In a DEC Press book covering the history of minicomputers (Gordon Bell was one of the authors as I recall), the most interesting observation was that the companies that survived let alone thrived in the frothy period for them were the ones that did an acceptable job of every essential thing.

E.g. make great hardware but don't document it well enough, you fail. DEC's forte at the time was CPUs, most of the rest wasn't so hot, but it was all good enough.