[_8ljf]

“But there's a big difference between little experiments and betting the company on an auto-cannibalization strategy. DEC didn't have the guts to go there.”

See also Kodak (invented the digital camera in 1975!), Xerox (We’re a photocopier company! We sell photocopiers!), Microsoft (owned the entire global PC market for damn near 20 years—till Apple overnight redefined what “Personal Computing” meant). All caught out while sitting atop their laurels.

The only thing today’s successful product is good for is funding the development of tomorrow’s—because if you don’t disrupt yourself first then sooner or later your rivals will do it for you, and then it’s already far too late to do anything about it.

[hhas01]

See also: “IBM and the Seven Dwarfs”. Sure BUNCH had some really cool tech, but it was IBM who understood how to make great product.