>I think that arrogance played a key role in this. Auto makers had been in business for so long that they forgot what it was like when they young and had to fight for living. They lost the edge. It may not have been that they didn't want to be responsive, it may have they didn't know how anymore. IBM was the way.


Larry;

January 1982 I started using dBase II, and it took six months of spare time to write a application to run our Calibration/Metrology department. This allowed us to have a great degree of flexibility our IBM 360 did not allow. During this period I attended a sales seminar with about fifty other electronics engineers and a few others, about an application that would allow you to program from your terminal to the IBM 360, to create data base applications. The salesman spent the first two hours discussing all the power the programmer had. Complex applications could be created. You could also create reports – very cool! After the coffee break, a white haired IT Director stood up and said: “I am disgusted with this as you have taken away all control from me”! The salesman said: “Oh no, you have the ability to lock out any users at anytime. You can assign security to allow only your department access”! At this point the engineers stood up and we left – with the IT Director and salesman remaining there.

IT and salesman did not get it in 1982 and they do not get it now!

Tom