Conference 7.286::digital

    Any idea where he fits in the chain of command?
    
    			Alfred

    Where will Bill Johnson go?

    This note states he is sales and marketing for the PC Business Unit
    
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            | 
|  C O M P U T E R   I N D U S T R Y   N E W S                               |
|  ======================================================================    |
|     				      Corporate Market Intelligence (CMI)    |
|                                                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
21-JUL-1993 - FOR DIGITAL INTERNAL USE ONLY
(c) Dow Jones News Service (Wall Street Journal)         			       					   

WHO'S NEWS: DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP.

             DIGITAL EQUIPMENT Corp. (Maynard, Mass.) -- Harold Copperman,
          president of the information systems group of JWP Inc., was named to
          the new post of vice president, sales and marketing, for the U.S.
          operations of this computer maker's personal computer business unit.

Re: Bill Johnson (.2)

Last I heard, BJ (I assume we are both referring to the same person),
was TFSO'd at the end of June. I believe his wife Pam was TFSO'd as
well (there is no coincidence as far as I know).

 Worldwide News                                              LIVE WIRE
 
 Harold Copperman joins Digital (21-Jul)                     Date: 21-Jul-1993
 
                         Harold Copperman joins Digital

         Harold Copperman has joined Digital as vice president, Sales and
   Marketing, for the U.S. operations of Digital's Personal Computer
   Business Unit, effective July 26.
         He will manage sales and marketing activities for the PC Business
   Unit in the U.S., including the indirect sales channels (distributors,
   dealers, etc.), sales specialists, Digital's telemarketing and catalogue
   sales, and support. He will report to Enrico Pesatori, vice president and
   general manager of the PC Business Unit.
         Previously, Harold was president and chief executive officer of the
   Information Systems Group of JWP Inc.; president and chief operating
   officer of Commodore Business Machines; and vice president and general
   manager of Eastern Operations for Apple Computer.  Earlier, he spent 20
   years with IBM in a variety of sales and marketing management positions.

I'm getting more than a bit nervous with Digital hiring all these ex-IBMer's 
given IBM's current condition.

            <<< HYDRA::DISK_NOTES$LIBRARY:[000000]AMIGA_V1.NOTE;1 >>>
                                -< AMIGA NOTES >-
================================================================================
Note 2514.4          Max Toy out, Harold Copperman in at CBM             4 of 13
DECWET::TBAKER "Tom Baker - DECwest CSSE"            58 lines  28-APR-1989 19:09
                                 -< Copperman >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following press release was issued 4/24/89 by Commodore Imternational
Limited:

** Commodore Names Copperman as President of US Operations **

West Chester, PA, Monday April 24, 1989 -- Commodore International Limited
(NYSE:CBU) today announced it has named Harold D. Copperman as President
and Chief Operating Officer of Commodore's US Operations, Commodore 
Business Machines, Inc.  He replaces Max Toy, who resigned to pursue
other interests.

Mr. Copperman, 42, was formerly Vice President and General Manager, Eastern
Operations, Apple Computer, Inc. His responsibilities included overseeing
sales, marketing, support, and distribution for Apple's Eastern region.
He also managed Apple's Federal Systems Group. Prior to that, Mr. Copperman
served with International Business Machines for twenty years, most recently
as National Director of Marketing for IBM's Academic Information Systems 
Business Unit.

Irving Gould, Chairman, Commodore International Limited, said, "Our 
overseas operations have experienced strong growth in sales and profitability,
and the hiring of an individual with Harry Copperman 's experience and
track record is a key element in our plan for building a strong US operation."

Mr. Copperman said he "plans to take advantage of Commodore's broad range of
products to further penetrate the education market and to expand our use of
value-added resellers.  We will also continue to build and enhance our dealer 
distribution network." These activities, he said, are in line with Commodore's
continuing US and worldwide strategy of increasing its presence in business,
government and education while mantaining and expanding its traditional 
strength in the consumer sector."

Mr. Copperman began his career with IBM in 1967 as a System Engineeer. During
the 1970-1982 period, he worked for IBM's Data Processing Division and held
a variety of sales, marketing and management positions. In 1983, he joined
IBM's National Marketing Division, where he was named Director of Marketing
and then Regional Manager.  In 1986, he assumed national responsibility for
IBM's sales and marketing in higher education.  He joined Apple Computer in
September 1987 in his most recent position. A Graduate of Rutgers University,
Mr. Copperman hold a BS in mechanical Engineering.

------- end of quote

I had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Copperman when he was with IBM
ACIS and as such was overseeing the USC Advanced Computing Support Center.
He is known for being a very "tough" guy.

Wall Street seemed to take the change pretty well. Yesterday Commodore's
stock was trading at $19 3/8, almost the highest it has been in the
recent months.

-- Marco papa 'Doc'
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
uucp:...!pollux!papa       BIX:papa       ARPAnet:[email protected]
 "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=



            <<< HYDRA::DISK_NOTES$LIBRARY:[000000]AMIGA_V1.NOTE;1 >>>
                                -< AMIGA NOTES >-
================================================================================
Note 4418.0                      Commodore news                        9 replies
BAGELS::BRANNON "Dave Brannon"                       40 lines   8-JAN-1991 19:08
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article        75331
From: [email protected] (Harv Laser)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Copperman out (sort of), Dionne in
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 5 Jan 91 07:59:14 GMT
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 30
 
[crossposted from Plink]
 
-----
Club : AMIGA ZONE       Sec: 2 
Date :  1/05/91  1:08   Num: 70,964
Theme: C=NEWS
To   : ALL              By : MAGELLAN
Title: NEW GM
-----
 
--------------------------
NEW YORK, (JAN. 4) PR NEWSWIRE - Commodore International Limited (NYSE: CBU)
announced today the appointment of James Dionne as general manager of its
U.S. sales company, succeeding Harold Copperman, who has been appointed vice
president of Commodore International Limited, with new responsibilities
including Amiga multimedia strategies.
   Dionne has been with Commodore eleven years, most recently as general
manager of Commodore's Canadian sales subsidiary.  Copperman joined
Commodore in 1989.
   Commodore also announced a reduction was being made in the manpower of
U.S. operations, primarily in the areas of administrative and factory
overhead.  This action is partly due to the reorganization of certain
functions and is expected to result in improved operating efficiency.
   Commodore International Limited, through its operating subsidiaries
around the world, manufactures and markets personal computers to customers
in the consumer, education, professional and government market sectors.  The
company has three product lines:  Amiga multimedia computers, PC compatibles
and C64 computers.
    CONTACT:  Ronald B. Alexander, vice president and chief financial
officer of Commodore International Limited, 215-431-9100

            <<< HYDRA::DISK_NOTES$LIBRARY:[000000]AMIGA_V1.NOTE;1 >>>
                                -< AMIGA NOTES >-
================================================================================
Note 4507.4            interesting news from CBM - usenet                 4 of 5
STAR::DCARR "Guru: a 4-letter word to Amiga owners" 183 lines   4-DEC-1991 11:27
               -< Interesting article in Philadelphia Inquirer >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article: 10578
From: [email protected] (Bill Zimmer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: New Generation of Amigas
Date: 3 Dec 91 18:44:46 GMT
Sender: [email protected]
 
Hot on the heels of last week's Inquirer article, the following is from
yesterday's (Monday, December 2, 1991) edition of the Philadelphia Inquirier:
 
----------------- Begin newspaper article -------------------
 
Business Section - Page D1
 
COMMODORE SEEKS NEW U.S. AMIGOS
 
By Valerie Reitman
Inquirer Staff Writer
 
    NASSAU, Bahamas -- Dan Hess flew from Bellefontaine, Ohio, last week
to an annual shareholders meeting in the Bahamas with one question for
the directors of Commodore International Ltd.
    Why wasn't the company advertising its Amiga computer, which he
thinks is fantastic, more heavily in the United States?  Such commercials
could show the machine's capabilities -- from word processing to video
games to animation.
    "We could crush Nintendo," Hess, whose family owns about 2,000 shares
of Commodore, told company directors.  "Commodore needs its name stamped
around."
    Irving Gould, the company's chairman, acknowledged his frustration
in getting dealers to stock and promote the product.
    "We've gone on several advertising campaigns," Gould said.  "If we
took spot ads every 15 minutes on every station, if we don't have store-
fronts and product distribution, it still wouldn't make any difference.
It's no good -- it's the chicken and the egg."
    Indeed, while Commodore is second only to IBM in personal-computer
sales in Europe, how to crack the North American market is a problem
that has vexed Commodore for years as it competes with top sellers such
as IBM, Apple and Compaq and the IBM clones.
    Although many of Commodore's computer users are zealous -- in fact,
some live up to Gould's term, fanatic -- the West Chester company
can't seem to get much of a hold in the biggest and most lucrative market
in the world: the United States.  It reaped 85 percent of its fiscal 1991
sales of $1.04 billion in Europe.
    Despite multimillion-dollar television and magazine advertising blitzes
in recent years, the North American operation continues to bleed red ink.
The reasons range from the recession to a lack of dealers who will stock
the Amiga computer line to Commodore's image as a company that makes only
game machines.  The Amiga, the driving force behind Commodore's worldwide
success, is particularly popular in niche markets in the United States and
Europe because of its splashy graphics and video capabilities.
    Commodore's losses in the United States and Canada grew to $24.7 million
on sales that plummeted by one-third to $110.1 million in the fiscal year
ended June 30.  That compared with a loss of $17.7 million on sales of
$163.5 million in the prior year.
    In January, Commodore fired Harry Copperman, president of the North
American division, the latest in a string of executives that Gould has
fired after short tenures that failed to produce a North American turn-
around.  Most of the executive team Copperman installed is gone as well.
    Copperman had unsuccessfully tried to push the Amiga in the federal,
education and business marketplaces.
    Now at the North American helm is Jim Dionne, former head of the Canadian
operation, who did not return phone calls.  As the company tries to reduce
expenses to compensate for plummeting sales, it has laid off about 100 people
and shifted most of the manufacturing and assembly out of West Chester to
other Commodore plants, employees said.
    Such actions have given its computer users cause to wonder whether
Commodore will abandon the North American market altogether.
    But Gould assured the fewer than one dozen shareholders gathered at
the annual meeting at a posh Bahamian retreat that the U.S. market was
too lucrative to give up.  Commodore officially is headquartered in Nassau,
although it has no office of its own there.  The address it lists as its
Bahamian headquarters is that of its agent, Ernst & Young.
    "The United States is 50 percent of the world market in anything," Gould
said.  "One would have to be pretty stupid to give up 50 percent of the
world market."
    Commodore president Mehdi Ali hinted that the company was working on
a "new generation" of Amigas to come out in the next 18 months -- and
indicated that the company might make a bigger push then.
    "We don't have critical mass" now, Ali said.  "With the next generation
of Amiga, we will make a big push. We can't flog something we've been
flogging for four years in the same way."
    "I constantly get letters from users," Gould said.  "I don't call them
users, I call them fanatics.  With all those letters, I wish somebody would
tell us how" to sell computers in North America.
    Gould and Ali declined to answer questions after the meeting about the
"new generation" of products.
[Wall Street analysts' opinions deleted.]

> I'm getting more than a bit nervous with Digital hiring all these ex-IBMer's 
> given IBM's current condition.
    
    ... while at IBM they're probably concerned about the "brain drain".

    
    So, BJ was TFSO'd and now another VP is appointed in his place,
    according to a few replies back. 
    
    Where is the logic in that? Is this really what happened?
    
    Curiously,
    
    Mark.

    No.  The original note was a mistake.  The new VP is for
    Personal Computing Business Unit, not for the entire US.
    BJ is still in ELF and is listed as VP of Marketing.
    

    re:.9
    Disregarding the personalities or factuality...
    
    Are you saying that replacing one VP with another is by definition
    pointless?
    
    I think the absurdity of that concept should be clear.  It's not how
    many VPs are there.  It's who they are!
    
    If BP wants to appoint 150 move VPs, that's fine with me, if they're
    the right people for the jobs their give.  Lordy knows we have a lot of
    management left to fix around here.

    is there anything we don't have a veep for? can anyone tell us we have
    more or less veeps than say....two years ago. lord knows we've
    considerably less employees.

    re: .12
    
    We used to have a "VP of VMS Mail", but she quit :-)

    well,
    
    We don't have a VP in charge of assigning product names.......yet

Re:        <<< Note 2589.12 by HAAG::HAAG "Rode hard. Put up wet." >>>

>    is there anything we don't have a veep for? 

I don't think we have a VP for janitorial services, a least not officially  :-) 

-  David

    
    In a previous job, I was involved with the changing of our system
    cabinet colors.  A longstanding joke was that the decision was to be
    made by the "VP of Paint"
    
    -Ed
    

Considering that the color changed several times.

Larry

Re. 13:

>    We used to have a "VP of VMS Mail", but she quit :-)

Reminds one of the opening credits for _The Prisoner_.
				/AHM

    In a laudable but imho only marginally successful attempt to spruce up
    the usual bland, fixed-font, terminal-oriented VP announcement that we
    have seen since time immemorial, Enrico Pesatori (VP of the PC Business
    Unit) recently caused an announcement of VP Harry Copperman's arrival
    to be mailed out over the EasyNet in a Microsoft WORD document. 
    However, in my opinion, the execution of this idea sends another
    message -- that we still haven't gotten our PC application & mail acts
    tog-
    ether.

    (hyphenation error intentional)

    Aside from the accreting encrustations of Cc: lists, forwarding
    headers, and "distro lists (at end)," there was a clear-text
    instruction in the Subject field and in the text:  "Please print the
    attached announcement to postscript queue".  However, this ultimately
    proved more difficult than that simple instruction would appear.  The
    "attached announcement" was, of course, PostScript(tm) generated by
    having Microsoft WORD print to a file, and then including that file
    within the mail message.

    Though I may have missed some sort of simpler solution (in which case
    tell me please what application(s) I *should* have used? Tnx!), I tried
    three separate ways to image this announcement -- and I chose them in
    increasing order of difficulty, as if I were someone with no knowledge
    of PostScript and of our print queue handlers.

    First, since I was using VAXmail on a terminal (well really a PC
    terminal _emulator_), I simply issued two commands:

    MAIL> print/queue=ps_mylocalqueue/notify
    MAIL> print/print

    Which promptly resulted in an error message from the print system,
    something like "Offending nonpostscript command "From:", job flushed
    and aborted."  This wasn't surprising, after all; when you send a file
    to a PostScript queue, it had better be ALL PostScript!  

    So I then extracted the entire message to a file, and cut away all
    lines save those that "looked like PostScript."  This means that at the
    beginning of the file, I removed everything up to the last excerpt
    sample line below...
    ===== begin excerpt =====
    ...
    Author: Enrico Pesatori @MLO
    Date:   20-Jul-1993
    Posted-date: 21-Jul-1993
    Precedence: 1
    Subject: memo108.ps

    $%!PS-Adobe-3.0
    ===== end excerpt =====
    (I've rendered the first char of the %PS-Adobe-3.0 line as $ but it
    really was an ascii 04, which I believe is a Control-D...)

    When I saved this as foo.ps and queued the file to a PostScript queue,
    the Control-D aborted the job.  Again, no surprise to a PostScript-
    savvy user, but the presence of the Control-D is REALLY hard to catch
    for the beginner.  That's because the diagnostic error message says
    "Offending command is" since the Control-D doesn't cause a visible
    character to be generated!

    What worked *finally* was re-editing the .PS file to remove the
    Control-D from the beginning of the PostScript file (and while I was at
    it, another from the end) and printing THAT file.  Which worked just
    fine.  

    (I wonder whether the support folks who prepared this memo actually
    PRE-TESTED the steps by which others could print this file from a mail
    message?  Apparently not; had they done so, they might have included
    instructions on what to extract and what to cut away, and some sampler
    of printing instructions for various of the antePCdeluvian MailSystems
    the recipients might be using...  Like VMSmail...)

    =====

    Now, the extraction & printing battles over, I'm looking at a neatly
    formatted document rendered in Helvetica and Avant-Garde, and it is
    indeed a big improvement over the run-of-the-Mill announcements we've
    seen so many times.  However, it also serves as an indicator of just
    how difficult it is to deal with the output of contemporary personal
    computer applications on our run-of-the-Mill systems.

    One final comment:  the memo leads off with what looks to me like a
    non-standard digital logo.  The PostScript code that produced it may
    well have produced round dots over the i's (-:it's hard to tell on 13
    point Helvetica Bold rendered in reverse over halftone:-) so in that
    sense it's a good try; but it would have made an even more polished
    impression had it used Corporate-approved logos from Erik Goetze's
    Digital ArtLibrary.  More info on the latter can be obtained in
    VAXnotes (or are we calling it DECnotes now):

    Notes> ADD ENTRY TRINTY::DIGITAL_ARTLIBRARY

    Offhand, I would estimate that the proportion of the original distro
    recipients of the mail message who were able to cut thru the
    abovementioned thicket to achieve a finished printed PostScript image
    to be no higher than 5%.  (-: If it had been sent to Engineers or Field
    Support folks, the proportion would imho be >90%; but we're talking
    other VPs here, folks... :-)

    Comments welcome, and please appreciate that this is written in a
    spirit of constructive criticism.  
    
    Dan nrsta2::Kalikow, aka [email protected]

    Let me get this straight.  All recipients were invited
    to use up a sheet or two of paper just to read yet another
    mail message about a new VP.  Right?
    
    Great idea, I don't think. 

    Your observation is outside the scope of my .19 but nevertheless :-)
    

    And heaven forfend that it turned up in the Moscow office, where they
    have neither the space nor the budget for a PostScript printer.
    
    Ncik

    The tools exist within Digital that would have eliminated this exercise.
    
|   The DECprint Common Print Supervisor (DCPS) supports enough automatic
|   data-type detection that would have eliminated the first problem.
|   (There was also an internal `MAIL translator' but I am not certain of
    it's status.) There is also a procedure in LPS_STATUSDICT.PS that would
    have eliminated the ^D problem (cf. ONTIME::POSTSCRIPT_PRINTING).
    
    [For sites without PostScript printers, the same exercise would be
     necessary but then the DECprint Utility for PostScript to Sixel
     Printing could have been used. Assuming that they have a VMS system and
     a Digital ANSI printer. PSPRINT could be updated to incorporate these
     procedures somehow but there is no funding. But that is a digression.]
    
    Hopefully the PC Business Unit will realize that they do not exist
    alone in a world of directly-connected printers and install the tools
    they need to operate their business.
    
    [The new Digital logo hasn't made enough of an impact yet. I'm aware of
     at least one case where product artwork was not redesigned to
     incorporate the new logo because, I was told, "it was not necessary."
     Someone, and I count myself among those someones, will have to do the
     behind-the-scenes donkey work to update our corporate tools based on
     Erik's work in providing the logos.]

    FWIW ... DEC OSF/1 AXP Version 1.3 displays the correct (new) Digital
    logo as well as the AXP mark.
    
    George
    

    I *knew* there had to be better ways to do this.  I agree with your
    sentiment about the need for better intra-DIGITAL cross-organization
    integration, and also for better integration of our environments with
    those which our customers commonly use.  Perhaps this string will help.
    
    Tnx again, 
    
    Dan
    

    This whole string about sending out a MS WORD file in file.ps and the
    INCREDIBLE hand stands one has to go through to print it! You've GOT to
    be kidding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you really think ANY customer would put up
    with all this crap to pull this off? NO WAY!! WE don't have equipment
    (widely spread enough) and the process to print is not even close to
    being simple enough for the "average user" much less sales rep to
    accomplish. It TRUELY does illustrate the the emperor has no clothes!
    Let's get some!

re: .-1

Yes, it was quite a mistake... we should ensure that every message is
100% compatable with the majority of the desktop viewers that
are in our corporation...



... a character-cell terminal!!

Which of course the majority of our customer employees have. Proof? Why,
just look at our sales and contract records... they show more character
cell devices sold/installed/serviced than PCs, therefore that must be
what our customers have, right? The numbers? Right from our own
databases, yes sir! Accurate?  Well, it's the only data we have at the
moment...  Customer PCs bought from outside DEC? Well, they can buy
character-cell terminals outside DEC too so it's probably a wash.
Say listen fella- don't question the numbers, just use 'em...



1/2 smiley

Now how do we (internally) get out of the character-cell rut and into the
21st century? Seeing as how the $$ crunch is on big time, I don't see how
we are ever going to climb out of this rut. It's hard to have people PC
literate when they cant't get PCs to use...

Lee

    The problems Dan Kalikow describes are not "INCREDIBLE" but symptomatic
    of a company in the midst of a technology shift.
    
    "Average Joe" users in a company who's office automation has stabilized
    already knows what their least common denominator method is for
    internal business correspondence and has already made it convenient for
    their purposes. And that is at as high or as low a level that they
    need.
    
    It is not news that Digital has many islands of automation. Some groups
    still use only simple text, others swear by DECwrite, others use
    Microsoft Word, etc. The level should keep increasing but it does cost
    money, as Lee Roth  points out. Documents in Digital needing the widest
    distribution quite probably still need to go out in plain text format. 
    
    Enrico Pesatori's staff probably felt that we were close enough to a
    higher common denominator--PostScript, which I've pointed out should
    have been trivial to handle.

    Re the last few:
    
    apologies: I'm opening up a rathole.
    
    On a regular, monthly basis I produce 1 to 3 reports.  These include
    documents created from WordPerfect, project plans from Microsoft
    Project and occasionally diagrams from either Harvard Graphics or
    PowerPoint.
    
    These are sent, on average, to 20 individuals each.
    
    WP, MPP, HG & PP are all capable of creating PostScript files thus it
    should be possible to create a document and send it via the network.
    
    a	How?
    
    b	Most of the readers are PostScript illiterate (like me) and would
    not be capable of manipulating the files (nor should they).
    
    In other environments (Novell, Ungermann Bass etc.) it does not appear
    to be a problem.  I cannot believe that Digital cannot simplify this
    repetitive task and save a few trees not to mention the internal mail. 
    (the tree saving would arise from each reader selectively printing the
    files they want).
    
    With apologies again for the diversion
    
    Tony Moon

    
    re: .29 and others.
    
    I just went through the process.  I didn't think it was that
    difficult, and my group only has 3 PCs for ~10 people.  At home,
    I wrote the draft of an article in Word for Windows.  I printed
    the text and graphics to a file, using the Digital LN03R Postscript
    drivers that came with Windows.  I put it on a floppy, brought
    it to work, and copied it to the VAX from a PC with PATHWORKS
    (which, I argue, is not significantly more difficult to do
    than a file copy under NetWare), and printed it with my standard
    command for printing a postscript file.
    
    Total time was about 10 minutes and this is the first time I've
    tried it.  While I'm not "technically-challenged" in the sense
    we usually use that term in Digital, I'm not a brain surgeon
    either.
    
    Glenn
         

re -.1

It's not that bad if you have a PC with Pathworks and access to a VMS prompt.

In many offices in Digital, the secretaries have a dumb terminal and ALL-IN-1 to
work with.  No PC, no Pathworks.  Many people in the field are not even allowed
access to the VMS prompt.  They are locked into ALL-IN-1.

The point being made is that if everyone had PC-based desktops with postscript
printers, it's all right to mail postscript files around.

If you mail postscript via ALL-IN-1, it takes several steps to get to the
point where you can actually print the postscript file.  This is a pretty 
daunting task for those who are used to using a dumb terminal.

Re 2589.31

>In many offices in Digital, the secretaries have a dumb terminal and ALL-IN-1 to
>work with.  No PC, no Pathworks.  Many people in the field are not even allowed
>access to the VMS prompt.  They are locked into ALL-IN-1.

With no access to VMS prompt ($), printing POSTSCRIPT (PS) file can be a real
pain.

>The point being made is that if everyone had PC-based desktops with postscript
>printers, it's all right to mail postscript files around.

Even those who manage to get PCs often do bot have PS printers attached. We are
a company which is trying to reduce the number of partly used assets and not
increase them.  

>If you mail postscript via ALL-IN-1, it takes several steps to get to the
>point where you can actually print the postscript file.  This is a pretty 
>daunting task for those who are used to using a dumb terminal.

The actual task is not so daunting if you have access to the VMS prompt, but it
is often a major waset of time and resources.  We do not need to have smartly
PS printed instructions, memos, etc for internal use.  Ordinary ASCII files are
quite sufficient.  If there is a special need for a PS file (graph, diagram,
etc) then it should be sent as a separate mail which can be extracted and
printed on its own, and not attached to several other items.  An example was
the 6000 line memo I received in All_In_1 yesterday written in WPSPLUS and 
including attachments in WPSPLUS, ASCII and two PS files, neither of which
really needed to have the quality provided by PS.  

PS files tie-up vast amounts of disk space, and cause much unnecessary 
printing, thus costing the company additional capital cost and increasing day
to day expenses.  Add to this the waste of time sorting out what needs to be
printed and working out how and where to do it. We cannot afford this waste!

Shalom
Baruch

    Actually Baruch, whilst I don't disagree with you, I think the points
    being made boil down to this:
    
    Why don't we *all* have a way of viewing PS files on-screen?
    
    Laurie.

>If you mail postscript via ALL-IN-1, it takes several steps to get to the
>point where you can actually print the postscript file.  This is a pretty 
>daunting task for those who are used to using a dumb terminal.

	It doesn't here.

	I just do

	P     to print

	and it prints just fine from ALL-IN-1.

	I suggest you get your system manglers to talk to ours, your techis
	are making your life difficult.

	Heather

    Heather,
    
    I would love to get the systems manglers here to talk to yours and make
    life easier for us.
    
    First problem is to find them - they only exist on the far side of a
    VTX application for reporting problems/suggesting improvements.
    
    Second problem is to get them to change the 'policy' that they use to
    run the systems - a policy which seems to have been written by Franz
    Kafka.  A policy which appears to have just 3 rules:
    	1  Only tell people about the rule they explicitly ask about;
    	2  Don't tell anyone all the rules;
    	3  Once you've told them a rule, quickly change it.
    
    Nick - (sorry - one of my depressed days today)

Re 2589.34 

Heather, I just had a quick discussion with one of our IS people and he said
that one of the problems was that the mails that arrive are in the WPSPLUS
format with a PS file attached, rather than being defined as a PS file to begin
with.  This makes it difficult to print directly from All-In-1.

Another question I raised was the problem of converting PS files back to a
workable document which can be editted (cutting a section to forward to someone
else, entering data, etc).  He said "that is a problem"!  

So, I go back to my original point, and that is "why use PS for standard
internal communications which do not need it?"  It costs more than other
formats, and we do not need extra costs on our P&L!!!

By the way, does anyone remember what the original topic of this note was? I do
not think that the base note was about postcript files.

Shalom
Baruch

>Heather, I just had a quick discussion with one of our IS people and he said
>that one of the problems was that the mails that arrive are in the WPSPLUS
>format with a PS file attached, rather than being defined as a PS file to begin
>with.  This makes it difficult to print directly from All-In-1.

	My postscript files come all sorts of ways,

	From mail from VTX SPD's, via vaxmail and the import function, copied
	in from the Data transfer option, as well as from
	ALL-IN-1 wpsplus documents with postscript attachments.

	They all print with no problem by just doing

	P

	They even all print properly if the attachements are from a mix of these
	sources with WPSplus docs in between.

	So, I suggest your IS person talks to ours.

	I believe there is still a control D problem if they originated from
	PC's, but this is currently being worked on.

>Another question I raised was the problem of converting PS files back to a
>workable document which can be editted (cutting a section to forward to someone
>else, entering data, etc).  He said "that is a problem"!  

	Postscript is a final form document, and not designed to be edited,
	although, if you are techi enough, it's possible.

	Heather

    Baruch --
    
    I plead guilty to having ratholed this topic.  However, since imho it
    had "reached asymptote" on the original matter being discussed, I don't
    feel TOO bad about it :-).  Again imho, since my .19 this discussion
    has been more valuable to the Corporation in terms of sparking internal
    discussion and learning RE PostScript, PC applications, and integration
    of the former with our internal working environment(s) than were the
    last 10 or so entries preceding it.
    
    Moderators:  feel free to move to a new basenote if IYHO it should be. :-)
    
    Cheers,
    
    Dan
    

Re 2589.37 

>        So, I suggest your IS person talks to ours.

OK Heather, your offer is accepted.  Who is the relevant IS person down your
way?  Location and DTN would be useful please.

Thanks

Shalom
Baruch

	Done offline.

    ALL-IN-1 V3.0 has greatly improved handling of PostScript attachments,
    or even PS embedded in text, than does the previous version 2.4. V3 is
    able to recognise the PS preamble automatically. Unfortunately a ^D
    character from MW-Windows applications defeats this. The trick is to
    have the application output what MSW calls "Encapsulated PostScript".
    
    Although 3.0 has been available for over a year, not all internal
    installations have upgraded. SUBURB:: is an exception, which is why its
    ALL-IN-1 users have fewer problems handling PS.
    
    	Richard.

    Richard
    
    Even with ALL-IN-1 v3.0 which we have got life is not all plain
    sailing.  It's the way IS ahs implemented that affects it and in
    moments of stress I still refer to it by one or other of the nicknames
    a customer gave it:
    
    		ALL-IN-VAIN	or ALL-IN-BITS
    
    Nick

    ... as long as it's in caps, that's what matters. :-)
    
    Of course, ALL-IN-1 is highly customisable and so can be rendered
    useless without the need for expensive, highly trained application
    programmers. :-) (again).
    
    Getting advice from other installations or the ALL-IN-1 conference
    (KP7) would seem to be a smart idea.
    
    	R.

    re the last couple
    
    Just make sure your IS guys uses DCPS (Print Supervisor) instead of CPS
    to run the postscript queues. DCPS (I believe was already stated in a
    previous note) has automatic format detection so even if ALL-IN-1
    prints the postscript code in text mode, the print queue will recognize
    it and inform the printer. Works fine here in Singapore Sales, saved
    lots of trees when people forgot about /para=data=post.

In an earlier note, I said that BJ left the company 
at the end of June. Well, I was wrong, but only 
about the month (I seemed to have been prescient however!).

I just saw a report that said that BJ is "resigning
to pursue other interests...". It further says that
his position as VP of Corp. Mktg has been largely
eclipsed by the hiring of Ed Lucente...

Jay