Snopes on Ken Olsen

From: Vintage Computer Festival <vcf_at_siconic.com>
Date: Wed Sep 22 01:22:11 2004

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004, Teo Zenios wrote:

> All I was trying to say that it was very hard for anybody in the 1970's to
> ever dream about every houshold having at least one if not multiple
> computers 20+ years later, or those machines being used by all the age
> groups and not just tech geeks.

I would disagree. Maybe it was hard for Ken Olsen to dream about this,
but certainly not Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Guess who got it right?

> Hell how many people years later thaught IBM would be a niche player in the
> market they dominated when they introduced the IBM XT?

Apple did. Apple, at least in their advertising, promoted a cavalier
attitude towards IBM's entry into the personal computer market. They
thought IBM wouldn't gain traction. Other companies of the era felt
similarly. They were wrong of course.

> At least DEC was going great until the 90's rolled around, they rode the
> market for longer then Apple ever did.

DEC is gone. Apple is not. Unless you're certain of the demise of Apple
in less than 12 years, this statement is not true.

--
Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Wed Sep 22 2004 - 01:22:11 BST

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