Conference heron::euro_swas_ai

352.0. "YES" by ULYSSE::ROACH (TANSTAAFL !) Wed Jul 17 1991 20:26

 

                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:     17-Jul-1991 07:07pm CET
                                        From:     BEANE
                                                  BEANE@BIGRED@MRGATE@DPD03@DPD
                                        Dept:      
                                        Tel No:    

TO: See Below

Subject: FWD: Gartner Group Report

From:	NAME: George Starr @MRO             
	FUNC: U.S. SVCS STRATEGIC PGMS        
	TEL: (508) 467-5616 DTN: 297-         <STARR.GEORGE AT A1 AT GRECO AT MRO>
Date:	15-Jul-1991
Posted-date: 15-Jul-1991
Precedence: 1
Subject: Gartner Group on Businesses DEC Is In, FYI                             1
To:	<<deleted>>



The Businesses Digital Has Chosen       
Author: Conneighton, C.                Source   : GG: Office Information Systems
                                       Type     : Research Service
                                       Report ID: 3016269

     + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + 
     |  Please be advised that the information contained within this | 
     +  report is copyrighted material.  The following policies must + 
     |  be adhered to:                                               | 
     +                                                               + 
     |     -  No reformatting of the data segments                   | 
     +     -  No external distribution                               + 
     |     -  Internal use only in accordance with vendor agreements | 
     + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + 

Intro: Summary of Report (Supplied by CIS Editor)

Digital will concentrate its future OIS business development in networking,
server-based middleware, server hardware and systems integration. Elsewhere,
most Digital users will seek third parties.  Key Issues, are where can users
rely on Digital for excellence, and where must they turn to other vendors?

Section: 1 Digital's OIS Focus

OIS vendors in the third generation may choose to participate in up to 12
major business categories (see Table 1).  Each business has its own financial
model and requirements for success.  Only four vendors today participate
across the board IBM, Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), Hewlett-Packard (HP) and
NCR and, even for them, participation in some of the categories is very
limited.  It is not clear that participation in more than one category is
necessary to build a large and profitable business, but one thing is clear: In
the 1980s, excellence in one category could often carry mediocrity in another,
and software was frequently built just to leverage the hardware.  However, in
the third generation, users should demand that a vendor excel in each category
in which it chooses to participate.  Standards and market organization will
eliminate many of the technical benefits generated by vertical integration.

DEC is not committed to providing leadership desktop hardware or operating
systems for business end users.  Its PC distribution arrangements with Tandy
and Olivetti generate some revenue, but are primarily for the convenience of
buyers who desire one-stop shopping.  While certainly valuable in niches, DEC
has not, and will not, make sufficient engineering or marketing investments to
put VAXstations or RISC stations on OIS desks.

DEC's primary offering for desktop middleware is DECwindows, and we see no
chance of it being a serious threat to Presentation Manager or Microsoft
Windows.  DEC, therefore, has chosen to support these de facto standards and
will not push DECwindows to business end users on Intel or Macintosh desktops.
The race is not yet over in other desktop middleware. For example, DEC has an
opportunity to deliver a third-generation object-oriented user environment
such as IBM OfficeVision, NCR Cooperation or HP NewWave.  Although conducting
engineering research, we do not believe DEC is committed to producing a
similar competitive user environment in the near term.  This is a serious
mistake, and will preclude a visible DEC presence on most third-generation
desktops.

While DEC has produced some excellent applications, notably DECwrite and
DECpresent, this effort is isolated.  We do not look for DEC to be an
across-the-board applications provider.

For the needs of OIS, DEC's networking is without peer.

In the past, DEC has built several server-based applications.  That focus is
now diminishing as client/server topologies dominate.

Section: 2 Digital's Future OIS Development

DEC will concentrate heavily on server middleware (see Table 2) the essence of
Network Application Support (NAS).  Services like MAILbus are best-of-breed
DEC is increasing its investment in other areas of emerging server-based
middleware, notably naming, content-based retrieval, license management and
scheduling.  DEC's focus is deficient in object management and software
distribution to the desktop.

Server hardware and operating systems are DEC's bread and butter, and DEC
continues to invest heavily.  It is now difficult to compete with DEC for
midrange price/performance and quality.  Our concern is that increasing
standardization (Intel, RISC, Unix and OS/2) will make this a commodity market
with decreasing opportunity for differentiation and profit.

Section: 3 Table 1 - Middleware

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|      Table 1                                                       |
|                                                                    |
|    Middleware                                                      |
|                                                                    |
|    Maturing Middleware                                             |
|                                                                    |
|    Presentation services (windowing)                               |
|    Programming services (languages)                                |
|    Communications services (messaging)                             |
|    Data management (SQL databases)                                 |
|    Data interchange (CDA and DDE)                                  |
|                                                                    |
|    Emerging Middleware                                             |
|                                                                    |
|    Object Management                                               |
|    Scheduling                                                      |
|    Work flow                                                       |
|    Search/Content-Based Retrieval                                  |
|    Library services                                                |
|    User environment                                                |
|    Naming                                                          |
|    Security                                                        |
|    Time                                                            |
|    Intelligent Character Recognition                               |
|    License Management                                              |
|    Software Distribution                                           |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Section: 4 Greatest Assest is Sales and Service Organization

Perhaps DEC's greatest asset is its sales and service organization.
Increasingly, DEC is relying on distribution and services for differentiation
and profit.  In the next five years, we expect DEC to increase distribution of
hardware and, especially, software produced by others.  Also, there is little
doubt that DEC intends to be a major player in multivendor systems integration
and maintenance.  We expect DEC to succeed as well as any vendor, although it
will be at least 1993 before DEC is able to develop the necessary field
expertise to satisfy user demands.

Section: 5 Bottom Line

The bottom line is that users can continue to look to DEC to build the
infrastructure for connectivity and integration all the parts that appeal to
IS and that end users don't see.  DEC may also be the prime contractor for
solutions, but users should expect those solutions to contain mostly
third-party user environment and applications software and third-party desktop
hardware.

Section: 6 Strategic Planning Assumption

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    Strategic Planning Assumptions :                                |
|                                                                    |
|    DEC will not make sufficient engineering or marketing           |
|    investments to put VAXstations or RISC stations on OIS desks    |
|    (0.9 probability).                                              |
|                                                                    |
|    DEC is not committed to producing an object-oriented user       |
|    environment competitive with NewWave, Cooperation or            |
|    OfficeVision in the near term (0.7 probability).                |
|                                                                    |
|    DEC will not be a broad-based OIS applications developer        |
|    (0.8 probability).                                              |
|                                                                    |
|    DEC is increasing its investment in server-based emerging       |
|    middleware (0.9 probability).                                   |
|                                                                    |
|    DEC intends to be a major player in multi-vendor systems        |
|    integration and maintenance. It will succeed as well as         |
|    anyone, although it will be at least 1993 before DEC is able    |
|    to develop the necessary field expertise to satisfy user        |
|    demands (0.7 probability).                                      |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Section: 7 Table 2 - Glossary

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|      Glossary                                                      |
|                                                                    |
|    CDA      Compound Document Architecture                         |
|    DDE      Data Circuit Terminating Equipment                     |
|    IS       Information Systems                                    |
|    OIS      Office Information Systems                             |
|    OS/2     Operating System/2                                     |
|    RISC     Reduced Instruction Set Computer                       |
|    SQL      Structured Query Language                              |
|    VAX      Virtual Address Extension                              |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Distribution:


TO:
judy amar@DLB       DENNIS DICKERSON@DL STEVE DONOVAN@DLO   Tommy Gaut@HSO      
DONALD HEIDORN@DYO  Ed Hurry@DVO        yoshinori ishii@TKO phil james@DLB      
norio2 murakami@TKO Louis Pau@VBE       jim rather@HSO      Pat Roach@VBE       
Czarena Siebert@HSO Mike Sievers@HSO    Dale Stout@HSO      Susan Sugar@MWO     
Sherry Williams@HSO Mike Willis@HSO     Tom Wilson@HST      

    
    Thanks, Pat.
    
    BTW could you change the title to something a little more meaningful so
    we can find it again in a month's time ?
    
    ... or does it stand for "Yet Another Survey" ???
    
    :-) Pete.