Cool, they sent me the webvan.com auction brochure . .

Post #12,163 by Andrew Grygus 10/7/01 8:39:51 PM Reply	Cool, they sent me the webvan.com auction brochure . . . . and it's in full color with lots of pictures. I will preserve this as a historical curiosity. Webvan is a definitive dot.com failure. Founded by people who knew absolutely nothing about the grocery business, and who deliberately did not hire anyone who did because they would be "old economy". They hired the "best and brightest" to build a "new economy" business without research or a coherent business plan. They bought everything at higher prices than the grocery chains paid because they didn't know how the industry made deals. They built a centralized distribution system to compete with a finely tuned multi-path distribution system, and they blew hundreds of millions in venture capital without the slightest return. The "old economy" ate them for lunch and didn't bother spitting out the bones. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #12,165 by static 10/7/01 9:14:52 PM Reply	That's worth an article on your web site. For instance, "How to do it all exactly wrong". :-) Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #12,190 by Ashton 10/8/01 5:06:08 AM Reply	Do you mean like.. How an old line ethical company with massive capitalization, unequalled technical skills and experience: persisted and prevailed - against an upstart arrogant and uncivilized company - and blew that upstart company's 'new product' away? as in.. ..when OS/2 trashed "Windows" ? Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle..
Post #12,195 by Andrew Grygus 10/8/01 6:45:59 AM Reply	Not 'zactly the same situation. Microsoft knew how to market to an almost totally ignorant clientel, and even today avoids talking to technical people who might know better. IBM knew how to market to IT people, but not to the unwashed masses. The ignorant controlled the money. Webvan.com knew the marketing stuff too, but unfortunately they faced a highly experienced clientel. Just about everyone knows how to shop for food and soap, what the products are, how much they cost and where to get them. Besides, OS/2 did thrash Windows here. I have four boxes running OS/2 and none running Windows. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #12,196 by Ashton 10/8/01 7:03:29 AM Reply	Yeah.. was just joshin But in 20/20 hindsight, IBM rilly looks Baad.. that they did so little research as to miss totally the appeal of, "your own computer". I suppose it followed from that first egregious error: After interest was clear - to fail also to recognize their 'consumer level' utter ignorance - failure to hire some smarts. (Imagine a PS/2 lock-in might have flown!) But we all lost when they failed to hire some marketers to demonstrate OS/2 superiority.. spend real $ to entice some (more) programmers to write decent native aps. Ridicule Billy for his.. er ridicule-able persona (just for comic relief for us all). Who coulda thunk.. what utter assholes would prevail (!) (Almost as unthinkable as -?- a Muslim / Xian Holy War 1st thing in a new century) :[
Post #12,339 by Simon_Jester 10/8/01 7:14:02 PM Reply	I always thought that... OS/2 really never had the full support of IBM (imo). The people behind OS/2 got a chance during a change in management, where people didn't know where things were going. Once IBM got the top brass figured out, they sniffed at OS/2 but really didn't buy into their vision. Once that happened, OS/2 was toast irregardless of how successful it ever became. (And I still think it had potential -- although the Borland Compiler screwup was possibly insurmountable.) Webvan isn't even in the same class. New Economy/Old Economy. Blah. I'll give Webvan a little credit, they had a business model, flawed as it was. (There were others that didn't even bother with a business model).

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