Non-Networking of IBM and DEC Networks in a Single Company

As you can see, if a company wanted to own some IBM computers and some DEC computers, it had to have separate networks. Although that thought might simply be ridiculous today, imagine that you could only buy Dell PCs because a Gateway PC couldn't talk to a Dell. That was the case with proprietary networking models.

Two solutions emergedone short term, and one long term. The short-term solution, simply put, relates to good, old capitalism: DEC made its computers conform to the IBM SNA model. Why? IBM was roughly 10 times larger at the time in terms of gross revenues. So, DEC created software that converted between DECnet standards and SNA standards. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. Figure 3-5 shows the solution; the next section will get to the long-term solution.