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Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision?

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In article <16b10215-5707-4848-b9dc-74ff48b76b9a@googlegroups.com>,
 <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, January 12, 2016 at 6:59:37 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
>
>> The price cut was basically a fit of pique by Watson.
>
>Thanks for your comments.
>
>That was my feeling, and what prompted me to introduce the discussion
>to see what others thought.
>
>Managers don't like to be surprised with bad news out of the blue.
>They throw temper tantrums.
>
>From the IBM history, my impression was that the Stretch designers
>were working with many experimental pieces, for which the actual 
>performance would not be known until everything was done and put 
>together.  The new transistors were fast, but not as fast as expected.
>The parallel processing was fast, but not as fast as expected.
>
>Because it was an experimental system, it seemed Watson's anger 
>at Dunwell wasn't justified.  Watson finally realized that a 
>few years later.

The strategy of IBM in the 360 and early 370 era seems to be one
of shotgun aiming at the market; run a lot of different products, 
and let the customers respond as they would. This way they had
a lot of successes and some failures. This goes with the territory
of such broad aims.

I don't think anyone could have predicted which models would
sell and which wouldn't 5 years ahead of the launch, 8 years
prior to settlement of success/failure. 

This approach was made possible by having a line of program
and (mostly) peripherals compatibility.

-- mrr

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IBM STRETCH repricing decision? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-01-12 09:37 -0800
  Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-01-12 15:59 -0800
    Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-01-12 16:01 -0800
    Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-01-12 18:50 -0800
      Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-01-12 23:37 -0800
        Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-01-13 07:24 -0800
          Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-01-13 14:37 -0800
      Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-01-13 08:37 +0100
        Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-01-13 07:39 -0800
          Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-01-13 08:17 -0800
            Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2016-01-13 18:02 -0600
          Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-01-13 12:58 -0800
            Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-01-13 13:53 -0800
              Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-01-13 14:31 -0800
                Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-01-13 18:38 -0800
              Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-01-13 22:43 +0000
                Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-13 20:13 -0500
                Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2016-01-13 17:17 -0800
                Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-01-13 18:32 -0800
                Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-13 21:51 -0500
                Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-01-14 18:24 +0000
              Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-13 20:04 -0500
            Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-01-14 08:03 -0500
          Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2016-01-13 17:49 -0600
            Re: IBM STRETCH repricing decision? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-01-14 08:03 -0500

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