Talk:Wang Laboratories: Difference between revisions

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One product missing from the Wang discussion was the WangWriter, which was a small CPM-based dedicated word processor that appeared sometime around 1980-1981 (perhaps 1981-1982; memory is a bit fuzzy). I believe the integral printer was a daisy-wheel printer for high quality output in an era where PC's (if they even had printers) used dot matrix technology.
 
The WangWriter was intended to run the same microcode as the OIS terminals and had a desk-side CPU/printer integrated into a cart, and a separate CRT and keyboard. As I recall, it was designed to help Wang protect the low end of its word processing business against emerging PC-based systems, such as Samna Corp.'s Ami Pro (don't remember exactly when that appeared, but it was far more sophisticated than the WordStar systemsapplication that migrated to the PC from CP/M systems). Ami Pro was a particular threat since it grabbed a bunch of the ideas for its user interface from Wang and was pretty up front about that in its marketing pitches.
 
What made the WangWriter completely DOA was its price -- as I recall, it was about $10,000 versus a PC hardware cost of about $3,000 plus another $1,000 for a daisy wheel printer. The competitive market for word processing in the early days of the PC (WordStar, Ami Pro, Word Perfect) made the features of those systems evolve very rapidly compared to Wang, who was all about protecting the existing OIS business, where the user interface had been relatively unchanging since 1976 or thereabouts. I seem to recall that Wang sold only a couple hundred WangWriters and took a massive financial bath on the R&D and manufacturing investment. Even Wang sales people made fun of these things, though I don't recall whether it was due to the product itself or due to worry about what it would do to their average deal sizes, and thus to their commission payments.