[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

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 >>>