Conference 7.286::digital

    Electronic Business had a different take at it than most others:
    at the ATT earnings announcement two weeks ago, ATT made it
    pretty clear that they weren't too pleased with the $20m loss
    from NCR. 

    
    It's Spring..... take-over rumor time!
    
    AT&T needs Digital like it needs another Carterphone decision.
    

    AT&T+Digital+NCR == Competitive Advantage or long distance monopoly.
    
    If this happened a few years ago AT&T would have been able to stop the
    long distance market share decline they have give over to their
    competitors.  Does it make more sense today?  You bet!  Digital has
    developed even better technology that AT&T could use to their
    advantage.  (Alpha, networking components, clustering, etc.)
    
    What's stopping AT&T?  Old ways of thinking, the cost of buying
    Digital, all the new folks in Digital at the executive level who just
    came on  board.  Would you want to buy a company that has fundamentally
    changed is way of doing business and image in the past year and is
    still re-structuring from the top down?
    
    Risky, I would say.
    
    But BP may be willing to spruce up the stock price.
    
    Just my opinion....

    How does: NEC buys DEC, sounds ?
    
    	Seriously, can we take some advantage of all these rumors.
    Now the question is: Is this a serious rumor in Wall Street ?
                         Will the stock price likely reflect this rumor
                         in price appreciation ?
    Been hearing this 'rumor' for the past several years.   If the stock
    price increase as a reation, I'll take it !
    

Pat, Pat, Pat!  Forget AT&T!  Think Intel + Digital in CY95, with maybe
a smaller communications firm thrown into the mix.

Alpha takes off in the UNIX market and BP goes home to Texas a hero of
the industry and Senior VP/contender-for-the-throne at IntelXsys. ;-)

If ya can't beat 'em, buy 'em...
								- paul

I know that whenever we book appointments with Intel's major distributors
here, they react as if they're going to wet themselves...
								- Ian W.

    Hitachi. The building people only need 3 new letters to alter the
    signs.
    
    Regards,
    Alan

    
    Should I buy some pole climbin boots?? 

    DEC stock has moved up more than 3 points in last two days today's
    gain was 1-7/8. Is it possible that the rumor is helping stock to
    move up.
    
    \JM
    

    They heard Poineer is assuming the sales role for DEC and that is
    causing the stock to climb. Pioneer expects their people to sell or
    they fire them and replace them with people who can sell, either DEC,
    Intel, Motorola or whatever. They simply expect sales! Without a loss!
    
    This is a company and a stock to watch. They are on NASDAQ listed as 
    PION(ST). Buy and watch, you will not be surprised by their climb which
    is good for DEC and Pioneer as well.
    
    You heard it here first!!

	Also, some analyst move us from "hold" to "buy"

				Tom_K

   i also see good things happening to DEC in the future, some of my predictions
    are either DEC buys microsoft and we become a software company specializing
    in software for the PeeCee or DEC buys nintandoo and we open a division for 
    writing PC games software and we become number 1 vendor for 
    entertainment software in industry.

we just have to be little more patient and keep up the good work.

\nasser

    Just in case some people take you seriously, Nasser.
    
    Digital couldn't acquire Microsoft now.  Microsoft could acquire
    Digital.  Nintendo could acquire Digital.
    
    But there's nothing about the stategies of these companies that would
    motivate them to do so.  Nintendo would more likely acquire Marvel
    Comics Group than Digital.  Microsoft is more likely to break up than
    it is to acquire companies at this point.

I suspect Intel would not be interested in merging/buying Digital unless they
could get just the chip related pieces.  The rest of Digital doesn't do much
to complement their core competencies.  Besides, diversification is not in vogue
these days, companies are divesting and getting back to what they are good at. 
We may even one of these days!

AT&T/NCR/Digital makes good sense for a lot of reasons.

NCR still has a reasonable share of the computer market in areas that we could
use more market share such as retail and banking.  Together we would still be
smaller than IBM so there shouldn't be any antitrust issues.

AT&T's network coupled with our SI and networking expertise would provide the
capabilities to develop global multimedia/multiprotocol networks that would 
undeniably be unmatched in the industry.  Think of the VANs we could build!

AT&T is a good customer of ours as we are of theirs.  Each of us can lower some
of our operating costs.

AT&T has built the second largest credit card business.  Instead of just 
charging phone calls to your universal card, how about a PC from Desktop Direct,
or some dial-up time on a Compuserve-type service offered by the VAN.

Naturally, boatloads of middle management would have to go....

re: .14

>I suspect Intel would not be interested in merging/buying Digital unless they
>could get just the chip related pieces.  The rest of Digital doesn't do much
>to complement their core competencies.

Yes.  When we've gone through a year or so of the CBUs/PBUs handling their
own P/L responsibilities, it'll be obvious which ones can just be canned vs.
which ones could be sold or spun off as independent companies.  Conceivably
Intel might keep something like the PC business unit in addition to chips.  A
lot of what we currently know as Digital would go under this scenario though.

>Naturally, boatloads of middle management would have to go....

This will have to happen sooner or later under any scenario that involves
some portion of Digital surviving.
								- paul