!Re: Nuke Redmond!

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Sun Apr 9 08:12:21 2000

>allisonp_at_world.std.com wrote:

> The only innovation was marketing to the mass public.
> Allison

Jerome Fine replies:

Since that seems to be the almost the only aspect that matters these
days, then maybe that one of the reasons why DEC did not succeed.
As you, and many others have stated, DEC had a better mouse
trap. It almost always worked. The cheese was delicious and
rarely ran out. But the other reason for the failure of DEC was that
the DEC mouse trap was so much more expensive to buy that few
households could afford to buy one. Never mind that in the long
run, a serious mouse infestation would almost always be eliminated
at less overall cost then using the variety of mouse trap which cost
very little per unit, but rarely worked well. The less expensive unit
was so low in initial cost that it was possible to buy a number of
mouse traps even if a household had just one mouse to catch. And
rather than re-use the mouse trap over again, it was as if it was
just a simple to toss out the mouse trap with any mouse that was
caught.

As a result, millions of cheap mouse traps were sold that were very
unreliable, but mass marketing and a very low price convinced
almost everyone that was the only way to solve the mouse problem.
Like it or not (and I did not like it at all), the expensive, reliable,
re-usable that DEC made lay on the back shelf. Few people were
even aware of them and since they were so expensive, most people
who happened to pass by continued on their way preferring to stick
with the model that promised success. You may not be able to fool
all of the people all of the time, but you sure can fool most of the
people most of the time. And if you have only one mouse to catch,
then it really is less expensive to use a cheap mouse trap. After a
while, the expensive mouse trap that few even hear about .....

Sad......

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Sun Apr 09 2000 - 08:12:21 BST