What killed Symbolics?
It is not dead, probably never will be (it will change name and morph into something PC (politically correct)). The old company collapsed as a trading entity, the residue is in new hands (see Open Genera). The answer as to why is complicated. From my point of view, some parts of the company (sales and management) suffered from arrogance – a recipe for disaster for most businesses in the long run. The products may be great, but don’t treat your customers poorly. On a pragmatic basis Symbolics systems were weird in computer business terms. The box came complete, all the hardware was in place, the software was vast and all embracing, the sources were included. The competitors sold systems in bits, with them you got parts then discover that you need to buy other parts to make a working system. Symbolics users had it easy as there was system wide integration and compatibility, and incredible portability of systems and code (portability may not be the word: the same code would run on Symboli
