Conference 7.286::digital

    So, does anybody take this particular analyst seriously, or is it just
    titilating reading?  The comment about the Porsche sounds like
    something you'd read in a supermarket tabloid.

    re.1
    
      .....or the Boston Globe.......
    
     ;-)
    
    

    This is a very one sided view of things, and a couple of viewpoints are
    missing:-
    - What about Alpha and OSF
    - Why should Alpha only be sold to our insatlled base?
    - Windows/NT: MS plans 80% on Intel, 20% on 'Others'; if we could get
      half of that, low-end Alpha's may help here!
    
    If this guy if influential then someone from DEC should talk to him,
    
    Rene

    .3:
    
    Good luck explaining it to him -- the guy's a stock broker, not an
    engineer.
    
    Dick

Until DEC has a believable software strategy, I'm actually inclined to
*agree* with a lot of .0.  A lot of DEC's success in the 1980s was NOT
hardware - it was a concentration of software "critical mass" that made
the hardware desirable (which is why people were willing to put up with
the equivalent of "10 MHz 386s").  Over the last 7 years, DEC has not
had a focused software strategy.  The industry has moved to an ever-larger
software orientation and indirect sales - DEC has been moving exactly
the opposite direction on both points, putting pressure on margins and
resulting higher overhead/costs of sales at the same time.  Instead of
consolidating on a single software system, as most of the successful
(certainly growing) companies in the industry have done, DEC went from
one software system (VMS) to two (VMS + Ultrix), now to 3 (VMS + OSF + NT).
Hardly a "coherent" message that customers are going to believe in.

Look at the comments on "who does DEC threaten" - they're on the mark.
Why is going to buy from DEC rather than someone else?  Applications?
(which was one of the reasons for the success of VAX/VMS)  We're asking
ISV to port to a range of different systems which have fundamentally
different UIs (Motif vs. Windows), and none of which is leadership
(consider leadership a function of base platform desirability +
applications + system cost).

From a software standpoint for Alpha we have:

    - VMS.  Not a "leadership" operating system any more.  Tends to be used
      in more commercial roles these days, and many commercial roles don't
      require the CPU power boost going from CISC to RISC, but do require
      extreme stability, which isn't necessarily in line with switching
      to a new hardware architecture

    - OSF.  While it may be a leadership U*x system over time, it isn't
      System V, and it doesn't have the applications that Sun (for example)
      does.  There is also the history of U*x at DEC to contend with.

    - NT.  With the probable performance levels and cost of the P5, why
      would you want to buy a more-expensive Alpha with a hardware
      architecture different from the mainstream unless it provided
      significant advantages?  (Note that Apple has been lowering it's
      prices as the software on PCs catches up.  Apple is getting sequeeze
      in spite of innovation - what does that mean for a company that is
      not providing significant innovation?)

>    This is a very one sided view of things, and a couple of viewpoints are
>    missing:-
>    - What about Alpha and OSF

	I have been hearing and reading that OSF is on shaky ground.
	System V seems to have won the day in Unix-land, what with
	BSD closing up shop, Sun moving to System V, and DEC
	shutting down Ultrix.  Maybe the analyst heard something like
	this, too.

>    - Why should Alpha only be sold to our insatlled base?

	I don't believe he said it was only going to be sold there,
	only that this is mostly the customer base DEC can count on
	to buy the things.

>    - Windows/NT: MS plans 80% on Intel, 20% on 'Others'; if we could get
      half of that, low-end Alpha's may help here!

	I think we could count on Mips, Sun, etc., to take care of
	the largest part of the non-Intel Windows NT installations.


   Alpha AXP is going to be a niche product, great for our installed
   base, but it is NOT going to be the 80386 of the 1990s, regardless
   of the horn-blowing and flag-waving we do inside DEC.

    
    Morgan Stanley uses Sun workstations and IBM mainframes.
    
    I am in the process of installing a VAX 4000 at Morgan Stanley
    because they couldn't get a particular application to run
    fast enough on their Sun servers.
    
    I find that very funny.
    
    Maybe I should start to give investment advice.
    
    ed
    
    

I think the guy in .0 is (today) right on the money. Last fiscal, we shipped
80% more CPU power into the world than we did the year before - at 7% less
systems NOR.

We're about to unleash Alpha into the world where the highest internal call
seems to be to ship as higher hw volume as possible. It's not clear to me
that we've done a good strategic plan on what we're about to ship to
customers.

Having now read the book on Silverlake, and seeing some of the internal
anecdotal iterations on pricing strategy, some nights I worry...

								- Ian W.

Why doesn't the management of this company assume that the opinions in .0 
and that article by Robert Ziff are 100% "right-on"? Then the next step is 
to develop a battle plan to counter those predictions. Here's the dream I 
would have...Palmer comes in to his staff and slaps these articles down and 
has everyone right a 200-word essay as to their plan to counter this. All 
essays will be "graded" within 1 hour. Correct answers you keep your job 
and incorrect means you collect your marbles and go home.

Incorrect answers are: Saying that these guys are "quacks" and ignore them. 
Keep saying Alpha and click your heels three times. Use lots of double-talk 
to prove to everyone what they are saying is wrong. Hire them as 
consultants and pay them enough to start saying nice things instead.

Now the Correct answer is: Develop a business that counters this by 
building good products with lots of hard work. (I don't know the details of 
this plan since I'm not a VP being paid the big bucks to come up with these 
answers). 

The point of this note is not to discount these attacks. I happen to 
believe its 80% true. But does it matter if it's 100, 80 or 50% true? What 
ever percent, it's enough to drive a business out of business. Or some 
serious downsizing.

Regards,
Bob.

BP only needs ask two questions:

1)	How much $$$ will do we plan to make on Alpha based servers, WS and
	PC boxes in the	next 3 years?
2)	Show me the plan that articulates how you're going to achieve this
	in line with your target customer segments?

If Palmer had been in IBM Rochester in '87/'88 and asked the same questions
of them, he'd have a market segmentation and customer needs based strategic
plan on his desk within the hour... of the AS/400!
								- Ian W.

    Comments in .9 are "right on". We can ignore the critics and pretend
    that with Alpha we have secured the future, or recognize reality and
    act immediately.Here are some of the issues I am struggling with:
    1. Where are the market strategies?
    2. Where are the business plans?
    3. Who's committed to the plans?
    4. What deliverables can we expect from the project team?
    When I try to get some clear answers to these questions, I get the
    impression that there is a lot of inconsistent "data" floating around
    but there is no "direction"!
    
    Wake up,  Digital! If you expect Alpha to revolutionize the industry,
    then it must first start from within.
    Dhanu

    
    I'm basically R/O here, but feel compelled to "ditto" the comments of .9
    and I tend to also agree with a lot of .0
    
    As Spike Lee starts all of his movies..."WAKE UP!!!"
    
    "jackin' the house", Bob
    

    Steve Milunovich is not a "stock broker".  He is the best analyst of
    the computer industry analyst on Wall Street.
    
    He is paid by his clients to give them information that will assist
    them in making rational choices among the companies in the computer
    industry.  He's been accurate in the past.
    
    It reflects my own view the Alpha will not save DEC on its own.
    Digital needs a reality check on the state of computing in the world.
    
    I only hope that Alpha which is mentioned in this year's President's
    Letter doesn't meet the same fate of the products of last year's
    President's Letter as triumphs: ACE and the VAX 9000.
                                                                         

    I too think .0 makes a lot of sense. Wouldn't it be nice to see some
    decisions made in the style of that suggested a few back (200 word
    essays etc).
    
    I wish somebody would apply that crisp style to the supply siders
    (sorry I meany supply chainers). All I see is 300 line messages that
    are 70% fluff words, 20% things we think we should do and 10% good
    stuff. Cut the 90% crap. I no longer read them. Get them on my tube
    read the first few lines say to myself they still don't understand
    how to communicate and hit delete.
    
    By the way there is some hope. I know for a fact (Mike Thurk VP of NAC
    said so) that Bob Palmer went to all the key VPs and asked for ONE PAGE
    (yes 1 page) describing what their functions did, what their goals were
    etc. These were/are all being considered in woods meetings. Apparently
    Bob has a stack of these one pagers. I hope the NOOP organzations get
    blown apart and their leaders fired.
    
    Also more on this topic I think David Stone yunderstands that Alpha
    hardware won't save this company. He gave some very interesting figures
    at a talk in Taylor Street.
    
    	1, For Alpha chips to be profitable (ie pay back all the FAB6
           investment etc Digital will have to sell 7 million chips CPU
    	   chips per year between 1996 and 1998. Today we sell well less
    	   than 1 million.
    
    	2, He explained the commoditiztion of system platforms. Said the
    	   average price for the VMS operating system was $10,000, for
    	   UNIX $2,500 for a workstation $1,000, for a PC next to nothing.
    	   The implication was that there was no longer money to be had
    	   from the OS business.
    
    	3, The rest of his talk implied strongly how if we didn't get into SI
    	   and the information utility businesses fast we could shut up
           shop.
    
    Dave

    O.K.  I'll bite, what's a NOOP organization (I'm sure if I had a brain
    I could figure this out, but I don't).
    
    By the way, I agree with the last few (since about .9) comments.  I've
    seen a lot of mis-direction and just plain heel-draggin for the Alpha
    AXP announcement.  This company needs a real plan, a real strategy, real
    leadership, and real fast.  When I first read the analysis of the base
    note a few days ago, I agreed with a good 90% of it, and I just wasn't sure
    about the rest of it.  If we listen to this analyst and others very
    carefully, it's evident that there is not only danger in the current
    state of the computer industry, but opportunity as well.
    
      

    "Just say NOOP"?
    
    Nope...
    

	This strikes me as one of the most valuable topics I have seen
	in Notes for a while. Aren't we discussing the need for
	this company to have a mission, a strategic plan, and ways of
	carrying out the plan and measuring its success, based on simple
	marketing elements such as:

		- Understanding the market segments we're in
		- Understanding the state of the art and the competition
		- Understanding our customers and non-customers
		- Finding niches in the market that we could profitably fill
		- Planning products and services to do so
		- Measuring and tracking what we do, and
		- Having an overview of our business at all times

	Instead of, as usual, dedicating ourselves to ever better hardware
	and everything to go with it, much as if we were running the Apollo
	program? It may be great, folks, but how do we know who will want
	to buy it?

	Alpha is good, not in itself, but because it will remove many of the
	"dissatisfiers" that prevent people doing business with us today.

	For another excellent critique of self-satisfaction over Alpha, look
	at note 831 in VAXWRK::ALPHANOTES.

	re .16:

>                           -< NOOP := No-Operation >-

	A computer instruction, e.g. in VAX architecture, which consumes
	processor cycles but accomplishes no significant output. Used to
	generate delays, and as a "background" idling state when the
	computer is not called upon to do any useful work.

	The analogy with organisations and teams that consume lots of
	cycles, power and time and dissipate energy, but produce no
	significant results, is striking. "Don't tell me about the
	labour pains, show me the baby".

	/Tom

    
    
    
    
    	My take on Alpha?... Put it in a desktop. Make sure it is price
    	competitive with Intels P5 or 586 chip or whatever they are calling
    	it these days... If the performance is significantly different from
    	the P5 at a competitive price, we will sell lots of machines. It
    	would help though if we could get a couple of other desktop
        manufacturers to buy in to Alpha. I think once we reach a certain
    	penetration point in market share, growth won't be linear anymore.
    	More like exponential... Just my oppinion on the lower end
        market... 
    
    	Cary...
    
    
    

    re .18
    
    To a certain extent that's what ACE was trying to do.  However, there's
    more to the hardware than the CPU.  Sure, WNT will run on Alpha, but
    it's not just the superfast chip that is the difference between that
    system and a 486/586 running WNT.  Our disk subsystems and buses and so
    on are far superior to those in a PC chassis, so pricing a complete
    Alpha/WNY box down to that of a 486/WNT box is not necesarily the best
    thing to do.

>    	My take on Alpha?... Put it in a desktop. Make sure it is price
>    	competitive with Intels P5 or 586 chip or whatever they are calling
>    	it these days... If the performance is significantly different from
>    	the P5 at a competitive price, we will sell lots of machines. It

	And so on.....  Again ( and again, and again ), what reason
	does anyone have to buy yet another proprietary processor
	from DEC ?   In 1992 ?

	THIS is the battle we are fighting.  Look at how our customers
	and OEMs have been treated for the last 10-12 years with
	VAX, Pro 350, Rainbow, et al, and then figure out how you're
	gonna change that with a silicon chip.

	This chip does not do the laundry, revolutionize agriculture,
	prevent tooth decay or eliminate wasteful government.  It's	
	a fast CPU.  

	A sharper pickax might be marveled at in the hardware store,
	but if it's shaped wrong for the hands, too heavy, 5 to 10
	times more expensive than the usual model, and requires a return
	to the factory quarterly for sharpening, NOBODY'S GOING TO BUY IT !

	Steve H 

	Will people be able to take a shrinkwrapped software package
	for an Intel WNT platform, stick it into their desktop Alpha AXP (TM)
	and be ready to work? If not, will someone explain to me what the
	difference will be between the desktop Alpha AXP (TM) and a
	Rainbow (TM)?

				Tom_K

    re .21
    
    WNT is a complete operating system, and program APIs are the same. 
    Therefore all WNT programs will run on both platforms (with the
    possible exception of things like device drivers).

         There's a big difference between Alpha AXP and Rainbow. For one
    thing there're over 500 companies that have signed licensing agreements 
    utilize the Alpha platform.
         I suppose the only thing in the last couple of notes that I can
    echo is that we focus on something that'll be competitive in the PC
    market.
    
              bob

    I haven't done all my "homework" on this yet, but I can't resist
    essaying this possible answer.  My understanding is that .22 is correct
    but doesn't address the need for the SW vendor to recompile code.  Thus
    there will(?) need to be more than one version of the shrinkwrap for a
    given application.  My further (vaguer) understanding is that we are
    actively courting -- and supporting -- ISVs to produce those
    shrinkwrapped versions targeted for WNT running on Alpha AXP.  My even
    VAGUER understanding is that OSF's ANDF (Architecture Neutral
    Distribution Format) technology could obviate the need for different
    shrinkwrap versions, but only if (a) it becomes a standard target for
    ISV's to develop to, and (b) if an "ANDF Producer" is written for
    WNT-Alpha AXP.  I don't know our corporate position vis-a-vis ANDF.
    
    I'd be grateful for any additions, corrections, and pointers to the
    real info.  I believe that this question of shrinkwrapped SW is crucial
    to the future of Alpha, and by extension to DEC.

    re .24
    
>    but doesn't address the need for the SW vendor to recompile code.  Thus
>    there will(?) need to be more than one version of the shrinkwrap for a
    
    See?  It'll be just like Unix!  Are we happy now?

	I seem to recall that we had tons of vendors signed up to
	do software for the Pro, and we know what happened there...

	Yes, my point was that of object code compatibility - why
	would an ISV go through the trouble of coming up with a 
	separate shrinkwrap package, just for Alpha AXP (TM)? Even
	if it is just a matter of recompiling, why should the ISV
	(and retail outlets) stock another part, for what will
	initially be a machine with low market penetrations,and if
	you believe the maker of WNT, will never account for more
	than 20% of the installed base?

						Tom_K

    
    I am glad to finally see some of my Digital colleagues really under-
    standing the implications of Alpha (or lack thereof).
    
    At times Digital is the best marketing company in the industry.  The 
    problem is that is true only when we are marketing something within
    Digital.
    
    The internal Alpha marketing campaign has been incredible.  It has
    people believing it will solve not only all of Digital's problems, but
    every problem known to man.
    
    This note is finally realistically addressing some of the issues that
    will be reality in a few months.  Here are some of those realities:
    
    	Intel/NT applications WILL NOT be binary compatible with Alpha/NT!!
        Shrink wrapped Intel/NT apps. will not run natively on Alpha. Yet
    	we will spend well over 100 million dollars to make Alpha the NT 
        box of choice at the desktop.  This does remind me of the Rainbow
        strategy.
    
        We will continue to lose ground in the UNIX and Open Systems space.
        Our customers will not wait until next summer to get an Alpha
        running  OSF/1.  Oh and by the way, only a fraction of our 3000
        Ultrix applications will be there at that time (where are the 
        "solutions"?).  Also, we will be lacking a low cost (under 10K)
        desktop/deskside machine.  These are some of the reasons that HP
        is, and will continue to have a field day in my accounts for the
        forseeable future.
    
        Alpha's performance will allow us to catch up in the "performance
        race".  In some areas we will have a performance advantage,  but 
        for the most part Alpha will be comparable to HP and IBM's RISC
        offerings. (Sure Alpha is 64 bit and the others aren't, but the 
        benefits of this won't be meaningful for a number of years.)
    
        Alpha will help us hold on to our VAX/VMS base - period.  It may also
        allow us to win more VMS business. But beyond that Alpha will not 
        have much of an impact on the industry.
    
    These are the realities we are going to be facing with our customers.
    The base note is "right on", and all the responses since .9 reflect 
    that.  Hopefully someone out east will be able to use this information
    to formulate a plan based on facts, as opposed to internal rhetoric.
    
    
       

Rereferencing .24 -- Is ANDF (or equivalent) a way out of part of this problem?
    
Who knows the answer to this, or where might the knowledge be found in DEC?
    
Dan

    re .26
    
>	you believe the maker of WNT, will never account for more
>	than 20% of the installed base?
    
    Yes, but that's 20% of a *large* installed base.

RE: .22:

    WNT is a complete operating system, and program APIs are the same. 
    Therefore all WNT programs will run on both platforms (with the
    possible exception of things like device drivers).

.21 said 'a shrinkwrapped software package for an Intel WNT platform'.
Since nothing in that category exists yet, since WNT doesn't exist yet in
released form, I would say 'a shrinkwrapped software package for an MS Windows
application' is more like it.

Granted, WNT has portable APIs.  But the stuff on the shelves out there is for
Intel-based systems, with executables containing Intel machine instructions.  
It won't run on an Alpha unless you can emulate an Intel machine.

We shouldn't be looking for the world to port everything to our platform;  we
should be trying to get the existing shrink-wrapped software to work on our 
platform.

There is no way that Digital can get the majority of the existing Windows 
vendors to port all their software products to Alpha-WNT-specific versions in 
shrinkwrapped form by first release of the Alpha-WNT platform.  It's 
questionable if they could *ever* do that.  Sure, they can probably get the 
Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Excel, class of vendors to produce Alpha-specific versions
of their products, but what's the incentive for stores that already stock MS
Windows software to also carry Alpha-based versions? 

IMHO, if the vast majority of the existing shrinkwrapped MS Windows applications
that are already on the shelves out there don't work on the Alpha-PC running
WNT at first ship, we are very likely to fail.

The implication of this is that there has to be first-class emulation of an
Intel-based MS Windows environment on the Alpha-WNT package, or why should 
people be expected to buy Alpha as opposed to Intel-based packages?.
Unless, of course, we're not interested in the large volume market...

RE: .23:

         There's a big difference between Alpha AXP and Rainbow. For one
    thing there're over 500 companies that have signed licensing agreements 
    utilize the Alpha platform.
         I suppose the only thing in the last couple of notes that I can
    echo is that we focus on something that'll be competitive in the PC
    market.
    
Compare the 500 with the number of companies that produce products for MS
Windows and PCs. How many of that 500 are hardware vendors that will use the
Alpha chip in their hardware boxes?  How many are software vendors ?  How many
of the software vendors expect to place large numbers of Alpha-WNT-specific 
software products on the shelves beside the Intel-based software packages?
How do you get the volume that is the only way you can compete in this market?

There is one similarity between Alpha AXP(NT) and the Rainbow:  If customers will
be expected to get their software from the hardware vendor (be it Digital, or
Olivetti, or whoever puts the Alpha chip in their box), then there well could
be a repeat of history.  I fervently hope not...

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I sure hope that someone in
Alpha land is worrying about them a lot...

Bryan

    re .30
    
>It won't run on an Alpha unless you can emulate an Intel machine.
    
    Or unless you convert the binary with an Intel -> Alpha binary
    translator.
    
    Anyway, why not check out DECWET::WINDOWS-NT for questions like this?

Windows 3.1 apps will run directly, though interpreted, on Alpha/NT. 
See the interview with David Stone in this months DECProfessional. 
Here is an extract

Porting To NT
-------------

DECPRO: As you port to NT, you'll be bringing along Excel, Word, Quattro, and
so on?

Stone: Zillions. Every single Windows 3.1 application will run on NT on Alpha.

DECPRO: But it will have to be reboxed and resold, because it has to be native
Alpha.

Stone: No.

DECPRO: You want it under just a straight emulation?

Stone: The first stage is that it's all there. Now the question is, Which ones
do you want to make run native so that they go fast? The answer is Excel -
Excel leaps at you as the first of those that should be there. Why? Because
what do people do with Excel? They compute. So speed is of interest. Size of
address space is of interest.

The glory of the way we are doing that is that you've got this C front end. So
if you put it in C, it comes out the other end in Mips or Alpha or Intel. The
developer only has to do the work of having it work correctly with 32 bits once
and then just recompile it. So everything that Microsoft wants to put on Mips
we can put on Alpha "free." All we have to do is have a back end, which we do.

--------

Check out the whole article. It is posted in the ZK library and presumably 
available in other libraries.

    .13:
    
    Ah, so that's why the underlying tenor of the article isn't so much
    "Problems with management/direction/future products at DEC" as it is
    "Problems with buying DEC stock, and suggested alternatives".
    
    Dick

Rome wasn't built in a day, and markets won't be won in a year.  It isn't
necessary that we have Excel for Alpha NT on the shelf in Babbages or CompUSA 
in the next 12 months.  There are paths that will get us there successfully
over time.

The initial buyers of NT will be people interested in higher reliability 
desktops, servers for PC based LANs, and so on -- the sorts of business that
have dozens or hundreds or thousands of PC's already installed.  They don't buy
from Babbages.  They'll be quite happy buying from 1-800-PCBYDEC, provided
we give them the same quality of service, support, turnaround time, and
price as PC Connection (we're not there yet, but we know we need to get there).

They'll be even happier if we can sell them an Alpha NT server, with DOS, Intel
NT, and Alpha NT products already installed and ready for use over their
existing network for however many licenses they have.  If we can win in
this particular channel, then we can grow into the other channels.  Or maybe
by then all software will be distributed over phonelines by calling 
1-900-BORLAND, and CompUSA will be stuck selling hardware.

   Gary

re: .34

>    How much market we'll give up on VMS and Unix because of Alpha/NT?

That's an easy one.  Zero.  We will give up negligible market on VMS and ULTRIX 
because of Alpha/NT.  Anyone who buys Alpha/NT would have bought Intel/NT anyway,
so they're already lost.  

  Gary

RE .35

Markets aren't built in a day? We are talking about catching up with five 
year + market development by Intel. This is like running for a speeding 
train with lead boots on. The more I read this particular topic, the more 
depressed I get. Intel even does TV ads!

Before you make any strategy you must think like it's an idea being 
presented to those lovely VCs. All of the attention is focused on creating 
retail version of Alpha/NT for Sam's Club. Sorry, if I were an investor I 
would tell you to look for a new idea. Unless I've got lots of $$$ to burn 
on purpose.

Whose the customer? What are their buying habits? Where do you sell the 
product? What makes you diffirent? Come on! There must be some Alpha 
supporters out there that have done this basic homework!

    
    
      Anybody ever hear Morgan Stanley's view of Digital w/o ALPHA and WNT?
    
      .... now there's a Halloween story for you!
    
    				
    
    
    							-BOO (M)-

    Just an "aside"...FWIW
    
    We will be "announcing" the ALPHA-AXP products very soon, but what are
    we going to show that is actually going to get press/analysts/customers
    excited?
    
    My point is that so far, it looks like we are once again recreating the
    same marketing mistakes we have made in the past around so many other 
    products.  This fear is based on the following:
    
    	ALPHA products were shown at DECworld '92.  Flamingos, Cobras, Ruby
    	etc.
    
    	Flamingos and Sandpipers have been show at a number of trade shows
    	and marketing events during the last six months.
    
    	On the day of the announcement, we will still NOT be able to ship
    	product to customers.
    
    Bottom line:  What's changed?  I hope that there will be some real
    "meat" in this "announcement", but my fear is that the press/analyst
    community is going to yawn, and say "So what?"  If this happens, it 
    will be one more slap in what is becoming a very red face...
    
    Jim

What's changed?  Are we not going to announce order numbers and prices?  We may
even announce performance figures.  A customer will be able to order an Alpha
AXP machine, and *that* hasn't been done before.

Paul

    We're running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to
    insure that customers will be able to buy Alpha AXP systems in
    November.
    
    -Ken

             ... see, e.g., NODEMO::MARKETING note 1884.* ...
    
    Customers may like fast iron but there's little incentive to buy unless
    the solution they want to run is available on that iron.  An obvious
    point, and there are many possible answers to it.  It may be (imho the
    jury's still out) that 1884.* deals with one such answer.  Perhaps a
    crucial one, in the moderate term, to the future of Alpha-AXP.
    
    Dan
                                                                  

In my opinion the Morgan Stanley view is both biased & unprofessional.

The only correct theme in the both the base note and the replies that followed 
is the threat of intel based systems on the non-intel computer market, turning
the industry into a commodity one with intel & microsoft being the new giants. 
This threat is not specific to Digital : IBM,HP,Sun,Apple..+ even current PC 
giants like Compaq,Dell..etc will not fit into this picture. Rival computer 
architectures will battle in the coming years for market dominance, very few 
will survive. Some have already dropped out like Wang, DG,Control data,Prime..
etc, this is a trend. Digital with Alpha may stands a better chance than some 
of its competitors, but it will be tough & bloody. Expecting that our VPs 
to write 100 word plans detailing how the company will turn around is not 
realistic, who on earth can predict this market ? 

Now to the remain themes, i find them totally junk :

Performance 
-----------

Did 'nt the competition win market share from us by [ correctly so ] blowing 
horns that VAXs were too slow. Is'nt performance important anymore ? Should 
we tell our hardware designers that 's it folks...well the competition, 
including intel, are working around the clock to catch up.

Yes both the VAX9000 and Alpha share common characteristics, one being both
are high performance machines. But to conclude that since the XX MIPS 9000 did
not sell then the XXX MIPS Alpha will suffer same fate is absurd. There are 
differences between them such as cost of hardware + cost of software > price / 
performance + open/key OSs + follow up products !!

The new VAXs, though quite fast, may not be doing as well as want. Simple 
explanation which the base note also mentioned : Customers are waiting for 
the newer Alpha family.

>> If one argues that the power jump is sufficiently attractive, we could 
>> respond that it is too great a leap.  

uh, i just don't get it. Are moderate performance gains considered good [ good 
place to recommend Sun 's new chips ] but if it is too much it's bad ?

Saying installed base of VAXs being "dusted" away by newer desktops in XYZ 
tests : Aha..so performance is important after all, quite contradicting. 
Any new desktop ( specially the ones from Digital ) will "dust" away any 
current installed systems from any vendor. Slower speed of older technology 
is not specific to Digital. Yes everyone knows that...so why include it in 
the 1 page assessment ?

OS
--
Q:>>  "VAX to Alpha" but "VMS to ?." 

A:    What is that supposed to mean, you have VMS/OSF/NT : 
      
     -if this is too few a choice then look at our competitors do they offer 
      such key/open OSs ?? 
     
     -if it is too many meaning Digital does not have an OS "message"/strategy
      as some pointed. Were'nt we loosing business because we of the 1 OS 
      strategy ? We are big/good enough to properly manage 3 different OS 
      plans, we should not under-evaluate ourselves. We are also not the first 
      major company to offer multiple OSs.

>> Microsoft is yet another example of how the best product doesn't
>> always win. 
   
   hhmm, i must be missing something this analyst is seeing. 

>> (By the way, we heard of a flap at HQ when Mr. Palmer pulled his
>> Porsche into Ken Olsen's parking space pre-October 1.  

This analyst would be better off working for a tabloid paper. To include this 
in an analysis is hardly professional.

>> DEC is most threatening to "nobody" and most threatened by "everybody"

My mental abilities do not allow me to follow his vision.

>Q:>>  "VAX to Alpha" but "VMS to ?." 
>
>A:    What is that supposed to mean, you have VMS/OSF/NT : 

	I think it means that some of our installed base may be 
	dismissing Digital out of hand - they need new systems,
	figure that VAX is obsolete and they need to migrate, but
	are considering INTEL/SUN/HP/IBM as places to migrate to,
	rather than Alpha AXP (tm) running NT/OSF/VMS.

	A real possibility, and one which has me more than a little
	concerned.

					Tom_K

re: <<< Note 2150.44 by POLAR::MOKHTAR >>> -< biased report  >-

>My mental abilities do not allow me to follow his vision.

this may be one of the few statement in your note I can easily
agree with....

I think your note is a good example of the opinion that many other
noters have commented on in this string.  It seems to me that you
miss the points that the base noter is making.

>> Microsoft is yet another example of how the best product doesn't
>> always win. 
   
   >hhmm, i must be missing something this analyst is seeing. 

I read this as saying that even a product as terrible as MDOS is
dominating the market...the BEST (and many better) products dont
always win.  Although ALPHA may be 'better' in some technical sense,
that's liable not to matter at all.

I hope our customers will buy Alphas like hot cakes...its a great
machine, and I hope we'll get everything done in time to ship a LOT
of them this year.  We'll soon find out!
bob

    re: binary translation
    
    We have good technology in this area, and are using it for running
    VAX images on Alpha.  There's still a penalty for not running native,
    but it's nowhere near as bad as emulation (two-fold or less, I
    believe).
    
    ANDF is being looked at as well, but there are serious problems with
    its security--shipping encrypted source code is not as secure as
    shipping images.
    
    If you have a business need in these areas, I can give you names.
    
    		-John Bishop

    I wonder how many reading this have heard of an operating system called
    TSX-32, now shipping, for PCs...
    
    Laurie.

Laurie,

OK, I'll bite.  I've never heard of TSX-32.  What is it?

Paul

    I've heard of it, although I've never actually seen it used.
    
    Presumably, this is offered by the same company (S&H Computer Leasing)
    in Nashville, TN or their successors who sold a fairly successful
    operating system called TSX-11 for the PDP-11.
    
    Those of us who worked in the RT-11 world have almost certainly run
    across this.  In a nutshell, TSX-11 provided multi-user capabilities to
    the single-user RT-11 operating systems.  Strictly speaking, it wasn't
    a full fledged operating system because it did not provided device
    drivers or utility programs (such as Macro-11, PIP, etc.)  If memory
    serves me correctly, you first installed RT-11, then put TSX-11 on top
    of it.   It made the necessary changes to the Digital software and
    added whatever else was needed.  TSX-11 worked well and was quite
    popular with many of our customers.  It was a good alternative for
    those users who wanted multi-user capabilities but did not want to
    get involved with RSX or RSTS.
    
    In the few ads that I've seen for TSX-32, it appears to be a somewhat
    similiar offshoot of TSX-11 but intended to run on a VAX rather than a
    PDP-11.
    
    I do not know the key differences between it and VMS other than I
    believe it is a lot simpler (i.e. stripped down functionality) which
    presumably required less resources (memory, disk).  I believe that it
    was targeted toward the single-user systems such as the MicroVax and
    VAXstation.
    
    Other than that, I don't know much about its functionality.  Perhaps
    someone else can add to this.  It certainly isn't nearly as popular as
    TSX-11 was.
    
    Larry
    

    .-1 is almost correct, except for the platform. The platform is MSDOS
    PCs 386 and above. It sits alongside DOS, and offers almost VMS
    capabilities. It claims to support, with 8meg of memory, the system, a
    dozen active jobs, and 10 inactive ones. It has virtual memory
    capabilities, full peer-to-peer networking, SET HOST, Email, PHONES
    etc., multi-tasking, multi-user, detached and batch processes, DCL
    Lexical functions, ACLs, AUTHORIZE, HELP, etc. etc. All memory is
    available to DOS applications, ie. NO 640K limit, and it supports DOS
    TSRs. It supports symbols and logicals, sub-processes with a
    task-switching facility by hot-key and a "program Manager" type of
    pop=up window. It has a print spooler and an error logger. It has
    accounting, startup and shutdown, system monitoring, and an INSTALL
    command.
    
    It supports 64 users on a big 486 PC, and supports ANSI terminals (VT),
    PC-Term type terminal, or PCs, either diskless of otherwise. Systems
    can be linked together, and almost any command can be performed on a
    remote host by preceding the command with the node name. The article
    didn't mention anything about file copying, but I can't imagine it's
    not supported.
    
    Now, I know WNT is all-singing, all-dancing etc., but after reading
    this fairly lengthy article, there's a real danger that the bottom end
    VAX line is under threat. This is basically VMS on a PC, with the
    ribbons and bows cut off. Not only that, but it supports DOS and
    windows products right out of the box, and lets you shell back to pure
    DOS any time you like, for the odd DOS/Windows package that it won't
    support. For those who don't want or like a GUI ie. want to run their
    business, without the fluff, why buy a VAX? Worse still, where does
    this leave PATHWORKS? A customer no longer needs to buy a VAX, so he
    can have the security and control of a VMS network for his PCs.
    
    The price? Well, knock a few noughts of a VMS/PATHWORKS system.
    
    Why hasn't Digital done something like this? If this has been around
    since early PDP days, why don't we own the company instead of Philips
    (bought for a customer base flocking to SUN in droves)? Maybe because of
    WNT, and if we get into bed with Microsoft fast enough, and maybe if
    Alpha gets off the ground, there's no threat here. BUT, I can think of
    several customers who would benefit from this type of set up, and who
    could never afford to go with Digital. Think about it, a customer's
    investment in PCs is safe-guarded, his processing can still be
    distributed, and all his networking requirements are fulfilled. Maybe
    I'm over-estimating this OS, after all, I've never seen it in action,
    but it looks dangerous to me. What looks worse, is our "best in class"
    marketing people have let it slide by for years.
    
    Laurie.

I loved TSX....It made RT much more user friendly!

Keith R>

    re: .51
    
    
    Sounds Great!  Where do I sign?  
    
    Seriously, this is the first I've heard of anything like this...is
    there a source for more information?
    
    Jim

    I read about it in the November issue of the UK Computer Shopper, on
    pages 461 and 462. It's made in the US by a company called S&H Computer
    systems Inc, and marketed in the UK through Ace Microsystems, on
    081-579-5599
    
    As I said, this article is the limit of my experience with it. If they
    lower the price from the current �595 for the run-time version, and
    �120 for the docset, it will prove to be a real threat. To convert to
    US$, it'll probably be �1 = $1
    
    Laurie.