Rodent Regatta

When several of the large ”mini computer companies” saw the inevitability of personal computers and small networks displacing their traditional machines, ”eating their young” was the term they used for the phenomenon. They were about to see proprietary, high-margin machines replaced with commodities where service contracts were no longer a guaranteed profit-stream and prices were well below any they had ever seen before. DEC and DG resisted and never really played. IBM (finally) bought into the change and survived, but after quite a bit of pain.

We’re seeing the same corporate mindsets play themselves out in the legacy phone companies. What is happening is inevitable. Spinning what is happening with fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) is the way many legacy phone companies have chosen to respond. Clay Shirky writes essays about such things. One of his latest is about the thrashing that goes on as ”voice becomes an Internet application.”