28 Dec
2017
28 Dec
'17
8:05 p.m.
From: Paul Winalski
Lack of marketing skill eventually caught up to DEC by
the late 1980s
and was a principal reason for its downfall.
I got the impression that fundamentally, DEC's engineering 'corporate
culture'
was the biggest problem; it wasn't suited to the commodity world of computing,
and it couldn't change fast enough. (DEC had always provided very well built
gear, lots of engineering documentation, etc, etc.)
I dunno, maybe my perception is wrong? There's a book about DEC's failure:
Edgar H. Schein, "DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC", Berett-Koehler, San
Francisco, 2003
which probably has some good thoughts. Also:
Clayton M. Christensen, "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies
Cause Great Firms to Fail", Harvard Business School, Boston, 1997
briefly mentions DEC.
Noel