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Conference 7.286::digital

Title:The Digital way of working
Moderator:QUARK::LIONELON
Created:Fri Feb 14 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5321
Total number of notes:139771

829.0. "Product retirements: pre-announcement announcements?" by SLDA5::DUNAISKY (Freedom isn't free.) Sun Jun 04 1989 20:13

    this recently went out over USENET...  questions:  how long after the
    VAR's are told are all other customers told?  doesn't allowing rumor's
    like this to spread, i.e. with no official press release, leave us open
    to bad publicity/reputation (e.g. incorrect rumors/assumptions)? 
    
    just wondering, 
    Jonathan
    
    [if this doesn't belong in this conference - just let me know.]
    ---------------------------------------------------
    From: "dave_stokes.SD"@XEROX.COM
    Subject: Re: VAXstation 2000 going away
    Sender: [email protected]
    Organization: The Internet
     
    DEC is passing the word to various VARs that the MicroVAX II, VAXsation
    2000, and the low end MicroVax III's (3200, etc.) are going to going
    'bye bye' by the end of the summer.  DEC will still support these
    systems but they will join DECSystems-10s and DECsystem-20s, PDP-6s,
    PDP-8s, VAX-11/725, 730s, and 782s in the Ol' Hardware category.
     
    Dave Stokes
    Xerox Electronic Publishing
    San Diego
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
829.1I vote no!DNEAST::STARIE_DICKI'd rather be skiingMon Jun 05 1989 08:0817
    I don't think it belongs in this conference or in any public conference
    
    I have seen both product announcements and retirements that were
    apparently leaked to customers, and in both cases a negative impact
    on sales was the apparent result.
    
    I personaly heard a DEC salesman tell a customer "wait for the Microvax
    II that is going to come out next qtr"  This well meaning tidbit
    helped kill  microvax I prematurely. (this was reported thru channels
    at the time)
    
    Discussions like this have little gain and great risk.
    
    (One guys opinion)
    
    dick
829.2CVG::THOMPSONProtect the guilty, punish the innocentMon Jun 05 1989 09:127
	Answering the question "are MV IIs going away" is not appropriate
	for this conference but I don't think that that is being asked my
	the author of .0. How we handle rumors like this may be but this
	spicific one might be better handled in the marketing conference
	at ASIMOV::MARKETING (KP7 etc).

				Alfred
829.3When is a rumor not a rumor? When it's announced!HOCUS::KOZAKIEWICZShoes for industryMon Jun 05 1989 09:1610
    I don't know about the uVAX II or the 3200, but the VS2000 phase-down
    was announced in the April 17 Sales Update, which means customers
    should know.
    
    o Last order date 				June 30, 1989
    o Part numbers moved to maintenance-only	July 5, 1989
    
    Al
829.5what i meant...SLDA5::DUNAISKYFreedom isn't free.Mon Jun 05 1989 23:0536
    let me quickly clarify my question:
    
    re: .1
    
    .0 was taken from a public (i.e. *not* Digital internal) bulletin board
    - it has already been seen by many, many customers, competitors, etc. 
    (whether or not that still makes it o.k. to put the "rumor" here is up for
    discussion - but not here - and left to the moderators judgement).
    
    re: .2
    
    a related question (but not the original [see below]): how do we handle
    rumors like these?
    
    re: .3
    
    ahah... the 2000 phasedown was internally published (and the knowledge
    is available to customer's that ask, i guess?)... 
    
    re: .4
    
    that's the truth as you and i know it, but my question really was meant
    to ask:  don't the customer's just hear "MicroVAX 2000's are obselete!"
    - and probably from uncomplementary sources - if all we do is announce
    it to a limited group of people first?  and on top of that negative
    publicity, the message could get slightly changed (ever hear of the
    telephone game?) if it wasn't clearly released, and even more negative
    publicity could result...  am i just being a pessimist?  fill me in on
    what really happens!...
    
    
    moderator - write lock this if you agree it should go in the MARKETING
    notesfile.
    
    thanks for the replies,
    Jonathan