Thesis May Never Have Been Completed
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UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC): A case study of indecision, innovation and company failure Goodwin, D.T. Publication date 2016 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Goodwin, D. T. (2016). Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC): A case study of indecision, innovation and company failure. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:26 Sep 2021 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) (DEC) Corporation Digital Equipment David Thomas David Goodwin Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC): A Case Study of Indecision, Innovation and Company Failure David Thomas Goodwin Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC): A Case Study of Indecision, Innovation and Company Failure David Thomas Goodwin 1 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC): A Case Study of Indecision, Innovation and Company Failure ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. ir. K.I.J. Maex ten overstaan van een door het College voor Promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op donderdag 8 september 2016, te 12:00 uur door David Thomas Goodwin geboren te Liverpool, Verenigd Koninkrijk 2 Promotiecommissie: Promotor: Prof. dr. P. van Baalen Universiteit van Amsterdam Co-promotor: Prof. dr. W. Buitelaar Universiteit van Amsterdam Overige Leden: Prof. dr. H.W.G.M. van Heck Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam Prof. dr. J. Strikwerda Universiteit van Amsterdam Prof. dr. P.C. van Fenema Nederlandse Defensie Academie Dr. ir. J.W. Stoelhorst Universiteit van Amsterdam Prof. dr. L. Karsten Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Prof. dr. E.J. Fischer Universiteit van Amsterdam Faculteit Economie en Bedrijfskunde 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of people without whose assistance this thesis may never have been completed. Firstly I should like to thank my promotor Prof. dr. Peter van Baalen and my co- promotor Prof. dr. Wout Buitelaar, without whose guidance I would not have completed my transition into a more academic thought process. Gordon Bell, who directed me to the company archives and offered advice, Paula Jabloner, chief archivist at the Computer History Museum for her assistance in my study of the Digital Equipment Corporation archives, and to Dan Tymann for his facilitation in allowing me unrestricted access to the Ken Olsen archives, particularly obtaining the Olsen family permission and for allowing me to work long hours at the archives. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of HP management who confirmed they would not seek to prevent my use of the Notesfiles as part of my argument. Thanks are also given to Bob Glorioso for his insight into the world of high performance computing and DEC’s RISC strategy. I am particularly grateful to Don Gaubatz for his contribution on DEC Workstation Engineering, his encouragement and assistance, and for giving me access to his archives as part of my research. He facilitated contact with many high-level former employees, without which a full understanding of events at DEC would not have been possible. I would also like to acknowledge the many ex-DEC people (some of whom wish to remain anonymous) who have given me encouragement, have related personal recollections of their time at Digital and provided many documents about technology and strategy. In particular, thanks go to Dave Cutler for meeting me in Seattle and speaking so forthrightly about DEC, Bob Supnik for his many emails on products, technologies and management, Dileep Bhandarkar for his commentary on RISC and Bill Strecker for his view of DEC after Gordon Bell’s departure. Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife for her encouragement and patience during the years that I have been researching DEC and for allowing me to visit the archives on a number of occasions. Most of all I dedicate this thesis to Ken Olsen, who was the father of the company and to its employees for thirty-five years, and who sadly passed away before I could complete. 4 Glossary ACM Association for Computing Machinery AMD Advanced Micro Devices ARD American Research and Development ARM Advanced RISC Machine ARPA Advanced Research Projects Agency AXP Alpha Processor Codename BBN Bolt Beranek and Newman BIPS Billions of Instructions per Second BOD Board of Directors CAD Computer Aided Design CalTech California Institute of Technology CEO Chief Executive Officer CFO Chief Financial Officer CMOS Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor CPSR Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility DARPA Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency DEC Digital Equipment Corporation DECUS Digital Equipment Computer Users’ Society DG Data General DVN Digital Video Network ECL Emitter Coupled Logic EDS Electronic Data Systems EDSAC Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator EDVAC Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer EMC EMC Corporation EMCC Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation EMEA Europe, Middle East and Africa ENIAC Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer FAB Semiconductor Fabrication Facility FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation FTC Federal Trade Commission GE General Electric Company HP Hewlett Packard HR-32 Hudson RISC, 32 bit. IBM International Business Machines IDC International Data Corporation IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IPI Intelligent Peripheral Interface 5 IT/MIS Information Technology/Management Information Services LCG Large Computer Group (DEC department) LSI Large Scale Integration MCI Telecommunications company MICA Multi-personality Operating System MIPS (architecture) Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages MIPS (company) MIPS technologies MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology MTBF Mean Time Between Failures NBER National Bureau of Economic Research NCR National Cash Register NFS Network File System NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology NUMA Non Uniform Memory Access NVAX DEC VAX Microprocessor OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer OSF Open Software Foundation PARC Palo Alto Research Centre PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect PDP Programmable Data Processor PDT Programmable Data Terminal (DEC based LSI-11 microprocessor based system) PM&D Product Management and Development PRIME PRIME Computer Inc. PRISM PaRallel Instruction Set Machine PRO DEC’s PROfessional range of PC’s. PRTM Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath QE2 Queen Elizabeth 2nd cruise liner. R&D Research and Development RISC Reduced Instruction Set Computing RSX Resource Sharing eXecutive SAFE Streamline Architecture for Fast Execution SAGE Semi-Automatic Ground Environment SAP System Analysis and Products in Data Processing, (German Company) SEC Securities and Exchange Commission SG&A Selling and General Administrative Expense SGI Silicon Graphics Inc. SHOT Society for the History of Technology SMP Symmetric Multiprocessing 6 SPARC Scalable Processor Architecture SPRU Science Policy Research Unit SRA Systems Research and Applications STF Strategic Task Force SUN Stanford University Network TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol TTL Transistor-Transistor Logic UNIX UNiplexed Information and Computing System VAX Virtual Address Extension VLDB Very Large Data Base VLSI Very Large Scale Integration VMS Virtual Memory System VNS Vogon News Service VTX (DEC’s) Videotext service VUP VAX Unit of Power WRL DEC Western Research Laboratory WWW World Wide Web 7 Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................... 4 Glossary ........................................................................................... 5 1 Introduction ............................................................................ 13 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................... 13 1.2 Research Question ........................................................... 14 1.3 DEC ................................................................................. 14 2 Failure, Innovation and Disruptive Technology .................... 16 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................... 16 2.2 Innovation and Failure..................................................... 17 2.3 Downsizing ...................................................................... 30 2.4 Rise of Silicon Valley...................................................... 34 2.5 Theoretical Perspectives .................................................. 36 2.6 Management of Technological Innovation...................... 40 2.7 Conclusion ....................................................................... 42 3 Methodologies