Stupid Corporate Decisions

[DAVOUT]

The fact that it had been jokingly said that Xerox invented the concepts which were further developped by Apple for MS making profit with them, shows that some errors are long lasting. But they had an excuse : they were breaking new ground.

The steel industry discovering that it was enable to pay the pensions of tens of thousand employees is a much worse mistake which deserve no excuse.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Nortel's entire business plan for the late '90s/2000 ranks right up there. "Hey, we can keep buying every nothing telco parts manufacturers for massive premiums because there's never going to be a slowdown in the demand for our products and services. Hell, our stock is probably going to hit $200 soon..."

You especially have to like their $8 billion acquisition of Alteon Websystems in 2000, which was written down to ZERO by the second quarter of 2001.

So far, this one is my favorite. Wow!

New Coke wasn't as big a mistake as originally thought, but I don't have time to get into it now. Perhaps tonight.

[Jac de Molay]

Ford, GM, and Chrysler building monstrous SUVs which chug gas, are ugly, and have turned the roadways into Survival of the Biggest.

Overall quality has gone down the tubes. The small and mid car segment have been conceded to the foreign carmakers. It's a mess, and it's starting to bite them in the as$ hard.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by gunkulator
It wasn't even as good as CP/M. Speaking of which, how about Digital Research's Gary Kildall's decision to play tennis instead of meeting with IBM about putting his OS on the PC.

There are lots of versions of what happened there. IIRC, supposedly Kidall did meet with the IBM team, but he didn't have an OS for the 8088, just the 8086. He eventually agreed to a port, but he couldn't precisely fixed a time. Then the IBM guys went to MS for BASIC. During the meeting they asked Gates if they had an OS. They didn't, but Tim Paterson of Seattle Engineering did, which was a total ripoff of CP/M.

[Az]

"Water World"

[Urban Ranger]

HP's merger with Compaq

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ford, GM, and Chrysler building monstrous SUVs which chug gas, are ugly, and have turned the roadways into Survival of the Biggest.

Why is that a stupid corporate decision? SUVs have made those companies a TON of money!

[gunkulator]

Apple's poor piracy skills. Sure they stole the GUI from Xerox but also in that same lab were two other technologies that Steve Jobs could have stolen but didn't: object oriented programming and local area networking. 1 out 3 only earns a 33% (F)

[Asher]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
No, the bigger one was IBM decided to use the 8088 instead of the 8086 to cut like 50 bucks from the cost.

How is that bigger?
IBM was already huge before that, still huge after.
The MS-DOS thing threw MS right to the top, and they've been there ever since.

That's why it's bigger, IMO.

The problem is not MS didn't make mistakes, in fact, they made loads of them - Bob, Multiplan come to mind. But after they got MS-DOS as a cash cow, they could afford to make mistakes and mediocre products.

I never implied they never made mistakes, it's just that they capitalize on other people's mistakes to get where they are. Other companies can never figure out how to effectively do that that compete with MS.

[Japher]

Ford not giving the Dodge boys a raise.

Sega... in general.

Atari releasing a subpar Pac-Man.

Merging a Taco Bell with a Long John Silver...

[CerberusIV]

A current one, if I understand it correctly.

Nintendo Gamecube not having much (any?) online gaming capability and few games (in Europe anyway) and watching PS2 and X-Box sales disappear into the distance.

(If I am not quite right on this it's because I dislike console games).

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
HP's merger with Compaq

ITS TRUE!

[Jac de Molay]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Why is that a stupid corporate decision? SUVs have made those companies a TON of money!

So what happens when people stop buying them? The Big Three can't be bothered to offer a decent product mix, and the end result is going to hurt them in the long run. They can't ride the gravy train forever.

Not to mention the Firestone tires, constant safety recalls, etc, etc. The car companies never accounted for people hurtling down the highway at 90 mphs in these mini-tanks, and its biting them in the a$s....hard.

[Sten Sture]

Another on the SUV front...

International Harvester, decides to stop producing the Scout SUV because the niche market is too small for both the Scout and Ford's Bronco. Within two years the Jeep Cherokee saves Chrysler's ass, (along with the minivan) and the SUV market now has around 10,000 different models to choose from. Harvester changes their name to Navistar and keeps making farm equipment and long haul trucks.

[Andrew1999]

All-time worst human resources decision: Portugal passes on Chris Columbus and sends him on to Spain.