Re: Seeing VERSIONINFO under Vista?

In article news:<u4gr53tnrdicehkjicgak2dl2731807gt4@xxxxxxx>, Joseph M. Newcomer
wrote:
ANd that's my point: their marketing department could predict in ten years
how many keypunches they would sell, but nobody foresaw the demise of the
card as an input medium!

I can't believe that that's true. As early as 1974 when I first had any
significant exposure to computers and punched cards we users all moaned that
cards were slow, cumbersome, heavy, easily torn, and unreliable; and we longed
to use interactive terminals to do all our data entry (of which there were too
few, and their use consumed computer time budget at an alarming rate). The
computing service, on the other hand, complained that cards were expensive,
bulky to store, and produced messy chad that was a pain to get rid of; and
longed to be able to tell the users to do all their data entry using interactive
terminals (or which they wanted to provide more, and support more of, and
support more functionality on).

Cards were unpopular with everyone, and were definitely on the way out.

NOBODY had a clue that the PC would become what it has. I was in the
industry at that time, and we knew it could never be more than a niche
product.

You were in the mainframe side of the industry. Those of us who had been working
with PCs /sensu lato/ for years before IBM tackled the desktop KNEW that PCs
were growing in capability and importance. We KNEW that when IBM threw its
weight behind the desktop PC the world would tremble. The people inside IBM who
were responsible for bringing the PC to market knew that too, but their
colleagues wouldn't listen.

A belief that IBM "should ought to have had" people capable of seeing the
future is asinine.

IBM DID have people capable of seeing the future ... just not in the right
places.

I disagree. Blame can be ascribed for negligence, not just for deliberate
acts.
*****
So I could be sued if a child climbs onto the roof of my house and falls
off, because I did not post a sign saying "Danger! Climbing to great
heights is dangerous!" on all four corners of the house?

In your country, you can probably be sued for it, yes.

I do take your point, though, that that is a situation in which people would say
"I don't blame you, you couldn't have known that little Billy was going to climb
up there".

That's a bit different from what we're talking about with IBM and the PC,
though. I think it's reasonable to assume that people won't treat your rooftop
as a climbing frame, but I don't think it's reasonable to think that other
people won't tread on your marketplace with rival products -- though I can
understand that people do think that, especially if you they occupied a position
of dominance in the market for so long that they have become lazy, arrogant and
complacent.

Negligence assumes that there is a failure to take an action when the need
for the action is obvious. There was no need to do a massive market study
for a market as small as the personal computer market.

Joe: you're a great programmer, but you clearly know even less than I do about
marketing. You *always* need to study *everything*. Businesses can't afford
surprises. As you said yourself: this particular surprise cost IBM five
gigabucks. No magic was needed to avoid that, just open eyes.

Cheers,
Daniel.









.

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