Some of the biggest Business blunders in history...

PokerPaul · #1 10-10-2005, 02:24 PM

- IBM Executive Board circa 1976 "Ok we got the market cornered with our new personal computer platform. Thats where the big money will be. Who cares about the software, thats just small potatoes compared to the hardware. Lets let that geek with that operating DOS thing have the contract for now to supply that end of it."

- CEO of Western Union in 1880's in response to Alexander Graham Bell: "You are correct, i am sure your talking device would be a great way to use our nationwide infrastructure of telegraph poles and cables, but i am not interested. We are one if the biggest companies in the world, and don't have time for your little 'toy', which as far as im concerned has very little actual use."

- Russia (around 1850) to US :" U wanna buy alaska for 25000?"

- Partypoker (this week) to their skins and biggest customers: "We are not happy about players leaving us for better deals with our skin partners. So we are cutting them off at the knees in order to force those heavy volume players back to our site, and screw our partners in the process. We are God in this market and will stay so forever so we can do whatever we deem in our best interest, at the expense of our long time partners and customers."

OK i know i am getting carried away a bit...and some of those quotes arent precise, but the jist is there.

Might party look back years from now and live to regret the past week?

What they are doing is pretty brash to rest of network around them, including customers.

autobet · #2 10-10-2005, 02:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]

We are God

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't mess with God. You have been warned. This is not a test.

dlk9s · #3 10-10-2005, 04:30 PM

The beginning of that mistake was when Party did away with rakeback. I still can't think of a logical business reason for it.

One HUGE blunder was when Coca-Cola introduced New Coke. Fortunately for Roberto Goizueta and the gang, it inadvertantly turned into a huge groundswell of support for the original formula and Coca-Cola Classic sold like hotcakes (hotcakes supposedly sell very well) when it was brought back.

drewjustdrew · #4 10-10-2005, 04:36 PM

Supposedly Bill Gates referred IBM to someone else when they were looking for an operating system. The guy did not hold his appointment when they came to see him. He went flying his cessna or something frivolous like that. When IBM asked for another referral from Gates, he decided this might be something worth looking into.

Evan · #5 10-10-2005, 04:37 PM

Two things about this post are really funny:

1) You left out the obvious answer from this generation, Enron.
2) You're a raging dumbass.

Jordan Olsommer · #6 10-10-2005, 04:45 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The guy did not hold his appointment when they came to see him. He went flying his cessna or something frivolous like that. When IBM asked for another referral from Gates, he decided this might be something worth looking into.

[/ QUOTE ]

To the best of my knowledge, it was because Gary Kildall (head of Digital Research, formerly Intergalatic Digital Research) wouldn't sign a non-disclosure agreement with IBM saying he wouldn't repeat what they discussed in the meeting. IBM goes back to Gates, Gates buys a crummy obscure OS called QDOS ridiculously cheap, and turns it into an empire.

Don't get me wrong, he's a fantastic businessman, but man - talk about right place, right time. And for anyone who thinks that Gates was some kind of genius hardcore supercoder, this is an amusing story on that topic.

DesertCat · #7 10-10-2005, 08:31 PM

[ QUOTE ]

To the best of my knowledge, it was because Gary Kildall (head of Digital Research, formerly Intergalatic Digital Research) wouldn't sign a non-disclosure agreement with IBM saying he wouldn't repeat what they discussed in the meeting. IBM goes back to Gates, Gates buys a crummy obscure OS called QDOS ridiculously cheap, and turns it into an empire.

Don't get me wrong, he's a fantastic businessman, but man - talk about right place, right time. And for anyone who thinks that Gates was some kind of genius hardcore supercoder, this is an amusing story on that topic.

[/ QUOTE ]

Kildall was flying his plane. His wife, who was a manager in the business, and their lawyer, balked at IBM's NDA, which was supposedly 60 pages long and very intimidating. The DR folks were legitimately concerned they might be signing their lives away. After a long day of arguing with them, the IBM guys left and called Gates. He freaked out, thinking he was going to lose IBM as a client, and quickly found them a replacement.

I don't think anyone ever claimed Bill was a genius programmer, just a genius businessman. As an example of this, when IBM had gave Bill the same NDA, he signed it without reading it. He knew that IBM was the best thing that could ever happen to the PC business and knew if Microsoft didn't get their language business it might be the worst decision ever.

Another example of his vision. When he saw a picture of the MITS Altair on Popular Science in 1974 or so, he freaked out to Paul Allen, fearing it was already to late to get into PC software and he immediately quit Harvard (their first slogan was "A computer on every desk and Microsoft software on every computer, in 1979!). They wrote a version of BASIC for the Altair but didn't have one to test it on, so they wrote an emulator on a mainframe for a computer they'd never seen. I think Paul Allen did most of the work but Bill deserves some credit. Paul then went to MITS and gave a demo, crossing his fingers that it would actually work.

PokerPaul · #8 10-10-2005, 10:34 PM

i hope your other 6000+ posts arent such a waste of resources and peoples time.

#9 10-10-2005, 10:53 PM

Why is this so dumb from Party's perspective? 62000 players on tonight, so I don't think loss of the skins hurts them at all. The high vol. players will have to come back to Party if they want to get in the fish pool. And sidebets & BJ will mean more of the fishes money will go directly to the house.

If you think this is bad business for Party, I think you're just pissed because it sucks for you, not them.

PokerPaul · #10 10-10-2005, 11:03 PM

i am not pissed at party, they have the right to do whatever they want with their business.

And if all goes like you say then maybe it might end up being a very good decision for them. It could also backfire. Those other blunders i listed seemed like the right thing to the respective companies at the time too, but long term showed otherwise.

it may very well turn out to be great move for party, but i think many will agree it is a risky one.....and for that i actually do give them credit for having the balls to make a big move like that which can shake up the marketplace.