[ordu]

> Not sure how IBM folks could not see this opportunity just because it was smaller scale than "what they did".

Bureaucracy can be like that. Big bosses who might be really interested in increased profits rely on their subordinates to see the market, but subordinates are risk averse and don't want to change anything. Add corporate politics, people fighting not for innovations or for a market share but for promotions, and you'll get the picture.

It seems to be that they besides all that they were ideological, believed that size does matter and scorned on those who made computers smaller than theirs. Ideology means that people would have troubles to see anything that contradicts their ideology. Peer pressure, social desirability and all these things set up individual biases.