[jryle70]

You're right that low price is a great competitive edge, but one can name many now defunct computer makers that were anything but full stack -- Compaq, Gateway, eMachine, Packard Bell, Siemens (the PC maker), Olivetti. As a matter of fact, one can argue that they went under because their products didn't stand out from the competition.

Full stack can be seen as a great advantage. Otherwise Microsoft wouldn't make Surface or acquire Nokia. It all depends on specific business cases.

[sien]

Non-full stack companies come and go. That's part of the strength. Most people are not fussed if they buy an HP, Sony, Compaq, ASUS, Acer, MSI or whatever for a PC. Android buyers can happily switch between a dozen manufacturers as well.

The point is for general purpose computing full stack was common but is now exceptional. If it was a great advantage surely there would be more full stack companies around.

[jryle70]

You seemed to imply that SGI, Sun, etc are gone because they were full stack. I just offered counterexamples of non full stack companies that are also gone. There are simply no evidence that full stack is inherently bad, or vice versa. It's all specific to individual companies.

> Non-full stack companies come and go. That's part of the strength

Or more precisely, that's a benefit of hardware commodity. From the business perspective however, it isn't fun to be a loser, full stack or not.

[sien]

There is evidence that full stack is hard to keep going. In general computing devices there are only 2 companies left doing it that matter. IBM & Apple.

The non-full stack companies that are gone have been replaced.

The full stack ones have been replaced by combinations of non full stack companies.

New non-full stack companies come in and get big. What new full stack company that matters that has been started in the past decade?

[gibwell]

You are contradicting yourself. You say that fill stack companies are hard to keep going and yet you say that non-full stack companies come and go even more easily.

By your logic, non-full stack companies are even harder to keep going.

[sien]

It's not a contradiction. Both are hard to keep going. Full stack ones are even harder. Hence all but 2 are gone.

The ecosystems for more open systems are also really durable.

Personally, watching for decades the most surprising thing is that MS has kept the desktop rather than losing it to Linux.

Would you say that MS has 'won' the server market because they make more money than any Linux company even though Linux has a largest market share of internet servers?

[gibwell]

MS keeping the desktop rather than losing it to Linux contradicts your thesis. You can dismiss it as a 'surprise' or acknowledge that your reasoning doesn't accord with reality.