Conference 7.286::digital

    Look in the phone book for the Public Relations Office

In the UK, look under "Press Office" or just dial the REO switchboard and
they'll connect you.

/Dave.

    Digital is involved in the America's Cup.    Please
    contact Gwyn Thakur, MRKTNG::THAKUR, dtn; 264-2201 on all
    issues in this area.
    
    She is the official source for what we are doing in this area.
    (Gwyn is working for Ralph Dormitzer, who is the digital sponsor
    for the America cup project)

    One would hope, given the condition of the company, that we are
    limiting our involvement to about 1 dollar.

Actually, I'm glad to see us involved.  Weren't we also involved last year
as well?  I seem to recal seeing a "documentary" on TV that talked about the
computer equipment they were using for navigation, which involved an on-board
uVAX, networked to a larger VAX on-shore.  That plus didn't they use
VAX's for doing a lot of the design work for the hull?

In the overall scheme of things, it doesn't seem to me like this type of
involvement is all that expensive, and has some good pay-backs.

--Scott

    Digital is involved with the America 3 effort, loaning on board PC's and
    MIT located computer resources for design and test efforts. If you attend
    DECworld, one of the earlier America 3 boats will be a major display item.

    If you have any questions from the press or customers they should be directed
    to the people mentioned in .3

    The overall cost to Digital is quite small, some donated equipment and
    manpower.

    The payback as an attention getting activity that breaks us out and shows
    what we can do is excellent. It fits very nicely the Open Advantage message.
    Real time data collection, PC's, UNIX and VMS machines working at locations spread
    all over the country, providing solutions to meet a very time critical schedule.

    /mike

    re .6
    
    ... and don't forget the pretty spinnaker <sp?> with the digital logo
    they've been using occasionaly.
    
    	peter

    According to DTW , DECs involvement is $500,000 in donated equipment
    plus access to a VAX9000.
    
    ed

    And as I have said before, we are doing ourselves a dis-service by
    sponsoring an entrant rather than an event. If the team loses, then we
    lose. Whereas if we provide the press room etc with the appropriate
    equipment, then we win no matter what. I wen't trough a similar
    excercise wrt motor sport, where a race team asked us for $300,000. We
    said no, and put about $10,000 into a lapscoring/timekeeping system.
    The car (now with a Wang logo) was shunted in the start, and retired
    without even completing a lap. We got the equivalent of $600,000 of TV
    coverage...
    
    q
    

    RE: .8
    
    >According to DTW , DECs involvement is $500,000 in donated equipment
    
    So?  I think that's only about 50K more than DEC donated to the
    Minuteman Library Network last year.
    

>   <<< Note 1853.9 by CREATV::QUODLING "Ken, Me, and a cast of extras..." >>>

>    And as I have said before, we are doing ourselves a dis-service by
>    sponsoring an entrant rather than an event. If the team loses, then we
>    lose. Whereas if we provide the press room etc with the appropriate

Sponsoring the US entrant to the America's cup is great if you want
to identify yourself as an American company helping an American
entrant.

The America's cup, however, is a world event with international entrants
and international coverage. Do we really still want to be seen as being
an American company or would we rather be seen as an international
company in the global marketplace? 

Digital recently got involved with the UK election. We got coverage in
the papers by providing support to the results service rather than
sponsoring one of the parties, even though it isn't much of a secret
that Digital makes large donations to one of them.

Craig

    RE: .11
    
>Digital recently got involved with the UK election. We got coverage in
>the papers by providing support to the results service rather than
>sponsoring one of the parties, even though it isn't much of a secret
>that Digital makes large donations to one of them.
    
    Digital contributes to political parties?
    

    Yes it is perfectly legal and above board.

    Jamie.

    OK, it is legal and above board.
    
    But is it the right thing to do.  I wonder if KO knows.

    
    In other words, is it schmoozing or relationship building ?
    
    :-)
	Ken

    You are surely not suggesting that our UK subsidiary contributing to a
    political party who just happened to win the election might conceivably
    influence which computers the British government might purchase over
    the next 5 years, are you?

    You know I once knew of a computer company, three initials first and
    last being the same, who did something like that and the other party
    got in. I laughed like a drain.

    Jamie.

>     <<< Note 1853.12 by COGITO::AHERN "We can vote REAL CHOICES for DCU!" >>>
> 
>     RE: .11
     
>     Digital contributes to political parties?

Of course we do, how else can we make sure that the laws go our way for
importing/exporting etc.  We call it lobbying over here in the states.  All big
businesses lobby to some extent or another. 

Cheers,

JK
 
              --==++    "CARPE DIEM - Sieze the Day!!"    ++==--                

    RE: .17  by MIMS::KENDRIX_J 
    
>>     <<< Note 1853.12 by COGITO::AHERN "We can vote REAL CHOICES for DCU!" >>>
>> 
>>     RE: .11
     
>>     Digital contributes to political parties?

>Of course we do, how else can we make sure that the laws go our way for
>importing/exporting etc.  We call it lobbying over here in the states.  All big
>businesses lobby to some extent or another. 

    I thought, in the U. S., it was illegal for corporations to contribute
    to political parties.  This is not to be confused with lobbying.  
    
    

    Re: .17
    
	>>     Digital contributes to political parties?

	> Of course we do, how else can we make sure that the laws
    	>> go our way for importing/exporting etc.  We call it lobbying
    	>> over here in the states.  All big businesses lobby to some
    	>> extent or another.
    
    I know what lobbying is.  The part I'm surprised about is the apparent
    claim that Digital contributes to political parties.  What evidence is
    there for this, beyond "All big businesses lobby ..."

	There are two main political parties in the UK, one gets the majority
	of its funding from the Unions, and the other from Business.

	I don't know if Digital contributed or not, if it didn't, it must
	be one of only a few big businesses that didn't.

	We have a big push in Digital in the UK  - call to action - to sell
	products and services, and to do anything to help our salespeople
	be out there selling.
	There was a large sigh of relief when the election result was known, as
 	a different result could have had a disasterous impact on sales.
	(so say all the business analysts, but not the unions).

	Back to the base note - it doesn't help when the corporation backs
	America to win, against us.......our customers don't like it.
	I believe that sposoring the results service would have been a much
	better choice, we have all the compettion out there, we shouldn't be 
	competing against ourseleves too!!!!!!

	Heather

    Why can't DEC UK donate time & equipment to their entry, Austrailia 
    contribute to theirs, Japan .......
    
    - John

    DEC can, and has in the past, supported multiple CUP
    efforts from different countries.  In Perth, DEC Australia
    donated substantial equipment to the Kookaburra syndicate.
    We also supported Stars and Stripes.
    
    It's precisely because this is an international event that 
    it doesn't matter who DEC supports, as long as there's some
    correlation between our technology and *winning* results. 

It should be pointed out that Dec Sweden not only contributed a computer
(LSI-11) to the Swedish America's Cup boat in 1976 (or was it 1977?), but
we did some of the design on an office PDP-8 and had on-site field service.

And, I do mean on-site: one of the Dec f/s guys was an Olympic-caliber
sailor: he did non-tactical navigation, tailed a winch, and ran the
computer.

I think this was the first use of a computer on-board an America's Cup
competitor.

Martin (who wrote some of the software).

    re: .23

    And we sponsored "The CARD". The Swedish entry in Whitbread Round the
    World Race 89/90. They used a modified M2000 in the boat. And I think
    they also had a V2000 (it wasn't in the boat) that was used for in-depth 
    analysises(sp?) of the boat's performance.

    The guy who was the on-site engineer on "Sverige" in 1977 were on
    "The CARD" as well. But he isn't a f/s engineer with Digital anymore.
    (so they had a spare M2000 with them :-)). I believe that he has been a 
    professional sailor ever since the 1977 America's Cup.

    /Kjell

     Ps. Mr Minow, I checked and "Sverige" was the Swedish America's Cup entry 
    	 in 1977 and 1980. Ds.