I think this is a very "of its era" kind of story. Computer systems were looked at as magic boxes back then and there was no easy way of doing research on competitive products. Hell there might not even be a competitive product. If you did any of that now or didn't research your market. You could easily sink your startup. The software industry is pretty mature now and people are more savvy on figuring out what feels right. Not saying that engineers don't still under price their products. But as an engineer I would do your research and find something that fits within the market because thats what your customer is going to be doing.