Symbolics prices (not only in Europe)

[moon@cambridge.apple.com (David A. Moon)]

> Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 15:17-0400
> From: Reti@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM (Kalman Reti)
> ......
> However, in my opinion, there is a growing set of people who want to push the limits
> of what is doable on computers; that set quickly realizes that software costs (both
> development and support) rise exponentially with the complexity of the system, and 
> that therefore only certain approaches will "work" in the sense that they will
> deliver the goods with an acceptable cost.  This is currently the market I see for
> Symbolics.  Over time (measured in decades), it will grow to become a sizable
> fraction of all computer users (though perhaps never a mass market in the sense of
> "a PC on every desk").

In the most recent (June/July 1991) issue of the Object Management Group newsletter,
you can read "political or managment people who frequently don't even really understand"
making exactly the same arguments.  I am talking about bank and insurance company MIS
departments.  Of course the OMG community doesn't even know Symbolics exists, as far
as I know, but the same trends are operating there as in Symbolics' market.  By the
way you can also read in there a plea for software "engineers" to adopt the same
six sigma totally quality management that hardware engineers (in successful companies)
have.

Good, articulate message, Kalman.  Symbolics never, never, never should have tried
to market itself as just another player in the workstation industry.  That's the
problem with being first, other people came in and redefined "workstation" to be
something different from what we thought it meant, and it took us much too long to
notice and respond.  Symbolics Genera isn't a workstation; or if it is, then those
other things are playstations.