SEVEN VIEWS OF COMPUTER SYSTEMS 13
Figure 11. Price versus time for each machine class.
new class appears at the low end of the price scale where the minimal computer is introduced at a significantly lower price level than existing computers.
The measure used to define a new class is price, whereas the measure defining an established class is performance. This is because once a new class has become established in the marketplace, the users become familiar with what computers of that class can do for their applications and tend to characterize that class on a performance basis. The characterization of existing classes on a performance basis is important to this discussion because at each new technology time, performance increases by one category, and midi performance becomes available on a mini, for example.
The effect of technology upon computer classes can be summarized in the following thesis:
Continual application of technology via the two major design styles results in: (1) price declines creating new classes of computers. (2) new classes becoming established classes, and (3) established classes being encroached upon.
Some question may arise as to how much of a price reduction is necessary to create a new class. The continuity implied by the thesis is deceptive in that it suggests that new classes come about by the continual application of the constant performance/decreasing cost style of de sign. Viewing the industry as a whole, this is true. However, a new class is usually not created by the same organization that is designing computers in existing classes. A new company, or new organization within a company, is usually required to provide the requisite fresh view point needed to create a new class. It is the fresh viewpoint and not some arbitrary amount of price reduction that creates a new class.
For both the minicomputer and micro computer, a fresh organization broke out. A fresh viewpoint was needed because existing organizations, like most human organizations, act to preserve the status quo, and adopt the in creased performance/constant price design alternative for the existing customer base, as indicated by the analysis given in the discussion of Table 2. A new organization with a fresh viewpoint goes after new applications and new customers with a new minimal computer that establishes a new class.
As a by-product of the use of new technology, conflicts occur within the established computer classes. An established computer class, which is defined on the basis of performance, is encroached upon by constant cost/higher performance successors from the class below it. Moreover, suppliers within a class are, by their dominant constant