

When Exxon wanted to be a personal computing revolutionary - Hooke
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/when-exxon-wanted-to-be-a-personal-computing-revolutionary

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ChuckMcM
I remember finding an Exxon branded office machine at a swap meet and thinking
"really?". So I guess we give Exxon a hat tip to know this was going to be
very large industry, but a poor mark for not being able to effectively
implement that vision. I wasn't a big fan of the Z8000 but the data sheets for
the Z280 had me thinking it would be an excellent basis for a 16 bit machine.
Too bad it took way too long to come out.

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saryant
Exxon was involved in a lot of side ventures in the 70s and 80s, largely due
to an excess of capital with few places in the industry to invest it and a
fear that the rise of oil nationalism could fatally deprive Exxon of the
booked reserves it needs.

Most of that ended after Valdez and was accelerated when Lee "Iron Ass"
Raymond became CEO in 1993. He was not amused by Exxon's non-oil ventures.

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adventured
GM went through a similar phase with EDS and Hughes in the mid 1980s (which is
of course how GM ended up owning DirecTV).

I can't help but think Google is behaving similarly today, at the height of
its power. Cars, Nest, fiber, wireless, robotics, biotech; and I suspect that
will continue to expand.

~~~
jn1234
Except Google's core competency is software. Google has the advantage of being
essentially controlled by Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

They only need one of those things to succeed (cars). It's hard to imagine
that one of the existing car companies has developed a reliable urban self-
driving, that is better than Google's.

Google's fiber play has nothing to do with actually making money. It is about
making sure that cable companies abide by net neutrality and not cutoff or
strangle Google's bandwidth intensive services like YouTube.

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icebraining
_It 's hard to imagine that one of the existing car companies has developed a
reliable urban self-driving, that is better than Google's._

I don't know, some are pretty good, and they don't even need the LIDAR:
[https://youtu.be/r_RFzC_G5BA](https://youtu.be/r_RFzC_G5BA)

~~~
jn1234
Highway self-driving is pretty much consumer-grade now. Infiniti already has
it in their vehicles. Telsa is planning on rolling it out this summer. The
main problem is urban and suburban driving and dealing with unexpected
situations such as jaywalkers or a cyclists running stoplights or a kid
running out after a ball.

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icebraining
That wasn't just highway, but here's a more urban setting, with pedestrian
avoidance:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AihC5flC-38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AihC5flC-38)

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chiph
Computerworld article from 1980:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=OMthpMVWLOAC&pg=RA1-PA83&l...](https://books.google.com/books?id=OMthpMVWLOAC&pg=RA1-PA83&lpg=RA1-PA83&dq=exxon+data+systems&source=bl&ots=xlkY18uhvw&sig=CbLPqdpSm2rjlUzur73RQGWRnBY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Fzo9VbmPNsndsAXVsoDAAg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=exxon%20data%20systems&f=false)

They were projecting $695 million in office automation revenue for 1985.
Obviously, that didn't work out. Excellent quote in there:

"Northern believes software development may be Exxon's biggest problem in
tying the loose ends together"

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walterbell
How does one search Google for old Computerworld (or other old magazine)
articles? I don't recall seeing those in the results for Google Books
searches.

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jacquesm
[http://books.google.nl/books/about/Computerworld.html?id=ph6...](http://books.google.nl/books/about/Computerworld.html?id=ph6vc1JYSAIC&redir_esc=y)

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digi_owl
I don't get this constant push of "internet of things".

Very few devices i have, that are not pure information devices, can be
operated for any duration without some sort of human attention.

