27 Apr
2024
27 Apr
'24
6:12 p.m.
IMHO, having started programming in 1977, the thing that drove sales was the promise of
reduced costs just by having a computer that could be programmed to do accounting type
work that would eliminate jobs and thus costs. Mainframes were very expensive back then so
there weren’t many companies that developed software just to be marketed to other
companies. A lot if what was sold had been developed by a company for internal use. Tgen
someone got the idea that they could recoup some development costs by selling the
software. A lot of payroll systems got started like that. Payroll was a logical starting
point because it was a common function within companies.
I would say that software never drove hardware sales. You had hardware already and you
might try to find software that ran on it or your team programmed it in house. I’ve never
been to a company that found software then bought the hardware that it ran on. There would
be too much due diligence needed to make that happen.
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 27, 2024, at 10:41, Tarek Hoteit
<tarek(a)infocom.ai> wrote:
Hi. Meant complete software application systems, but, of course, it is eventually
powered by language compilers
Regards,
Tarek Hoteit
AI Consultant, PhD
+1 360-838-3675
> On Apr 27, 2024, at 10:39, Wayne S <wayne.sudol(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> When you say “software drove hardware sales” do you mean complete software
application systems or do you mean compilers available for the hardware so the software
teams had variety in what they could program?
> Up to the ‘90’s, companies had big, expensive hardware and little to no canned
software applications so companies also had relatively cheaper software developers to make
custom programs.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>>> On Apr 27, 2024, at 10:23, Tarek Hoteit via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>
>> I came across this paragraph from the July 1981 Popular Science magazine edition
in the article titled “Compute power - pro models at almost home-unit prices.”
>>
>> “ ‘Personal-computer buffs may buy a machine, bring it home, and then spend the
rest of their time looking for things it can do’, said …. ‘In business, it’s the other way
around. Here you know the job, you have to find a machine that will do it. More precisely,
you have to find software that will do the job. Finding a computer to use the software
you’ve selected becomes secondary.”.
>>
>> Do you guys* think that software drove hardware sales rather than the other way
around for businesses in the early days? I recall that computer hardware salespeople would
be knocking on businesses office doors rather than software salesmen. Just seeking your
opinion now that we are far ahead from 1981.
>>
>> (*I do wish we have female gender engaged in the classic computing discussions
threads as well. Maybe there is.)
>>
>> Regards,
>> Tarek Hoteit
>> AI Consultant, PhD
>> +1 360-838-3675
>>