[HN Gopher] The Rise and Fall of Adam Osborne
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The Rise and Fall of Adam Osborne
Author : dshipper
Score : 37 points
Date : 2024-03-04 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (every.to)
(TXT) w3m dump (every.to)
| aqme28 wrote:
| Would have thought that Steve Job's biggest rival was Bill Gates.
| Max-q wrote:
| In the early 80s Bill Gates sold some basics and DOS. His world
| dominance started 10 years later with Windows 3.0 and 3.1.
| garius wrote:
| So at this time, Gates actually has a DOS deal in place with
| Lore Harp over at Vector Graphic - one he'll renege on when
| IBM come knocking.
|
| That'll come up in the next piece, as I'll be looking at Lore
| and the Vector 1.
|
| But yes. Agreed. His real rise to dominance won't occur until
| the IBM PC explosion.
| gumby wrote:
| Gates and Jobs were not at all rivals during the short time
| Osborne Computers existed. I don't think there even was an MS-
| DOS back then; IIRC, the Osborne 1 ran CP/M.
|
| (I almost wrote "Osborne-1" but conveniently there is an
| Osborne 1 sticker on my desk and I happened to glance at it!)
| vidarh wrote:
| Later. Not then.
|
| In 1977, the "trinity" of dominant home computers was the
| Commodore PET, Apple II, and TRS-80, and Microsoft was a tiny
| startup.
|
| Microsoft didn't enter the OS space until 1980 - before that
| they sold and licensed BASIC interpreters, and they were small
| enough that Commodore/Tramiel infamously managed to buy a fixed
| price (single payment) license that they hung onto for many
| years to avoid having to negotiate a new deal for newer
| versions. They got in the region of $50k or something like
| that.
|
| In 1980 they licensed Unix and launched Xenix. It was first in
| 1981 PC DOS/MS DOS made its appearance. At that point they had
| only 100 employees. By 1983, Microsofts revenue finally reached
| $55 million.
|
| In 1981 Commodore saw an explosion in their unit sales with the
| VIC-20, while Apple milked far higher revenue per unit instead.
|
| For comparison to MS $55m in 1983, Commodore had revenues of
| $125 million in 1980, $186 million in 1981 and $681 million in
| 1983, before reaching its all time peak of $1.2bn in 1984 (they
| exceeded $1bn again once more in 1990)
|
| Apple had $118 million in revenue in 1980 and $1.51B in 1984.
|
| It was first towards the end of the 1980's that Microsoft
| became dominant.
| joezydeco wrote:
| Microsoft sold a BASIC interpreter to Apple, they wrote some
| games (Olympic Decathalon!) and even sold a 16KB RAM expansion
| card and Z80 coprocessor for a while.
| Max-q wrote:
| In 1981, where the article starts, Steve Jobs biggest competitor
| was Jack Tramiels Commodore. VIC 20 was the best selling computer
| at the time, and became the first computer to sell one million
| units. The year after the C64 came out and continued to outsell
| the Apple 2.
|
| Why Commodore is left out of history is a mystery...
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Because victors write history.
|
| And in 2024, Apple's PR budget is a lot bigger than
| Commodore's.
| simne wrote:
| Looks like anti-monopoly regulations.
|
| > VIC 20 was the best selling computer at the time
|
| So subject for anti-monopoly investigation.
|
| At that time already happen ATT case, GE case. So IBM, Intel
| and all other big companies tried to establish semi-rival, like
| AMD for Intel in 1980s, or to make things look like total
| freedom (IBM PC, lot of S/360 clones).
|
| Commodore was not successful in making semi-free market.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._AT%26T
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._General_Elect...
| .
| vidarh wrote:
| I have no idea what this is meant to have to do with
| anything.
|
| > So subject for anti-monopoly investigation.
|
| No, it wasn't.
| garius wrote:
| Oh don't worry. I'll get to Commodore (and Tramiel) later in
| the article series.
|
| I just wanted to tackle Adam first as he had a more personal
| relationship with Jobs.
| Max-q wrote:
| Thanks, good to know. Looking forward to it!
| gumby wrote:
| > Adam Osborne, creator of the Osborne 1
|
| I think this is a correct way to put it, but FWIW on HN: the
| person who actually designed the device (not just the hardware)
| was the legendary Lee Felsenstein.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Felsenstein
| garius wrote:
| Yes. As I cover in the piece, it's Felsenstein he singled out
| to physically design it. The two men knew each other from
| Homebrew and Osborne collared him at the West Coast Computer
| Faire, bringing him onboard for a share of the company and a
| basic subsistence salary until they could ship.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| The piece is brilliant and gives great insight.
|
| It had previously been reported (and exposed here) that the
| "Osborne effect" wasn't what killed the company, but (IIRC)
| quality issues with parts (floppy drive?) that delayed the
| Executive. Regardless, essentially the fall of the Osborne
| Computer Corp. is the age old story of a company growing
| faster than its organization and eventually collapsing.
| garius wrote:
| It's really complex.
|
| I get into it as much as I can at the end, but the Osborne
| Effect absolutely plays a part. It's just not in the way
| that got press at the time (i.e. the Executive being
| announced too early).
|
| Basically Adam repeatedly triggered mini-Osborne Effects,
| with product variants. None of which should have been
| enough to take the company down. But bad financial
| management had killed the company's runway, they'd
| exhausted funding from their VC backers, and they had no
| ability to raise covering loans from banks until they could
| IPO.
|
| So what should have been a minor ripple in their finances
| ended up just taking the whole company down.
|
| I honestly think, based on my research, that if they'd
| managed to secure the IPO - having sorted out their
| accounts first - then they'd have survived the IBM PC-clone
| transition. They were already pivoting to deal with it.
|
| They just ran out of time.
| stevage wrote:
| What an amazing article.
|
| I'm fascinated that anyone has the time and resources to write
| articles like this and get paid somehow?
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