Rational went out of Business Because

Rational Unified Process
It was too far ahead of its time.

My most potent experience in Silicon Valley in the Nineties was with a company called Adaptec. They were busy doing everything wrong with their software and I got to watch them at this.

One of their developers had the Rational software, and he was also watching their progress, and wondering at it. It wasn't long before we both left the company.

Those guys did not want to produce good software, which was what Rational was trying to do.

Software in the Nineties was just getting its act together, and going through a huge boom and bust. It would take it 20 years to mature, and hundreds of companies would go out of business - including Rational.

What we have now, is something we could not have imagined earlier, and something we can barely understand now.

It is not just one technology, it is many. and they often compete with each other.

People outside the industry (99 percent of the population) cannot understand this. They are used to simple situations, and today's situation is complex.

With many things affecting many other things.