1 |
On Sunday 11 November 2012 16:39:56 Grant Edwards wrote: |
2 |
|
3 |
> AFAICT, all CDC system software was awful. |
4 |
|
5 |
I hope that isn't entirely true, because of this little tale. |
6 |
|
7 |
Some years ago Empros (another CDC company, in Plymouth, MN) had a large |
8 |
fraction of the world's electricity grid control market sewn up - until |
9 |
their marketing department committed them to a contract they couldn't |
10 |
possibly survive: they wanted the British grid system as a feather in |
11 |
their cap (remember CEGB, anyone?) and assumed that they could profit |
12 |
from the same old feature creep as they had everywhere else. Fatal |
13 |
mistake, which cost them (I think) $36m in mainframe hardware upgrades |
14 |
alone. They should have read our functional spec properly. ("When I hit |
15 |
the Go button the effect must be shown on-screen within one second.") The |
16 |
change-control board, constituted at Director level, considered just 12 |
17 |
changes, each costed and rubber-stamped. Everything else had to be |
18 |
fulfilled in the contract. |
19 |
|
20 |
How many computer systems use 10 programming languages? Just don't ask |
21 |
me to list them after all this time. |
22 |
|
23 |
I'm sure Empros's systems must still be keeping lights on to this day in |
24 |
many parts of the world. |
25 |
|
26 |
Just goes to show - choose your marketing people very carefully. |
27 |
|
28 |
-- |
29 |
Rgds |
30 |
Peter |