Editing Micro Channel architecture (section)

== Reception ==
In November 1983 ''[[The Economist]]'' stated that the IBM PC standard's dominance of the personal computer market was not a problem because "it can help competition to flourish". The magazine predicted that<ref name="economist19831126">{{Cite magazine |date=1983-11-26 |title=Can Anybody Tackle IBM? |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UCIvSU6Y2GAC&pg=PA125 |magazine=The Economist}}</ref>

{{Quote|IBM will soon be as much a prisoner of its standards as its competitors are. Once enough IBM machines have been bought, IBM cannot make sudden changes in their basic design; what might be useful for shedding competitors would shake off even more customers.}}

Micro Channel architecture was publicly introduced at the launch of the [[IBM Personal System/2|PS/2]] range in 1987, with three out of four of the new machines featuring it.<ref group='NB'>[[IBM PS/2 Model 50|Models 50]], [[IBM PS/2 Model 60|60]] and [[IBM PS/2 Model 80|80]] - the [[IBM PS/2 Model 30|Model 30]] was ISA</ref> IBM had actually discreetly introduced the Micro Channel architecture in October 1986, half a year before the introduction of the IBM PS/2, as part of their "Gearbox" Industrial Computer 7552 series. These computers were rack-mountable, ruggedized, modular [[industrial PC]]s. They featured a hybrid 16-bit MCA and ISA bus, with certain ISA signal lines disabled.<ref name=industrial7552>{{cite web|url=https://ardent-tool.com/7552/187-224.txt|title=IBM 7552 Industrial Computer Model 540 Announcement Letter|date=November 3, 1987|publisher=Industrial Business Machines|via=Ardent Tool|accessdate=September 29, 2021}}</ref><ref name="auss-report">{{cite book|last=Kono|first=M. E.|url=https://ardent-tool.com/7552/DTIC_ADA263239.pdf#page=11|title=Surface Computer System Architecture for the Advanced Unmanned Search System (AUSS)|publisher=Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center|date=December 1992|via=Ardent Tool|page=3}}</ref><ref name="networkworld-ibm-7552">{{cite journal|last=Wallace|first=Bob|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nxwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA21|title=IBM uncloaks industrial micro as network gateway|volume=3|number=33|via=Google Books|journal=Network World|date=October 20, 1986|publisher=IDG Publications}}</ref><ref name="ics-ibm-7552">{{cite journal|last=Cleaveland|first=Peter|date=April 21, 1987|volume=61|issue=5|page=31|journal=Instrumentation & Control Systems|publisher= Reed Business Information Enterprise|title=Low-cost, flexible microcomputers get jobs in factories|via=Gale OneFile|quote=IBM doesn't advertise the PS/2 as a factory-floor machine, yet the PS/2's backplane bus structure, Micro Channel, appeared in a factory-floor computer before the PS/2 itself came on the market. People who examined the IBM 7552 Gearbox, ostensibly a factory-hardened version of the AT, notice something odd about the unit's bus: It had more bus lines than could be accounted for by the AT bus. The extra lines turned out to be the 16-bit Micro Channel. Nobody at IBM said anything about it at the time, because PS/2 hadn't yet been introduced.}}</ref>

The use of MCA in IBM spread to the [[RS/6000]], [[AS/400]], and eventually to the [[IBM 9370]] systems - smallest members of the [[System/370]] range.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110605220017/http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zvse/about/history1990s.html ''"...enormous numbers of remote IBM MicroChannel/370 (9371) systems..."''] About z/VSE</ref><ref>[http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&appname=Demonstration&htmlfid=897/ENUS190-141 Micro Channel 370] Announcement Letter Number 190-141 dated September 5, 1990</ref>

After not making it clear for its first year that the company would license Micro Channel at all,<ref name="foster19900326">{{Cite magazine |last=Foster |first=Ed |date=1990-03-26 |title=IBM May Find Itself Singing Solo Rendition of Micro Channel Blues |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1DsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT88#v=onepage&q&f=true |access-date=2025-04-12 |magazine=InfoWorld |page=42}}</ref> IBM licensed the architecture to other companies for one to five percent of revenue.<ref name="lewis19880424">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/24/business/the-executive-computer-introducing-the-first-ps-2-clones.html | title=Introducing the First PS/2 Clones | work=The New York Times | date=1988-04-24 | access-date=6 January 2015 | author=Lewis, Peter H.}}</ref> [[Tandy Corporation]] was the first to ship a Micro Channel-based computer, the 5000 MC, but company head John Roach said "I'm surprised anybody at all would want it"; Tandy only sold the computer, he said, because there was some demand for it.<ref name="lewis19880802">{{Cite news |last=Lewis |first=Peter H. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/02/science/personal-computers-tandy-tries-to-keep-things-easy.html |title=PERSONAL COMPUTERS; Tandy Tries to Keep Things Easy |date=1988-08-02 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2020-03-11 |page=C10 |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> [[NCR Corporation]] adopted Micro Channel comprehensively - they designed and built high-performance personal computer, [[workstation]] and server platforms supporting it, including their own Micro Channel architecture-based logic componentry, including SCSI, graphics, networking, and audio.  A small number of other manufacturers, including [[Apricot Computers|Apricot]], [[Dell]], [[RM plc|Research Machines]], and [[Olivetti]] adopted it, but only for part of their PC range.

Despite the fact that MCA was a huge technical improvement over ISA, it soon became clear that its introduction and marketing by IBM was poorly handled.  IBM had strong patents on Micro Channel architecture system features, and required Micro Channel system manufacturers to pay a licence fee - and actively pursued patents to block third parties from selling unlicensed implementations of it.  The [[IBM PC compatible|PC clone]] market did not want to pay royalties to IBM in order to use this new technology, and stayed largely with the 16-bit AT bus, (embraced and renamed as ISA to avoid IBM's "AT" trademark) and manual configuration, although the [[VESA Local Bus]] (VLB) was briefly popular for [[Intel 80486|Intel '486]] machines.

Resentment of IBM grew.{{r|foster19900326}} For servers the technical limitations of the old ISA were too great, and, in late 1988, the "[[Gang of Nine]]", led by [[Compaq]], announced a rival high-performance bus - [[Extended Industry Standard Architecture]] (EISA).  This offered similar performance benefits to Micro Channel, but with the twin advantage of being able to accept older ISA boards and being free from IBM's control.

IBM's announcement of the AT bus-based [[PS/2 Model 30 286]] at the same time as EISA was the company's acknowledgement that, 17 months after telling customers that the AT bus was obsolete, customers still wanted it.<ref name="daly19880919">{{Cite magazine |last=Daly |first=James |date=1988-09-19 |title=Bending to demand, IBM revives AT bus |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ccD24PksFYC&pg=PP129#v=onepage&q&f=false |access-date=2025-02-01 |magazine=Computerworld |page=129}}</ref> For several years EISA and Micro Channel battled it out in the server arena, but, in 1996, IBM effectively conceded defeat, when they themselves produced some EISA-bus servers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www-306.ibm.com/common/ssi/fcgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&appname=redbooks&htmlfid=897/ENUS196-134 |title=IBM PC Server 520 -- New 166MHz SMP Models and Feature Enhancements |publisher=IBM |date=June 18, 1996 |access-date=2010-01-31}}</ref> In 2001 IBM executive Robert Moffat said that of the company's mistakes in the PC market, "the most obvious one is Micro Channel".<ref name="millermoffat20010904">{{Cite interview |last=Moffat |first=Robert |interviewer=Michael J. Miller |title=IBM's PC: Then and Now |url=http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s=1754&a=10114,00.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011106162709/http://www.pcmag.com/article/0%2C2997%2Cs%3D1754%26a%3D10114%2C00.asp |archive-date=2001-11-06 |work=PC Magazine |date=2001-09-04 |access-date=2020-04-02 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Within a few years of its arrival in 1992, [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]] had largely superseded Micro Channel, EISA, and VLB.