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- Open: how compaq ended ibm’s pc domination and helped invent modern computing portable#
- Open: how compaq ended ibm’s pc domination and helped invent modern computing series#
- Open: how compaq ended ibm’s pc domination and helped invent modern computing free#
- Open: how compaq ended ibm’s pc domination and helped invent modern computing crack#
I expected a book like Losing the Signal about Blackberry or Transforming Nokia, but instead the book read as a start-up success. This was done, and Canion may have been uncomfortable in writing of this process, but Compaq’s glory days as an industry leader was behind it. Instead, Compaq’s early investors pushed for a new CEO capable of competing in the low-end, volume market.
Open: how compaq ended ibm’s pc domination and helped invent modern computing crack#
The documentary makes Canion’s exit more interesting, if more tragic, as the high-end strategy began to crack on the wave of the early ’90s PC boom. But… there was more to the story! A documentary, Silicon Cowboys, was filmed based on this book, with extended interviews with Canion and others!
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To me the end of the book dragged on, as the details of Canion’s last days were not particularly interesting, and not enough detail was spent on EISA to elevate the work.
Open: how compaq ended ibm’s pc domination and helped invent modern computing series#
Open‘s denouement is extended and is a series of vignette’s of Canion’s last days at Compaq. This allowed other companies to have similar technical advances to what the IBM PS/2’s “microchannel,” offered, but with retaining backward compatibility. I had not realized the threat that the PS/2 posed to the existing PC market, and I wish this section was extended.Ĭompaq retaliated by funding the development of EISA, the “ Extended Industry Standard Architecture,” and licensing it freely to all competitors. Before I read Open I was excited to learn more about OS/2 but thought the hardware story was boring. He also speculates that IBM was seeking long-term to replace Intel as a source of chips. While earlier IBM releases were only partially incompatible out of lack of work, IBM attempted to intentionally break compatibility with every add-in board, and many pieces of software, by switching to a new system of internal and external ports called “Microchannel.” Simultaneously, IBM was working with Microsoft to develop OS/2, a would-be replacement for DOS. Rod Canion’s excitement at the celebrities who appeared at Compaq’s press events is still obvious.Ĭanion describes the IBM PS/2 as the “death star,” and the portion of Open dedicated to Compaq’s reactions to it are the most exciting parts of the book.
Open: how compaq ended ibm’s pc domination and helped invent modern computing free#
It is interesting to read about corporate patterns that either are now standard (such as free pop and t-shirts) or dated (such as promising retailers never to sell directly to consumers). “Open” is written by Compaq’s founder and CEO (and given the relatively dry style, either literally read by him or fleshed out by an unimaginative ghostwriter). They chose compatibility, and that combined with operational excellence and good legal advice, made much of the difference.
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Open: how compaq ended ibm’s pc domination and helped invent modern computing portable#
IBM’s initial PC portable did not run all the programs its initial desktop PC did, leading to Compaq to decide if they wanted to mimic IBM (including breaking compatibility) or be more useful for IBM customers tan IBM was (by ensuring compatibility). The opening section is in some ways the best part of the book, as the last minute worries around leaving corporate health insurance, and the details of what venture capital around 1980 looked like, are fascinating.Ĭompaq’s initial strategy, to be totally compatible with IBM computers, was all the more striking in that IBM itself wasn’t compatible.
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They are successful, if unhappy, employees of Texas Instruments that believe they could be more successful, happier, and richer if they went into business for themselves. It’s immediately clear in Open that Compaq’s founders are not tech visionaries. But Open, the story of Compaq, is just such a tale. There are few pioneering stories from the middle of the country. Then there’s the everyone else, including Canadians, Europeans, and the Japanese. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Google, Oculus, Yahoo and the rest are the real story. In the standard, California history of technology, East Coast institutions ( ARPA and Bell Labs) created Arpanet and the semiconductor, which created the foundation for California’s’ explosion. There’s basically two histories of consumer technology.