Yes, good post Triage - I've been thinking along the same lines. Sometimes it's not so important to have the best technology but just to have everyone convinced that everyone else is going to go that way, so they can't afford not to get onboard. This critical mass / market momentum is a very powerful force; hard to get and difficult though not impossible to lose.
Big Blue is a very good example of how not do it. Having lived and breathed this history at the time, my memory is not so much that IBM did not appreciate O/S's, but that they simply didn't appreciate what they had in the PC - having been developed by a junior offshoot dept and considered a toy by the core mainframe powerbrokers within the coy. Mini computers / UNIX boxes were at the time doing battle with mainframes to be taken seriously on this front and what were called microcomputers at the time were simply denigrated. I'm not even sure Gates really saw the full potential at the start, but Intel sure did.
When the IBM PC came out it wasn't the first or best microcomputer but because of IBM's dominant position in the business world it had that momentum in spades and businesses started to buy them (I've still got an original IBM PC with DOS v1 [actually 1.1 if I remember correctly] - weighs an absolute tonne!). IBM missed the opportunity to get in on licencing the hardware to all the compatible PC builders (also missing the chance to regulate standards so internal conflicts became an issue compared to the more stable Apple offerings) but, as you say, they also missed the chance to control the machine via the O/S and key software.
When all parties realised the potential in the PC, thanks again to the rapid developments achieved by Intel, IBM realised they'd nearly done the impossible by letting go of that momentum, that perception that everyone would look to them to lead the way. The battle between the new multitasking O/S's in OS2 and Windows was then an extremely serious and spiteful affair. Even today, it's still hard to see how IBM lost it. Part of the reason was that MS had the jump technically and OS2 simply had too many delays, but another key part of it was that the market was now starting to see MS as being a contender to pick up the baton and lead. Marketing played a big part in this as well. It was fascinating to watch that momentum swap between the two parties over the period of this O/S battle. Technically, at the time, I was hoping we didn't get either of them, but that's another story altogether (sigh).
Anyone reading just a handful of the posts on this site regarding moves to establish battery plants and build EV's will appreciate the momentum lithium has already gained. I'd say we might have already reached that "tipping point" you mention and agree the market place looks to be going down this path regardless of any new developments. Over and above this, it would appear that lithium is still the best proven option technically as well. So lithium it will be - and for my money ORE is exactly the place to be.
Cheers.
ORE Price at posting:
$1.73 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
