[erlang-questions] Question about erlang history at Ericsson

[mats cronqvist]

"Ed Korsberg" <ed.korsberg@REDACTED> writes:

> Many companies have internal engineering resources to create innovative
> research projects but it is
> rare for these research projects to make the transition to shipping products
> complete with all the quality
> control and field support required.

  Sounds like you've been there...

> I would be curious to learn how Ericsson managed this transition
> from an internal R&D development to a real shipping product.

  Ericsson at the time had made many many tons of money on a product
(AXE 10) that ran huge programs written in a proprietary language
(PLEX) on custom HW. So the concept of shipping stuff that was the
result of in-house development was deeply ingrained; indeed it was the
whole point of Ericsson.

  This tradition was thrown out in the mid-80s, when it was decided
that the next generation AXE was to be implemented in C++. This turned
into a huge disaster (according to Swedish Wikipedia that project cost
Ericsson about 1 billion US$.) 

  So there was a window of opportunity, and a generation of leaders
that thought Ericson was capable of doing bleeding-edge stuff
internally. Plus it actually worked.

  mats