Conference heron::euro_swas_ai

    Mark,
    
    Just read the news from the AITG.
    
    First of all, why this budget cut?
    
    Second, I had to do presentations, several times these last weeks, about
    DIGITAL & partners A.I. products, and I obviously have to answer 
    differently to our customers questions, about how do our products
    evolve. 
    
    Some questions I have in mind :
    
    -	may we talk about VAX DECISION EXPERT today?
    
    -	should we go on pushing OPS5 as the top DIGITAL A.I. language?
        one question that often comes is about the lack of some kind
        of sophisticated window environment for OPS5. will it find an
        answer some day? 
    
    -	what are the partner products we can best propose to our clients?
        No doubt about Nexpert, but :    
    
        .   what PROLOG dialect? 
        .   what is the status of ART and K.C. today?
        .   what about the deals with Intellicorp for KEE? 
    
St�phane.
    

Stephane,

    Thanks for your reaction -- those are all good questions.  

    The budget cut was sudden and took everyone by surprise.  It was at
least partly due to general cutbacks throughout the company; even VMS
development is being cut.  The AI Engineering group, like most other
Engineering groups, is measured mainly on the revenue from the products
they develop, and this probably helps to explain the changes as well.

     AI Marketing in the U.S. and Europe is working on shifting their
strategy to depend more on third party relationships, but very little
has been decided.  The reason, again, is that the budget cut was so
sudden.  Also, third party relationships need to be built up over time
if they're going to be successful.  The only concrete news I've heard is
that we will probably re-establish the relationship with Quintus in order
to have a Prolog offering.

     We will try to get news or strategy statements from Marketing, and
we'll post them here when we do.



						Regards,


						Mark

    What a sad message to get when returning from a nice vacation!

    It seems like we are putting most of our mony on the LISP-horse?  I'm
    very suprised to hear OPS5 being put into maintenance mode. OPS5 is
    retired to internal use only??

    Well, maybe we can live with 3rd party tools and applications for a
    while. My second reaction to this is: How will this decision impact the
    AI- activity in Valbonne? Maybe 3rd parties has worked for AI in US,
    but certanly not for Europe!!! We have had (and have) some halfhearted
    cooperation with Nerun Data and Quintus. If we are going to survive in
    the AI-business now, we must have some firm agreements with a selected
    group of third-parties. And we in DEC set right MUST have access to the
    tools and applications to be able to give resonable support.

    The main reason custumers buy products from DEC is that we should be
    able to give both product- and technology support. Please don't let us
    dissapoint our customers again!!!!

    Arne
    

    These are realy bad news, after some flashing news from Marketing,
    were it looked like we were going to have a straight plotic, with a
    bunch of good products in the pipeline we finish with two.
    
    Where are we going to with LISP and VDEEX as main products?
    Are we going to be a 'Lisp-company'?
    Shall we start offering Lisp instead of OPS and PROLOG, 
    
    Please keep us informed.
    Thanks
    Joao

    I fully agree with all the replies to this topic so far.
    In addition I want to emphasize the following:
    
    	- DEC (especially DEC Europe from my point of view) needs GOOD,
              VERY GOOD CONTACTS WITH 3RD PARTIES ASAP!
          Otherwise we will loose business because we can't offer an
          Expert System Shell with real support. 
    
        - OPS5 needs to be embedded in an environment, so more people
          will use it. OPS5 is a nice language/tool, but as long as
          developpers have to build their own support tools around it,
          it won't be very popular.
          -->  OPS5 V3.0 is wanted!!
    
    	Tom 
                                                        

    I screwed up and put my reply in note 23.0. For those of you interested
    to get european ai marketing's view, please look at 23.0

Bad news...
  
1) Who is developping operationnal and integrated E.S using LISP ?
    
2) Can we afford to rely only on third parties tools ? NO,to my point
    of view.
        
3) Revenue problems ? OPS has been priced to low,i think it is really
   too cheap compared to any other (quality) tools
    
4) OPS with a good developpment environment is needed and will generate
   revenues.Even if it's late,it's still time.
    
5) KBS1 & KBS2 cancellation is really a pain   

6) TREILLIS/OWL becoming products ? need it soon.
    
7) What happened in AAAI ?
    
    We now need (more than ever) good messages and answers to our
    customers...

Keeping selling A.I
    
    - Henri -

There is some recent good news about OPS which I have posted in 6.1.



						Regards,


						Mark