As minicomputers pushed the mainframe vendors up-market, then workstations pushed minis up-market, then micros pushed workstations up-market, then lightweight mobile pushed micros up-market ...
What happens to those up-market vendors of yesteryear? Well, IBM is still shipping mainframes, although they look a lot like the minis and workstations of yesteryear. DEC is gone, but Sun has turned its workstations into something remarkably similar to the mainframes from IBM. Both are niche players.
This, "we didn't really want to compete in the volume part of the business anyway" strategy is remarkably like describing a rout as an "orderly advance to prepared positions with the enemy left racing about in disorder."
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