker@access.digex.com (Dark Hacker) writes:
>History was made today.  IBM's stock price dropped to below its book
>value of 55 today, to close at 51 points per share on news that Big

                 [... irrelevant statements deleted ...]

>Innovation and attention to the customer in the form of ergonomic design
>and well engineered products are what distinguish Apple's computers from
>the utter crap being churned out by IBM and the PC clone manufacturers.
>No longer able to rely on consistant sales of big mainframes to huge
>institutions, IBM is suddenly finding it has to (gasp) compete and, if
>it learns its lesson at all, will have learned it too late.

It is sad indeed that IBM foisted upon the world the sorry piece of
machinery now known as a "PC" (remember when any desktop
microprocessor-based computer was a "PC"?  Now it has to be IBM
compatible to be referred to as a "PC".), and then by the sheer mass
of their bloated marketing power, bull-dozed it over everything
in its path.  As a result we are now stuck with its evil legacy.

That being said, your article sheds absolutely no light on relative
merits of the various machines on the market today.

First of all, IBM has never earned a significant percentage of their
income from PC sales, and their stockprice has nothing to do with a
failure in the PC market.  If anything the IBM-compatible
architecture has tightened its stranglehold on the market in the
last year.  If you think that Macs are threatening the PC market
then you are smoking something funny in your pipe.

Second of all, IBM *DWARFS* Apple.  The fact that IBM stock is
selling for less than Apple per-share is a coincidence based on the
number of shares outstanding per company.  Your suggestion that
Apple's share price rising above IBM's has some kind of significance
is ludicrous.

Third, IBM could go away tomorrow and the PC market would scarcely
notice.  The only people who buy IBM brand PC's are institutions.
If you think that Apple is competing mainly with IBM you are
mistaken.  Apple has to beat the prices of thousands of cheap shops
in Taiwan and other Asian nations.

Finally, IBM's problems stem largely from the *success* of desktop
computers, not failure.  IBM makes the RS6000, which has been a
hugely successful workstation, but it is displacing mainframes in
some locations.  IBM is replacing million dollar IBM machines with
$100,000 IBM machines, and they are losing money as a result.  They
had a choice between replacing their mainframes with fast IBM
workstations or letting some other workstation company replace their
mainframes.  They were backed into a corner and they did what they
could.  One thing you might notice about this situation is that it
has nothing to do with PCs.

Your PC-centered interpretation of these events is totally bogus.
But if it makes you feel better to believe that stuff while the
monster hords of Utter Crap (TM) continue to take over the computing
world, and most consumers ignore the arguably superior Mac, then
stick your head in the sand and whisper to yourself, "there's no box
like a Mac, there's no box like a Mac, there's no box like a Mac,
..."

>Ignore the market... and the market will ignore you...
>
>- Dark Hacker
>-- 
>Dark Hacker @ Black Silicon, Fortress Of Computation
>hacker@black-silicon.mclean.va.us
>
>"Life itself is... COMPUTATION!"

-- 
            _.
--Steve   ._||__    Welcome to the World's First GaAs Supercomputer
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