, X-NEWS: spcvxb alt.folklore.computers: 18492K Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.4; site spcvxb.spc.edu  Path: spcvxb.spc.edu!rutgers!att!linac!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!noc.MR.NET!uc.msc.edu!af.msc.edu!alan" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers/ Subject: Re: OK folks, give me your ETA stories / Message-ID: <1992Jan14.204718.18154@uc.msc.edu> # From: alan@af.msc.edu (Alan Klietz)  Date: 14 Jan 92 20:47:18 GMT) Sender: netnews@uc.msc.edu (Network News) R References: <aln.01if@nelson.questar.mn.org> <1992Jan12.050029.9321@raid.dell.com> Distribution: usa 2 Organization: Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc.
 Lines: 686  ^ In article <1992Jan12.050029.9321@raid.dell.com> smcdow@austin.dell.com (Stuart McDow) writes: < L <Would someone mind posting the `juicy details' for those of us who've never <heard the story?  <   N The story of ETA's demise from the viewpoint of one employee of that ill-fated company is included below.  X /* Written  4:07 pm  Apr 17, 1990 by rpeglar@csinc.UUCP in ux1.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.arch */* /* ---------- "The ETA Saga" ---------- */  I Disclaimer:  The following text is the author's opinion only.  It neither G construes nor represents any policy of Control Systems, Incorporated or  Comtrol Corporation.    G This is somewhat long.  If you don't care to read this, please hit "n".          			The ETA Saga  			------------   
 			     Or   		How to (Mis-)Manage a Company ! 		According to Control Data Corp.   		------------------------------    B "We have met the enemy, and he is us."  -  Walt Kelly, from "Pogo"     			Part One  			Observations... 			---------------  ) Chapter I - The Last Day : April 17, 1989   ) Let us begin, oddly enough, at the end.     L I awoke early, around 5:30 AM.  It was a rather cold, early spring day, withK a slight hint of frost.  This Monday morning, it seemed to me at that early K hour, was full of promise and excitement.  The night before, I was startled I out of a light sleep at 10:45 PM by the phone.  Groping for the receiver, J I picked it up and listened while a voice encouraged - no, insisted - thatJ I attend a meeting of all ETA managers the next morning, at 7:45 AM in theJ CDC headquarters complex.  The voice then wished me a good night.  FeelingK that a major change - for the better - was about to take place, I went back " to sleep feeling very good indeed.  M I arrived at the ETA headquarters around 6:30 AM.  The parking lot was almost I empty.  Still feeling excited, I strode to the West entrance only to find J the security guard standing outside, a very unusual occurance.  He stoppedH me and asked to see my badge.  I showed it, and he said "I'm sorry, you L can't go in."  He had a very short list of names on a clipboard, and refusedJ my request to look at it.  The doors were locked.  Glancing at the list, II noticed the very top of the four-level ETA management structure appearing J on it with very few others.  I then quickly turned away and headed back toI my car.  The only thing to do now, it seemed, was to proceed to CDC a bit  early.    G I was the first person who tried to enter the conference room where the G meeting was to take place.  Again, I was refused entrance, and was told H that at 7:30, the room would be opened.  I met one of my fellow managersG and we chatted, albeit nervously.  A few at a time, the other managers, G about 100 people in all, arrived and seemed uniformly nervous.  I still E was convinced that something good was happening, and the locked doors B and such were CDC's strange way (CDC had strange ways about almostG everything in terms of the way they handled people) of getting us to go G to this meeting.  By 7:45, we were all assembled and sitting down.  Mr. 4 Price strode into the room with a paper in his hand.  J In the next ten minutes, we were informed that "we were no longer managersG of ETA Systems" and that "we were terminated effective June 17th".  Mr. B Price took no questions.  He quickly left the room.  The ETA VP ofE Human Resources (aka personnel) then mumbled things about packets and K unemployment and procedures.  The entire meeting lasted exactly 12 minutes.   H The reactions from the group ranged from "I told you so" to disbelief toI anger to tears.  I suspect there were 100 different reactions amongst the D 100 people.  I was stunned beyond comprehension.  I had expected theF meeting to announce the sale of ETA to one of many interested parties,K many of whom had been in the ETA building in the two weeks prior discussing J tactics with the executives.  Instead, I tried to rationalize the decisionE based on all normal criteria, and I could not.  CDC had performed the H ultimate stupidity, the ultimate lobotomy of their own computer business future.   H We left, heading for the World Theatre in downtown St. Paul.  The entireG company (sans management) had been called early in the morning and told I to assemble at the World at 8:30 AM.  Arriving at the theatre, we trooped D in without saying a word.  All 800 (or so) employees were there, andI the noise level was high.  People seemed as excited as I had been earlier I in the morning.  For us, however, it was like attending your own funeral. F We were not allowed to say anything to the employees.  So, we sat highH in a balcony and waited.  Almost as if a clone of Mr. Price, Mr. Perlman; appeared on the large stage and the crowd because hushed.     J Perlman read much the same text as Price had one hour before.  Ironically,K when he mentioned that "you are considered locked out and should not report D for work" there was a fair amount of cheering.  Perlman also took noI questions, leaving quickly as if a phantom was chasing him off the stage. I The VP then rattled off the same meaningless words about displacement and F procedures.  No one listened;  everyone was in their own private hell.  M Thus, at about 9:00 AM on that chilly April day, the world of supercomputing, G the world of American technology, the world of smart business practice, D the world of 800 people - changed irreversibly.  What follows is one opinion on why.    Chapter II - The Beginning    K ETA began operations in September 1983.  Born from a skunk works-brainstorm H group of six CDC people, ETA was led by Lloyd Thorndyke, a long-time CDCH executive and head of the CDC Advanced Design Laboratory.  Neil Lincoln,H the chief engineer on the Cyber 205 project, was the technical leader atH ETA.  The original goal of ETA was straightforward - to design, develop,H manufacture, and ship the next generation supercomputer, relative to theI Cyber 20x series, in the least possible amount of time - hopefully, three  years.  E To reach that challenging goal, ETA's Gang of Six convinced CDC brass G (at that time William Norris, Bob Price, and Henry White) that the only G way was to "spin off" a separate corporation.  Spinning off would allow C three things to happen - three things, as it turned out, that never G occured.  First, ETA would function as an independent corporation.  Its G stock was to be sold publically.  CDC would hold 40%, a minority share, D of the stock.  Second, ETA would try to access government funding - E research/development dollars from various departments, e.g. DoD, DoE, B and agencies like NSF, etc. - to help it in the formative, capitalI intensive years.  Lastly, ETA would be run by its own board of directors, B and have little if any CDC "interference" from either an executive9 management or, more importantly, technical point of view.   B All of these tactics had been tested and validated a decade beforeD in much the same scenario.  In 1972, however, the players were Cray,F Davis, and others from CDC Arden Hills.  There were great similaritiesE between the ETA endeavor and the formation of Cray Research - but the C timetables were much stricter for ETA.  Six years' worth of R&D had A to be accomplished in three years' time - it had taken Cray until = 1978 to ship the first Cray-1.  The expectation (indeed, the  E announcement from CDC) was that it would take ETA three years to ship D the first ETA-10.  Actually, the first announcement by CDC about ETAH was contained in a speech given by Norris at Los Alamos in August 1983.   G The first major business failure and the beginning of the second major hH business failure by CDC occurred in the first three years.  ETA, acting I largely on its own (by design), could not interest the government in any kG funding activity.  Also, by then, CDC had begun to change its corporateeI mind about taking ETA public.  Thus, CDC had shifted the entire risk ontoeB itself.  However, CDC never publically acknowledged this;  the CDCI corporate stance was to give ETA most of the responsibility and little of  the authority.  E In the first three years, ETA actually did manage to design, develop,.F manufacture, and ship an ETA-10 supercomputer.  However, the strain ofC sole funding from CDC on this extraordinary event would prove to be C costly.  There was a large media event on December 31st, 1986, whenmF the trucks rolled from ETA to Florida State, containing ETA-10 Model E S/N 1.  F On the technology side - hardware - this was truly a remarkable event.A Even though it needed constant care, the machine actually worked.aC However, from the software side, this was truly a non-event.  There E was no operating system software, as commonly defined.  Florida State B (FSU) took delivery of a machine that only ran in monitor mode, inC single-tasking, single-user (literally, one person at a console - a-B throwback to the 1950's era of "open shop" computing), loading rawG programs one at a time from an external source (an Apollo workstation),eI and re-booting after each program completed.  Programs and the "operatingnC system" - at that time, a collection of hardware support routines -yB were compiled and linked in a cross environment using both ApollosE and Cyber 205s.  This was the state of the EOS art after three years.   B This was the first major technological failure - the insistance ofC (trying to) develop an entirely new operating system, from scratch.fE EOS was a failure due to many reasons, but CDC played a major part inrG the failure.  That part was the lack of market research concerning UnixrH and its role in supercomputing.  Cray Research (CRI) had already shippedI two releases of Unicos, its AT&T Unix System V Release 2 derivative work.hD Although ETA Software R&D was the instigator behind EOS, CDC was theD entity that took the bait.  This led to many disasters in the comingC years.  CDC was convinced that EOS was the only path to allow theirlF Cyber 205 installed base to upgrade to ETA equipment.  Even though theF entire world of scientific computing was moving toward Unix, CDC stuckJ to the old proprietary formula.  To ETA's credit, a push - albeit much tooI small, in terms of actual resources devoted - toward a "Unix environment" F under EOS was begun.  Also, to bring the first three years to a close,F an "underground" research project, dubbed "Baron Von Cygnet" was begunG to study the feasibility of Unix System V native on the ETA-10.  It waslC this skunk-works-like research which paved the way into the second,iK and last, three years.  This research project was instigated by ETA itself,oG urged on by a leading voice in the supercomputing community, NASA/Ames.. g$ Chapter III - The Middle and the End  E The middle period at ETA marked major upheavals in the top two layersaC of ETA management, as well as the top three layers at CDC.  At CDC,aC Norris retired as CEO and later Chairman.  Price became CEO (a postuD which he just recently retired from) and White retired.  CDC broughtE in Thomas Roberts to head Computer Products, and Gil Williams to headbI Cyber and ETA products.  Both Williams and Thorndyke reported to Roberts.uE Gradually, Williams and Roberts worked together to effectively reducedE ETA's ability to manage itself.  In November 1987, the most importanttH ETA Board of Directors meeting to date took place.  During that meeting,E Roberts (the lead gun from the CDC contigent on the ETA board - which G dominated in voting power) announced that (paraphrasing from Thorndyke) E "it's our (CDC's) company, we'll run it the way we want to."  At thatlF point, Thorndyke was told he was being replaced by Carl Ledbetter, whoE had stints at Prime and later IBM as head of the vector facility (VF) E project.  Roberts had made it abundantly clear that ETA was no longersB in charge of its own destiny.  This was the third, and final majorA business mistake by CDC - the death blow, as it turned out.  ThissC strangulation of ETA was a premeditated move on the part of Robertse
 and CDC.    D Ledbetter's presence at ETA created a considerable rift, at first.  C Thorndyke was extremely upset by being replaced and herded off into C a corner.  Now, Ledbetter was a very stylish and reputable leader -nC a visionary, according to some.  His many talents were obvious.  HeeH was a dynamic speaker, and could turn into the world's greatest salesmanG at a moment's notice.  Yet, he was fluent in most all technical aspects D of supercomputing, save software.  Within ETA's walls, his power wasC absolute.  However, it was easy to see that his cards were actuallyl being dealt by CDC.s  G During 1988, Ledbetter went about assembling his own team of executivesnE to run ETA.  He brought in two former IBM'ers, Jones and Moschner, toeB run sales/marketing and operations, respectively.  Neither man hadD any direct experience in supercomputing, a fact which led to furtherD division at ETA, espcially amongst those loyal to Thorndyke.  It wasF 1988 which proved to be the pivotal year for ETA - the first time thatD it became obvious that ETA could be successful.  There was, in fact,E much light at the end of the tunnel.  The successive introductions ofaD the ETA-10P - the air-cooled supercomputer - and ETA System V, whichE had grown out of the skunk works into a workable product - turned thedC world's head toward ETA.  At Usenix Summer 1988, ETA brought a liveoE ETA-10P to the show floor, running ETA System V, and it worked.  ManyeF were absolutely astounded.  No one had ever shown a live supercomputerG on a show floor before.  It was a marketing and technical coup, brought C about by a team of marketeers including Meckes and Gardner, and the > technical prowess of the ETA System V group led by Torkildson.  B The company actually became "profitable", in a sense, during 1988.E Measured as an R&D house only - i.e. revenue from products sold minusiE R&D costs - ETA was plus ten million dollars, approximately, in 1988.rA By years' end, 27 systems - 20 air, seven liquid - were installeda@ around the world.  The liquid systems were installed as follows:   	* Florida State Universityt8 	* John Von Neumann Center (JVNC) for the Consortium for+ 	  Scientific Computing (CSC) - two systemsi  	* Tokyo Institute of Technology; 	* Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), the German Weather Service # 	* UK Meteorlogical Service (UKMET)r' 	* Minnesota Supercomputer Center (MSC)e  D The air-cooled systems were scattered around the world, with systemsI in the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Australia.  Almost all of the air-aG cooled systems ran ETA System V;  the liquid systems were split betweensH EOS and System V.  However, every site that was running EOS - save DWD -C had a plan in place to convert to System V during 1989 and/or 1990.iE Florida State led the way, converting their model E over a weekend tor/ System V, with little difficulty, in late 1988.d  D Given all this activity, which had never been accomplished before inD the supercomputing industry (remember, it took CRI six years just toF ship the first Cray-1), 1989 seemed to be the year for ETA to actuallyG break even in terms of a true business.  Spirits were very high amongstaH most ETA people.  ETA was actually mentioned favorably in the CDC fourth0 quarter report of 1988, in remarks from Price.    K However, there was a brewing kettle of trouble for ETA at CDC headquarters. H Roberts and Williams were stewing over ETA's successes.  Relative to theC dismal year - and even more dismal future - for the Cyber mainframeeJ business, ETA was a shining star.  This reality irked Roberts and WilliamsF to no end.  Roberts, in particular, was annoyed by the favorable pressG coverage given Ledbetter and ETA in general.  Roberts went so far as tooO have ETA's major press/PR consultant, Gil Goetz, fired because of the attentionDI paid to ETA and Ledbetter in particular.  The more momentum ETA acquired,dD the more Roberts and Williams stewed.  Roberts' placing of LedbetterD as the helm of ETA had actually "backfired" in a sense - now the sonL (ETA) was actually out-performing the father (CDC) in the computer business.  E This was apparent throughout CDC's sales force, who were charged withtH selling both CDC and ETA product lines.  The majority of the sales forceE had reached a dead end on the CDC line; thus, they focused on sellingaI ETA products.  This situation, however, was a "catch-22" due to the over-fF whelming lack of knowledge of ETA and supercomputing in general in theC CDC sales force, leading to even more pressure on ETA R&D people toc assist in the sales process.    I During late 1988, CDC decided to try to leverage ETA's success by pulling G the company back into itself.  ETA stock was bought back by CDC and ETAtF was made a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDC.   Roberts was cast aside byL Price - the official statement read Roberts would "pursue other interests" -L and Perlman was put in place as COO, Ledbetter reporting to Perlman.  (PriceO later retired as CEO but was still chairman of CDC's board).  Williams remained I as head of Cyber products, also reporting to Perlman.  However, the seedssE of corporate discontent sown by Roberts were soon to bear fruit, withe Perlman as the gardener.  H Early 1989 was a dichotomy of actions by CDC and ETA.  ETA, on one hand,H continued to ship large (by supercomputer standards) volumes of systems,D almost all air-cooled.  The ETA-10 P and Q models were gaining greatH favor in the industry, overwhelming Cray and Convex in price/performanceI by a wide margin in many instances.  CDC, on the other hand, was obsessed J by its own failures in the mainframe business;  for example, approximatelyE 75 million dollars was sunk into the R&D efforts behind the Cyber 990aJ series, and only 12 systems were sold in 1988.  Compared to the 50 millionH dollar R&D effort at ETA, which resulted in 24 systems sold in 1988, CDC knew it had to do something.  K Predictably, in classic CDC form, Perlman had decided the short-term bottomtJ line was the only criteria to be considered when measuring success.  ETA'sE bottom line was still very negative - cost of sales alone in 1988 wastH 80 million dollars - and Perlman could not tolerate the situation.  EvenE though all the factors were positive for ETA, CDC had already decideduD to give up on ETA.  A buyer was to be found, and very soon.  ETA was to be sold.   D In February and March of 1989, CDC was consumed with this process.  H Ledbetter, Moschner, and the other executives at ETA were also consumed,D spending many hours in closed-door sessions with potential buyers ofI ETA.  It was known that Unisys was extremely interested;  other companiesiE rumored to have interest were Ford, Chrysler, and TRW.  (Ford and TRWcG actually had procured ETA air-cooled systems for themselves).  However,tE the was one rather large catch - the asking price, as set by CDC, foraB ETA was rumored to be as high as 500 million dollars.  The currentE value of ETA was considerably below that, and many thought the future ; value (5 years, say) was only around 200 million dollars.  i  @ This discrepancy led to stalement and refusals by each and everyC potential suitor of ETA.  CDC held firm on its asking price, trying,D to milk every last dime out of the sale of its own child.  There wasB hope, even up until April 12, 1989 - the Wednesday before the LastG Day - that ETA was to be sold.  However, on that day, all hope was lost D as the last potential buyer walked away shaking their heads at CDC's ridiculous asking price.  C Ironically, on April 14, 1989 - the last day of operations for ETA,oG two major developments occurred simultaneously withing ETA R&D.  First,mF R&D had decided amongst themselves, certainly encouraged by Ledbetter,I to abandon its pursuit of EOS and what it stood for, in favor of throwingtH all available resources onto ETA System V.  Second, ETA System V Release@ 1.1 was signed off into production, a step which would allow theE final formal acceptance on many installed (but not formally accepted)nD systems, leading to a hefty increase in revenue for 1989.  These twoJ events would have led to yet another era within ETA - an era, as it turned& out, which lasted exactly one weekend.   			Part Twos 			...and Analysis 			---------------  & Chapter I - The Business of Technology    F ETA Systems, Inc. failed as a business due to three major business, or@ management-related, reasons, and one major marketing reason.  As8 noted in Part One, the three major business reasons are:  : 	*  CDC's failure to carry out its plan to take ETA public6 	*  CDC's failure to secure government funding for ETA; 	*  CDC's failure to establish and manage ETA independentlyu   The major marketing reason is: 	 C 	*  ETA's/CDC's failure/refusal to recognize the market demand for t! 	   Unix operating system in timea  G There is absolutely no comprehensible reason for the management-relatedMH failures to occur.  All three points formed a large part of the originalH basis for ETA's conception and existence.  Any one of the three failuresG occurring would have been a severe blow to ETA as a company;  all three  occurring was fatal.  H The first two failures concern capital and its raising.  ETA as a public? entity would have allowed the market, as a whole, to decide the D viability of ETA's product.  ETA funded by government entities wouldC have greatly contributed to a new philosophy of managing industrieseD important to the nation.  There are many examples of this in variousF Japanese industries.  In either case, such funding would have relievedE the cash pressure on CDC, already burdened heavily by its 250 milliono dollar debt offering of 1986.  i  D The third failure was an error of commission.  CDC became very awareD that ETA, by 1988, had the ability to be a large commercial success.C After the ETA Board of Directors meeting in November 1987, however,yC Tom Roberts assumed total control over ETA as an entity.  From that J point on, there was no chance that ETA would ever be managed independentlyC of CDC.  Just as the product was reaching the point of viability in,H the marketplace, CDC decided to enshroud it in a heavy veil of corporate. red tape and overly bureaucratic procedures.    F CDC had failed the lessons taught by Cray in the early 1970's.  In theG capital- and intelligence-intensive world of supercomputer research andwB development, the only possible postive solution is to form a smallC company, secure public funding, and leave the engineers alone for aUH good long time.  In Cray's case, it was six years until the first Cray-1C installation, and approximately nine years before Cray first earnedu recognizable profits.  a  C A root cause of CDC's insistence that ETA mature (over-)rapidly anddD earn profit for the mother company is the adjunct failure of the CDCD Cyber product line in the late 1980's to generate sufficient profit.G Put another way, ETA was looked at - especially by the sales force - ashC a "savior" of the CDC computer business.  Cyber sales were down andlC heading towards non-existence.  Even Gil Williams himself, during ahA company-wide (CDC) Computer Systems meeting, at which all CDC andx? ETA managers attended, spoke about the computer business as tworC growing parts - workstations and supercomputers - and one shrinkingsD part - mainframes.  Both workstations and supercomputers were to seeF double-digit growth in 1989; mainframes were to stay flat and actually shrink slightly.    C The marketing error of commission was a joint blunder on both CDC'seC and ETA's part.  During the first two years of ETA's existence, CDC A committed a horrible marketing mistake, and that mistake was theneB followed through by two horrible ETA decisions concerning software
 technology.     E In 1984, CDC had decided that the operating system for the ETA-10 waseC to be upwardly compatible, at the level of user source code, to theeG existing Cyber 205 operating system, VSOS.  This compatibility includedoB many (but not all) commands, utilities, library calls, and specialE CDC-isms in the compilers, linker, and I/O library.  This decision byLH CDC was a huge mistake, one that had no basis in rational thought, givenF the supercomputer marketplace.  CDC need only look over the river (theE Minnesota, that is) to its offspring, Cray Research, to find out whatcC changes were occurring in the supercomputer operating system world.f  C Cray in 1984 was finally beginning development on a version of UnixcB System V Release 2 (owned by AT&T) for its existing product lines.C After two false starts by Cray, in 1982 and again in 1983, to begincH Unix development, the third attempt in 1984 went through Cray managementB and was finally blessed.  Compare this to CDC in 1984, who decidedB to quash all thoughts of Unix on ETA machines, and (yet again) re-D invent the wheel, starting literally from scratch, with its VSOS-ishB attempt at (yet another) propreitary operating system, called EOS.  A Given this CDC imperative, ETA Software, at that time led by Dale I Hiveley and Jerry Campbell (as director and chief designer, respectively)eF came up with a powerful and much too complex operating system.  TryingE to endow EOS with every feature and function known to supercomputing,PF ETA wasted month after month in the design phase for EOS.  It actuallyG took nine months, from late 1983 into mid-1984, to decide what languageaH to write this monstrosity called EOS in - and the decision, predictibly,D was Cybil, a proprietary variant of Pascal, developed by CDC for itsB Cyber product line internal software development.  This was one ofH many predictibly horrible decisions made by ETA in the first three yearsE of software effort.  Instead of choosing C, the language of choice ofsD software developers, even in the mid 1980's, ETA chose Cybil and CDC blessed it (of course).     E Decisions like Cybil instead of C led to massive delays in developingeD EOS in the early days.  ETA did have a classic development problem -E no native hardware - to contend with.  Faced with this daunting road-eC block, ETA chose the path of most resistance - use the Cyber 205 ashE a software development engine.  ETA also chose to use an Apollo work-uB station environment, under Aegis, to hopefully make the horrendousA job of EOS development easier.  Predictably, ETA chose to use CDCtB propreitary environments to base its development.  This choice wasB another factor in the all-too-slow development of EOS in the firstK three years.  The first sign of these terrible choices appeared, in spades,fD at Florida State University during the first months of the operationB of the ETA-10 at an actual customer site.  EOS was non-existent atC FSU.  It took wave after wave of EOS developers, at massive cost tonD ETA, to care for the monitor-mode, single-task, boot-after-execution morass known as EOS.  B The first true release of EOS occurred on February 12, 1988.  ThisB version supported up to two users per CPU, each with one batch jobA or interactive session.  However, in the field, sites such as the G John Von Neumann Center (JvNC) quickly realized that even the extremelyl? limited usage (e.g. two batch jobs at once) was a strain on thewC native EOS capability, and scaled back to one job at a time.  Thus,lA after four and one-half years of software "development", the best F EOS could realistically offer was single-user, single-tasking support.K ETA-10 EOS users quickly dubbed their systems as "personal supercomputers",eG or more quaintly "EOS - the OS that turns a supercomputer into a PC".  h  E By this time, Cray had shipped multiple releases of Unicos.  AlthoughnE rough around the edges, Unicos had won great favor amongst the super-lB computing community for its simplicity and ability to make portingH of applications easier (than its own proprietary OS, COS, for instance).H Many ETA prospects, and even existing customers, wondered out loud aboutA ETA's plans for Unix.  Predictibily, ETA tried to appease them bylC speaking about a "Unix environment on EOS".  This was pure rhetoric D until mid-1988.  EOS development failed to allocate enough resourcesB onto the Unix environment project, rationalizing this with its ownD problems on native EOS development and support.  It was of this userB community frustration that native Unix on ETA-10 systems was born.  G In late 1986, Nasa/Ames and its NAS facility had spoken, somewhat undersB the table, to ETA about developing a native Unix capability.  ThisD negotiation led to a "skunk works" research project, known as "BaronB Von Cygnet", headed by Eric Rowe, who had broken away from the EOS? design group.  This research quickly led to an effort by ETA toDC establish a proof of concept system.  Realizing that ETA had no onerE in house to develop such a system, ETA turned to outside help, in theaH form of Lachman Associates, Inc. (LAI), a Chicago-based Unix developmentB contracting firm, to begin actual development.  Also, ETA made theA decision to begin its own Unix development group.  The leader wasiF chosen from the outside (of ETA and CDC - the first sign of a rationalA decision) and the project quickly bloomed into fruition.  In onlynE six months after the development go-ahead, the Unix group - less thaneB five ETA employees coupled with approximately ten LAI people - hadD native Unix up and running native on the ETA-10 in single-user mode.C Compared with the 4 1/2 year effort to accomplish the equivalent in B EOS, the Unix effort had three major factors in its favor:  it wasC relatively simple (compared to EOS); it was inexpensive in terms ofs, R&D cost; and it was what the market wanted.            ' Chapter II - The Technology of Business     G From the inside view, ETA operations could be characterized as coveringlF a very broad spectrum of efficiency.  Bluntly, the various departmentsA at ETA were anywhere from wonderfully innovative and visionary toeN blindingly archaic and bureaucratic.  The latter characteristics, predictably,8 were remnants of the CDC history and influence upon ETA.  H The sales group is a case in point.  In the beginning, the objective wasJ to have an independent sales force, only charged with selling ETA productsI and services.  In the middle of ETA's six-year life, CDC changed its mind G about the sales force, and insisted that ETA use only CDC sales people. L This transistion wasted months of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars.F At one point, ETA had a seven-member sales force.  Unfortunately, thisH was during the middle years (1985-1987) when ETA had very little productI to demonstrate and sell.  It was 1988 before the sales force was consumed  by CDC entirely.  E CDC sales people had very little knowledge, generally speaking, abouthC supercomputing in general and ETA products in particular.  CDC paidyF lip service to sales training.  However, the sales force had little orI no enthusiasm for selling Cyber products - a phenomenom which encompassedyG the CDC sales force worldwide - and therefore tried any and all tactics F to sell ETA products.  The natural result of this "selling wine beforeI its time" were gross misrepresentations of the system to the customer(s), F wildly optimistic performance characterizations, shipments dates whichF were pulled from thin air, etc.etc.etc.  Many customers were left withJ massive unmet expectations.  The classic case in point on this unfortunate0 situation was the Tokyo Institute of Technology.  E The Tokyo order was for a hardware configuration which had never been E attempted before, running a non-existent OS, using non-existent toolseE (e.g. FORTRAN compiler), to run non-existent applications.  The orderfF actually came down in fall 1987, for an ETA-10E8, with native Unix, toB run a series of applications including NASTRAN.  Notice the date -F native Unix had barely been booted into single-user state by then. TheC compiler(s) and applications were just a dream.  The machine itselfCD (8 processors) was only a drawing-board exercise in lines and boxes.> Yet, very precise reliability, availability, performance, and D maintainability numbers were quoted in detail in the proposal to theD Institute.  How could this be?  Could the ultimate sale of vaporware actually come to pass?  D It could and it did, due to immense pressure from CDC on ETA to bookH this order.  There were many government and commercial entities involvedE in this order, from ETA and CDC to the Department of Commerce (US) toiD MITI (Japan).  All parties involved wanted a supercomputer - made inD the US, by someone other than Cray - to be sold and delivered to theF Institute.  There were also many influences on the Japanese side, likeF the school rivarly between the Institute and the University of Tokyo -F who had Cray equipment up and running.  All of these "business" - i.e.+ non-technical issues - forced ETA's hand.     C Of course, the order should have never been accepted.  The salesmanqF was out for his commissions.  CDC Japan wanted very much to have theirE first computer system - their first, the world's largest machine ! - tE in their territory.  CDC Japan was an unbelivable combination of lackCC of technical knowledge and "insider" business practices.  Note, CDCeB Japan no longer exists today, thankfully.  Even at the last day ofA ETA, CDC Japan was withholding one-third - 9 billion yen - of theoH payment on the Institute system due to a "gentlemen's agreement" between> the president of CDC Japan and the professors in charge at theH Institute.  The system, in its entirety, should never have been acceptedF in the first place (May 1988) by the Institute.  The immense pressuresD from outside agencies, however, led to its eventual acceptance, with@ two-thirds payment.  The entire affair was horribly botched, dueE to the singular factor of all parties involved - that is, all partiesrB with authority but no responsibility - to get the system installedA and accepted.  The parties with responsibility, of course, becameeE innocent pawns in this affair of international commerce and intrigue.e  F ETA Marketing was also quite interesting, although in a much differentB way than sales.  The marketing group actually had quite a few veryA good people;  their hands were tied very tightly, however, by CDCpC marketing types who had little knowledge of what it takes to markettH a supercomputer today (as opposed to ten years ago).  Budgets, strategy,C and press coverage were three examples of CDC interference, for thesA worse, on ETA marketing.  The budgets allotted ETA marketing weretC pitifully low.  Remember, CDC called the tune on each and every ETAoC department budget - marketing, software, manufacturing, technology,o and engineering.  B The technology and engineering groups were similar to marketing inF that they had quite a few good people.  However, the engineering groupD as a whole had resources fairly skewed in terms of sub-groups.  MostD noticeable was the lack of resources dedicated to the I/O subsystemsB of the ETA-10.  The engineers who had detailed knowledge about I/OG subsystems could be counted on one hand, using one finger.  There were, A however, a plethora of CPU experts.  The CPU was rarely a problem I either in the field or the lab;  the I/O subsystems were always producingqC subtle and sometimes disastrous errors, especially in the interfacecF between the data pipe controller (aka the "light pipe") and the shared@ memory.  One of the most common failures of an ETA-10 was that a+ light pipe had to be physically replaced.  l  J The software group was a quite interesting group of people.  Its structureC provided many lessons in how not to organize a coherent R&D effort.rF The EOS group, at its peak, was nearly 100 people strong.  Quite a fewD of the group had more than passing experience with the Cyber 205 andF VSOS.  The Unix group, at its peak, was about 35 people.  Very few, ifC any, had direct experience with the 205 and/or VSOS.  This actuallyf# turned out to be a great benefit.  o  C There was constant tension between the two groups (EOS and Unix).   F Physically, machine resources were very tight;  another side effect ofB limited and constrained R&D budgets handed down from CDC.  The twoA groups often needed each others' machine resources.  It was quitefI easy to switch from EOS to Unix, but the reverse could be quite difficultoG in terms of effort and time involved.  Also, there was a constant clashtF of personalities and philosophies between the groups.  EOS always tookE pride in their work, and was often offended by the Unix group's less-sA than-benevolent avoidance/ignorance of EOS.  Put another way, the > Unix people could care less about EOS.  Some of this was quiteB justified - EOS was clearly a market failure, and Unix was clearlyC a market success (the count of systems on The Last Day was Unix 23,dF EOS 11).  On the other hand, EOS people were cognizant of this and didB care about the effect Unix had on ETA in general, but were put offJ about Unix as an OS, quoting many of the same ill-conceived notions quotedH by many Unix-bashers past and present.  This philosophic battle actuallyA did materialize itself in a fistfight one night at a bar close topC ETA.  That was the only time, fortunately, that a member of the EOSs= group and a member of the Unix group had such an encounter.         F In conclusion, the demise of ETA was a direct result of CDC managementD intervention when inappropriate.  Almost universally, CDC managementD decisions, when applied to ETA, were incorrect.  Many errors of bothF commission - for instance, the virtual takeover in November 1987 - andC omission - for instance, the lack of market recognition for Unix onaC supercomputers - occurred directly from CDC mismanagement and over- F zealous dogma.  The truly sad fact about the demise, indeed, murder of@ ETA as a company is that its failure reflects not the failure ofF technology, but the failure of people, more specifically top managers.F Many people in the computer industry assume that most computer companyD failures must be a result of poor product, design, or manufacture ofG some kind.  Not so - computer companies fail because of poor management D and erroneous, ill-timed decisions - or the lack of coherent, timely decisions.    C The failure to take ETA public, the lack of government funding, and A the over-protective management applied by CDC were death blows toeF ETA.  Issues of product quality and support pale before such importantD business issues.  Ledbetter put it quite nicely in an interview withG a local Twin Cities journalist:  "CDC took a field of corn, days beforeTA harvest, and plowed it under".  The agriculture analogy is quite tE appropriate in many ways, the least of which is the fact that CDC andtC ETA were Minnesota-based companies.  Another analogy which has beenCE attributed to an ex-ETA person is this: CDC, an alcoholic father, whopH seemingly means quite well, attempts to give his child a hug, but in hisF alcoholic stupor, ends up smothering the child;  death by suffocation.  C The lessons for the American computer industry are many.  It is thecB fervent hope of many that the lessons are learned by those looking toward the future.       RobT -- dC Rob Peglar	Control Systems, Inc.	2675 Patton Rd., St. Paul MN 55113e$ ...uunet!csinc!rpeglar		612-631-7800  M The posting above does not necessarily represent the policies of my employer.s