Conference 7.286::digital

    Technically, I think Digital purchased only certain rights and
    employees, not the company.  I don't think there is much difference
    in practice, but in theory Trilogy still exists, and is independent
    of Digital.
        John Sauter

    Look at note 306 in the marketing notes file for a detailed discussion
    of the acquisition of some of Trilogy/Elxsi's technology.
    
     

    I beleive that DEC bought the company that owned the Maynard
    Mill. The Mill was that companies only asset.
    
    		Alfred

    I heard that DEC bought the venture capital company that originally
    funded it.  The two employees of that company are, I think, still
    on DEC's board of directors.
        John Sauter

        re .3
        
        What I had heard was that KO bought the mill then donated to
        the Historical Building society in return for the perpetual
        lease. (or something along those lines.)
        
        q
        

   re: 4
    
    American Research and Development invested in the corporation started
    by the _three_ co-founders of Digital Equipment Corporation.  That
    $70,000 turned into $300,000,000 which ARD took as a profit in the
    70's.  It was not a loan but equity (ie a claim on profits, if any).
    
    American Research and Development never picked another winner after
    Digital. No other venture capital investment has ever paid off at 5000
    to 1 since, either. 
    
    ARD itself was bought out by a company it started, Textron.  Textron
    is a conglomerate and is listed on the NYSE.
    
    Even if you didn't know these facts you could have learned them last
    week on Adam Smith's Money World on PBS.

    I regret having missed Adam Smith's Money World.  However, General
    Dorriot, at a DECUS sympoisum, claimed that Digital had gotten so
    big compared to ARD that Digital swallowed its parent.  Perhaps
    I misunderstood.  At that time Dorriot was still on DEC's board
    of directors.  (I don't know if he still is or not.)
        John Sauter

    Let's hear it for Pat Sweeney! 
                                         
    Pat, in note after note, file after file, you are always the one
    to come up with a definitive answer. You are indeed, a font of
    knowledge, and I, for one, appreciate your contributions.
    
    -bs

    RE: AR&D (Pat's note)
    
    More recently, AR&D's management bought out AR&D from Textron and,
    last fall, in Cambridge, had a coming out party! AR&D management
    felt they could not effectively operate under Textron, as they had
    tried for a dozen years.
    
    BTW, AR&D has had many successes where success is defined as providing
    a significant return to its various investors. It is true, however,
    that they have never had another winner like Digital. That, in part,
    is because there is only one Digital :-)
    
    Doriot, to the best of my knowledge, is still ACTIVE as a member
    of Digital's board, as well as in the French Library in Boston,
    his other main activity these days.
    
    Finally, I know of many occasions where we have bought out rights
    or assets of other companies, in whole or part, but we have not,
    to the best of my knowledge, ever acquired any operating companies.
    Too often, the press confuses acquiring rights or assets with acquiring
    companies. There's a fundamental difference.

	To back up what was just said in .9, I DO know that DEC bought
the Tempe facility, lock, stock and personnel from ITT.  The Albuquerque
facility was a former Singer facility, which was amusing for visitors,
as the cafeteria trays still had the Singer logo on them for awhile.

	I don't know of any others.  My association with some of the
Tempe people who were acquired by DEC was enjoyable and they said they
liked working for DEC.  But that was BEFORE DEC closed Tempe down.

	I don't know if any of them are still with the company.

    Also Parker Street and the first set of buildings in Marlboro, which
    were acquired from RCA when they went out of the computer business
    in the late '60s.

    It was my understanding, when I lived up North many moons ago, that the
    Marlboro facility was built (and owned) by the Town of Marlboro. After
    RCA 'departed' they (the town) offered the facility to DEC and we
    waited till the 'price was right'.
    
    I do remember the Parker Street facility when it was someone else's,
    was it Smith Corona Marchant or someone like that??
    
    	-Barry-
     

                The PKO1 building was built by Atkins and Merrill. They
        had a big bussiness in displays for trade shows, but what they
        did in Maynard was primarily Training Simulators for the
        Airlines. I worked for them one summer in about '69-'70. I guess
        the bussiness didn't go all that well, and that section folded.
                
                /s/     Bob

    Triology was originally a joint venture between Amdhal, DIGITAL,
    Sperry and Control Data. The aquisition is basically the buying
    out of the rights for the original designs from the partnership.
    The fallout from the DEC-Triology venture sent many of the engineers
    to DEC West Coast Systems, Mountain View, CA. There is still a few
    of those folks left around mountain view.

    Trilogy was not originally a joint venture!
    
    It was Amdahl's baby from the start in 1980.  They started with a quarter
    billion dollars of investors money.  They blew it.
    
    Along the way down Sperry and DEC were picked up as investors and
    _potential_ customers and/or licensees.  All the way down... 
    
    see FORTUNE p66 "Gene Amdahl Fights to Salvage a Wreck" Sept 1,
    1986

[...]
I n t e r o f f i c e    M e m o r a n d u m

To: HPS STAFF:                          Memo: 5320853589RAN59
    JFS STAFF:                          Date: Tue  2 Sep 1986 12:31 PM EDT
    OFFICERS:                           From: BOB GLORIOSO
                                        Dept: HI PERFORM CLUSTER GRP
                                        Tel:  297-5915
                                        Adr:  MRO1-1/A65*
Subject: Acquition of Trilogy Technology

On Saturday August 16, 1986, we signed final papers with Trilogy 
Corporation which allowed us to hire Trilogy Technology Group, they 
are now Digital Employees. This new organization is located in
Cupertino, California and will be named Advanced Technology
Engineering and Manufacturing focused on Semiconductors, Interconnect
and Packaging Technology.

The technology which this acquisition gives us has broad application
across our products from terminals, PC's and Workstations thru Storage
Systems to Mid-Range and High-End CPU's.  The principle focus of
their work for the next year will be [...] semiconductors and
interconnect.

I am pleased to announce that Paul McEnroe, the ex President of Trilogy
Technology Corporation, will be reporting to me as the manager of this 
organization.  Given the broad application of this technology across 
our products, Paul and I will be working with Bill Hanson and the
Manufacturing organization to determine how Paul and his people can
effectively couple with manufacturing.  Paul brings to this job 24 years 
of engineering and technical management responsibility at IBM and
3 years as President of TTG.  During his time with IBM he headed up
the Raleigh Research Lab of 2400 employees and was the product
manager in delivering IBM's successful Point of Sale Terminal from R&D 
to the market.

Please join me in welcoming this important new organization to DEC.

    Talking about acquisitions, anyone know anything about the DEC piece
    of Systime (a UK OEM), which I hear we bought?
    

    I think you will find that the following happened:-
    
    Systime no longer would support the 'D' (DEC) side of their business
    which meant 'n' number of support contracts where up for grabs.
    DEC had to bid and convince those customers that it was in their
    best interest to have support from DEC in the future. (Any other
    field service company could bid for the contracts also).
    
    Rumour has it that 60% of Systimes 'D' series base has now contracts
    with DEC. Therefore Systime had a number of redundant staff and
    DEC offered a number of them jobs.
    
    We have not bought any part of the Systime company, but we have
    'bought' a number of field service contracts, hired a number of
    ex-Systime staff and also importantly, bought a lot of goodwill
    for free.
    
    ps Anybody want to buy some carpet. Theres 3 miles of it in Milshaw
    Park. Unfortunately its got SYSTIME woven into diagonaly every few
    feet.
    
    David.