I get into it as much as I can at the end, but the Osborne Effect absolutely plays a part. It's just not in the way that got press at the time (i.e. the Executive being announced too early).
Basically Adam repeatedly triggered mini-Osborne Effects, with product variants. None of which should have been enough to take the company down. But bad financial management had killed the company's runway, they'd exhausted funding from their VC backers, and they had no ability to raise covering loans from banks until they could IPO.
So what should have been a minor ripple in their finances ended up just taking the whole company down.
I honestly think, based on my research, that if they'd managed to secure the IPO - having sorted out their accounts first - then they'd have survived the IBM PC-clone transition. They were already pivoting to deal with it.
I get into it as much as I can at the end, but the Osborne Effect absolutely plays a part. It's just not in the way that got press at the time (i.e. the Executive being announced too early).
Basically Adam repeatedly triggered mini-Osborne Effects, with product variants. None of which should have been enough to take the company down. But bad financial management had killed the company's runway, they'd exhausted funding from their VC backers, and they had no ability to raise covering loans from banks until they could IPO.
So what should have been a minor ripple in their finances ended up just taking the whole company down.
I honestly think, based on my research, that if they'd managed to secure the IPO - having sorted out their accounts first - then they'd have survived the IBM PC-clone transition. They were already pivoting to deal with it.
They just ran out of time.