[Radio Wrangler]

There is another factor in addition to NIH syndrome that has been at work in many companies over most of time.

They do not want to release onto the market a new product with some new technology because they fear it will cannibalise sales of their existing product, their cash-cow.

The error in this decision is that once a new technology is starting, if you do not introduce it yourself and thereby cannibalise your own products, there will soon be a competitor along to do it for you.

Some firms really were too dim to see the inevitability of the loss of surpassed technologies. Others could see it, but were financially trapped without the cash flow to more regularly update their product lines.

It's one of natures wonders how a firm can be made up of some quite bright people, yet the composite entity can behave in some rather disappointingly stupid ways. I guess it's a case of having so much momentum going in some direction, that by the time they realise it's silly, they can't stop it

Of course, it's too easy for us to judge, looking back with 20-20 hindsight.

I sometimes wonder about Clive Sinclair, sitting in his C5 prototype, didn't he feel just a bit too vulnerable? His potential customers did.

Studying the mechanisms behind failed products and missed opportunities can be fascinating. I wonder if the history of our times will be written in these terms, or will future historians not be able to get themselves out of the Monarchs, politicians and wars groove?

Philips has a long history of innovation and haven't been scared of upstaging their own products, so sticking with bipolars too long has to be NIH.

By the way, semiconductor firms seem to be dropping dual gate mosfet transistors as fast as they can. We seem to be exactly at the end of their era. Trying to find something to equal them for easy AGC, low cost and plentiful gain is proving difficult. Some 12v parts linger, but the 5v families are almost all gone.

David