Subj : Re: Jack Tramiel
To : Andreas Kohlbach
From : Computer Nerd Kev
Date : Tue Jan 21 2020 10:17 pm
Andreas Kohlbach <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 07:06:56 +1300, Simon Geddes wrote:
>>
>> Jack gets a bad rapp for his "Jack attacks", and I'm not sure how well I
would
>> have survived if I ever had to work under him. But reading "The Home
Computer
>> Wars" the other day, it left me with a slightly different feeling - an
>> admiration for the man's sheer determination to win in business, and his
belief
>> in his own business "religion".
>>
>> I tried to distill out of the book the components of The Religion (according
to
>> the book, Jack called it this himself). It included a strong focus on lean
>> business (sounds very modern), reducing the number of layers of command,
>> expecting managers to "get involved" and not just manage. He was apparently
>> oft-quoted as saying "business is like sex. You have to be involved".
>>
>> Just wondering if there are any other closet Jack admirers, and whether they
>> can shed any more light on Jack's business religion?
>
> Well you have to admire him. Like you have to admire Bill Gates. Even if
> you otherwise hate them for being pricks.
From a customer's point of view I think you can admire Tramiel much
more than Bill Gates. Tramiel used his ruthless business strategies
to cut costs and therefore be able to profitably sell computers
cheaper than anyone else - opening them up to some home markets that
otherwise might have been priced out. Gates just did his best to
prevent other players from getting a strong foothold in the PC OS
market, so that he could get away with selling his software with
very high profit margins. Steve Jobs as well just convinced a
smaller market with more money to buy more expensive tech by making
it shiny and fashionable.
I'm sure you'd soon conclude that they were all pricks if you were
trying to compete in the same market as they were/are. As I remember
it, one of Tramiel's other sayings was "business is war". In my
opinion Tramiel did more to further the reach of computing as a
whole.
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