sorting was: The System360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That 3896

my wife reminded me about the old adage about the children of the cobbler having no shoes.

part of the issue ... especially after FS

a lot of the top executive possisions had come up from the DP division (sales & marketing) ... technicians and engineers had lost some credability with the FS fiasco.

except for HONE ... the online (vm370-based) service providing support for world-wide field, sales, and marketing

management and executives tended to have very little exposure to online computer use (starting with 370-115 & 370-125 ... HONE configurator was required for even placing a system order).

that was one of the things that led to the discussion about some application (online phone directory) that would attract management and executives to using online system as part of their every day experience.

to a large extent, the internal network

thru the 70s and much of the 80s had happen in spite of any corporate strategic policies and objectives. in fact, in the very early 80s, it came as a shock to quite a few executives that the internal network even existed (and that it had been larger than the arpanet-internet for just about the whole period).

at one point there was even a paper written by an academic type out of corporate hdqtrs that claimed proof that the internal network didn't exist. academia supposedly had proven that the type of distributed control operation implemented by the internal network required a mbuttive amount of resources to implement (nearing the amount that had been written off in the failed FS effort) ... and after extensive study of all company budgeted activites for several year period ... no such funding could be identified.