Conference 7.286::digital

Such clarity is delightful.

    And I was going to commit to memory what PSC stood for since it looked
    like it was gonna stick.  I guess I was premature.  DC - sounds good,
    I like it, I'll go with it.
    
    bill k.

Copyright � 1993 Dow Jones & Co. from Press Release News Wire

RICHARD LINTING JOINS DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION AS VICE PRESIDENT OF
SYSTEMS INTEGRATION



MAYNARD, Mass., July 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital Equipment Corporation (NYSE:
DEC) today announced that Richard L. Linting has joined the company as vice
president of Systems Integration, with worldwide responsibility for delivery
of Digital's systems integration services, including applications, networks,
custom hardware systems, emerging technologies, and strategic alliances.

Linting, 48, will report to Gresham T. Brebach, Jr., Digital's worldwide
vice president of Systems Integration and Professional Services, and will be
responsible for providing leadership and direction for the delivery of
systems integration solution services to customers in 13 territories across
the world through Digital's newly-created, industry-focused, customer
business units.

"Rich brings to this key assignment an impressive array of skills and
credentials in using information technology for customer competitive
advantage, and we expect his efforts will augment Digital's tremendous
growth in systems integration services," Brebach said.

"Through his leadership," Brebach added, "we will further strengthen our
commitment to delivering best-in-class information technology solutions to
our customers around the world, and enhance Digital's reputation as one of
the world's largest and most successful providers of professional services."

Linting comes to Digital after serving as president of Linting Brown
Limited, a successful independent consulting practice, which provided
leading-edge services in areas such as business reengineering, client/server
architecture solutions, benchmarking, and large-scale systems integration
project management.

Prior to establishing his own consulting practice, Linting served as vice
president of Systems Integration at Computer Sciences Corporation, and,
previous to that position, he served 23 years with Andersen Consulting,
where he rose to the position of Managing Director, Partner, and Member of
the Andersen Consulting Worldwide Executive Committee. Linting's customer
experience in planning, designing and implementing integrated systems has
spanned service, product, and public industry sectors worldwide.

Currently a resident of Wilmette, Ill., Linting holds a Bachelor of Business
Administration degree from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master of
Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago.

    I need to drop in with a note of praise for those doing "consulting"
    in this company.
    
    While during my years at Digital I have seen many good efforts done
    by good people, I was becoming accustomed to the image of consulting
    services (aka PSS...) as "some guy with a manual under his arm going
    onsite to learn on the job".  Mostly this was because, after spending
    a lot of time convincing the customer to buy services with a big order,
    I would spend 3 times the effort internally trying to find who 
    delivers it, what it is, exactly, and fighting off threats of cross
    cost center charges even the smallest pre-sales efforts.
    
    Lately, I see a much better picture.  We just used the services of
    our consultants who do distribution (out of Chicago) and this gentleman
    was so impressive that he sold ME on our service, let alone the
    customer.  Grey hair, 15 years in distribution,... it was great.
    The most professional consultant I have met.
    
    And again, with the FABS consulting group.  It took awhile to find
    WHO and WHERE, but eventually, the consultants' backgrounds read like a
    who's who in finance.  Our local team's case for a FABS proposal was
    made solid with these people backing us up.
    
    I don't mean to gush all over, because I know there are good (and bad)
    people in any organization.  But great talent like I have recently
    had the pleasure of working with needs to be recognized.  Combining
    these experiences with great ones with some of our own local talent
    causes me to be confindent about selling many of our services, and
    especially, consulting.
    
    Dan

    RE .0.
    
    I believe this business of changing names ( oh..only why is PS
    targetted for this?? ) is part of DECmadness. Even before the ink on
    the business card dries out, there is a change announced.
    
    RE .0 : Though PS will be renamed Digital consulting, the focus area
    will be on the three "services". ???
    
    Somebody throw some (bright) light on what these name changes would
    achieve for the organisation.
    
    

This all seems very familiar to me....

In 1988 I was working in the Consulting division of Arthur Andersen & Co. in
Chicago.  We recieved a memo saying that we needed to differentiate ourselves
from our colleagues on the Accounting side and are therfore changeing our name
to "Andersen Consulting".  In addition the divisions "Strategic Services" and
"Integration Services" were mentioned, as well as the term "scope of practice".

Shortly afterwards we had our own identity as a services company and I didn't
have to always hear "Oh, your an accountant".

We could probably do worse that to copy a very successful Consulting and Systems
Integration provider.  Perhaps as Digital Consulting the first reaction won't
be, "Oh, you just want to sell us more hardware".


Mark


BTW:  It seems to include not only PSS but also APS/SI, if I understand
"Integration Services" correctly.

	I am very pleased at the change, I had told my manager that there was
	no way I would have

	Heather Thomas,  Professional Services

	On my business card.
	
	Maybe the meaning is different in the states, where the PS name was
	dreamed up.
	
	I also like the three areas, it is much cleared than other "splits"
	I have seen, with no obvious gaps or overlaps.
	
	A move in the right direction.

	Heather

My DEPT: field on my ALL-IN-1 account magically changed to Digital Consulting.
I used to be in Sales Support. Of course, I'm not quite sure who I report to 
now...

Jim

    Although I think "Digital Consulting" is one of the better names we've
    had recently (beats "Enterprise Integration Services" hand down!), I
    couldn't help noticing an ad in the latest Digital News & Review for a
    company apparently called:
    
    	Digital Consulting and Software Services
    
    This looks like another hole in the name-recognition armor.  If people
    catch on to the "Digital Consulting" banner we hold up, these folks can
    march in our wake, identifying themselves as "Digital Consulting" as
    well.  We could find confused customers giving them business instead of
    us, especially if they start calling on our customer base.
    
    -- Russ

    Another aspect of "Digital Consulting" is that it sounds like a
    subsidiary but it isn't.
    
    It would be nice to have a real financial structure to the consulting
    business, but I think we're stuck with what we've got.

.10>>>    Another aspect of "Digital Consulting" is that it sounds like a
.10>>>    subsidiary but it isn't.

Or at least, not *YET* ...

>This all seems very familiar to me....

    It should because it was Gresham Brebach, at Andersen, who was behind
    that move.  
    
    /d.c.

>
.10>>>    Another aspect of "Digital Consulting" is that it sounds like a
.10>>>    subsidiary but it isn't.

Or at least, not *YET* ...
>
    Could we be a part of the "spin-off/downsize" move in '94?  I, for one,
    would welcome it, but don't count on that happening.
    
    /d.c.
    

    The July 12, 1993 issue of "digital news & review" has an ad in the 
    classified section for software professionals.  The company with the
    ad:		Digital Consulting and Software Services
    
    The location for one of their office:
    
    	3850 North Causeway Boulevard, Suite 650, Metairie, Louisiana
    
    
    
    Interesting enough, the address for the Digital Equipment Corporation's
    office in Metairie is:
    
    	3850 North Causeway, Suite 400, Metairie, Louisiana
    
    
    
    Hmmmmmmm, I wonder???
    
    

    And when we team, excuse me, partner with Anderson Consulting we can be

                                AC/DC 

    re -1
    heh heh heh..I love it!!
    
    maybe we can use some of the AC/DC music for theme songs:
    
    "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"
    "Bill _alls"
    etc.
    
    Mark
    

    
    re: .14
    
    Was the digital logo on the employment ad?
    
    Glenn

    re: -1
    
    No.  The name is as follows:
    
                            ^
    	Digital Consulting /
       --------------------
      and Software Services
    
    
    NOTE:  The   ^ is suppose to be an arrow pointing upwards.
    
    

Gresh spoke at the IM Partners workshop last, then answered questions.

One of the first questions was "Are you thinking about spinning off Digital
Consulting?"

His answer was an emphatic, almost violent "No."

He seems, by the way, to be sharp, in touch with the market and ambitious.

Bruce

    re: .19 (Gresh at IM Partners)
    
    From a recent Email message, it could be construed that he might not
    belong to the "we'll do the planning; subcontractors will do the work"
    mindset in Digital Consulting.
    
    Did he happen to mention anything on this subject?
    
    -- Russ

    
    Re: "we'll do the planning..." mindset
    
    I often wonder why a customer would want to have a middleman involved
    in such a transaction.  What real value is in "planning" anyway?
    
    Let me guess; MANAGERS do planning, right?.
    
    

    Interesting.  There's a Digital Consulting, Inc. in Andover Mass.,
    they've been in business for years.  They run a lot of the major
    industry conferences -- for example, on Downsizing, CASE strategies,
    data management etc.  Their president, George Schussel, is a fairly
    well-known consultant on such topics, and curiously enough does a fair
    to large amount of consulting for DEC (for big bucks I hear).
    
    Now just this month, all of Digital Consulting, Inc.'s advertising in
    the trade rags features their usual moronic trademark (an owl wearing a
    professor's cap with a pointer stick) BUT: apparently they have changed
    their name to "DCI".
    
    Interesting coincidence?

re: .21 THEBAY::CHABANED - What real value is in "planning" anyway?

whew -- gotta respond... jerk reflex.  No heat, just confusion...
 After working for the last 5 years
 for DEC/Digital/whatever they wanna be called, I'm *very* aware of how
 valuable "merely planning" is for the average Fortune 500 customer. I almost
 think Aurthur Anderson does nothing more than that!!!!  :-;

   Most projects fail due to poor communications (statistics show this over 
 the last 20 years), and poor communications are caused by poor planning.
 OK, OK, ok.. define "poor" -- well, did the project come in on time? on
 budget? Were the people (all of them) happy about how it ended up? Would
 they do another one again soon?
   Why are overruns, and re-plans, and crisis management terms we even hear??
 if planning were so well done, these terms wouldn't be thought of except in
 academia!

well, ok... I'm off to other things - but that's why I think planning is of
 real value to our customers. And I think that well trained, experienced
 consultants can help plan and guide a customers project to success (as
 defined above).
   Of course... we haven't talked about customer ego's, realistic goals, 
 aspirations, dreams... the stuff American Business (and Consultant Ulcers)
 is built of...  :-)

Bruce (who-used-to-be-a-consultant-but-hopes-he's-a-better-engineer)

    
    	The name Digital Consulting sounds good for an organization, but
    it does not include all Digital consultants or consulting activities in 
    other parts of the company, much of which is done externally. Minor nit 
    for now but it could cause confusion later on. 
    
    - Jim K 

>    	The name Digital Consulting sounds good for an organization, but
>    it does not include all Digital consultants or consulting activities in 
>    other parts of the company, much of which is done externally. Minor nit 
>    for now but it could cause confusion later on. 
 
	So, which bits doesn't it cover, I can't think of any in the UK, in fact
	the majority of Digital Consulting is done externally, with our 
	customers. It includes manangement consulting and technical consulting.

	Heather

re: .25

	Yo Bruce,

	Heard you heard that as part of the new branding campaign
  DEC West is now DIGITAL WEST   *--)

	Tom

    re. 26
    
    yes, the renaming is part of the corporate plan to move all new
    products software engineering to Seattle.
    
                                  ;-)
    

    re .25
    
    Heather,
    
    In the UK it probably covers all consulting as you say.  However, the
    poor old "Account Consultants" have had a rough deal.  For a couple of
    years now, they have not been treated as part of EIS, Digital Services,
    Professional Services or Sales.  The Account Groupss have used our
    skills, but no-one seemed to be our "Competance" manager (horrible
    name).  This has been recognised by Bob Webber (UK DS manager), as well
    as some of his managers (eg: Mike McCaig and Alan Thompson) - and I
    expect that something will be done in the fullness of time (with a
    little prodding!).
    
    To give an idea of the problem - the Consultancy House Style project,
    which looked at the whole question of consultancy roles, domains,
    styles, etc, didn't mention "Account Consultant".  Until a local
    Service Centre manager took pity on us - we were not copied on any DS
    distribution lists.
    
    One day we will be fully recognised in Digital.  One day ...
    
    regards
    
    Chris
    
    ps: On re-reading this - I felt it showed I was a bit down.  That is
    not the case - I strongly believe that as Consultants, Solution
    Architects or whatever role is needed of us, Account Consultants have a
    major role to play in the success of this company and it is an
    exciting one.

re .28

Chris,

Could you explain a little more what an "Account Consultant" does?

Curious in Detroit,

Dick Eslinger

    I think by "Account Consultant" they refer to a sales support resource
    who is attached to that account group.
    
    /d.c.