Conference 7.286::digital

2830.0. "DIM humor" by NAC::OFSEVIT (card-carrying member) Tue Dec 28 1993 13:28

[Copied without permission from Communications Week, 12/20/93.]

Mier's Network Notes

THE BLOCKBUSTER MERGER OF 1994: BUT DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH

Edwin E. Mier

	With pundits and mugwumps from Jeanne Dixon to Dixon Doll
issuing their annual forecasts for the new year, how could I do otherwise?

	Here's the big industry news for 1994: IBM and Digital
Equipment Corp. will merge.  This will all start in the first quarter.

	But it'll be a rocky marriage from the start.  The negotiations
will drag on for months.  The biggest sticking points: what to name the
new company, and whether DEC or IBM is to be named the official
Takeoverer or the Takeoveree.

	Users are skeptical but remain cautiously optimistic.  Says Irv
Hollingwell, information director for First National Trust of
Pittsburgh, in June:  "We've got tons of DEC and IBM hardware.  They
don't talk to each other now--never did.  But maybe that'll change.  At
least we'll save money on the number of checks we write each month to these
two."

	On July 4, the new organization is announced:  Digital
International Machines.  At the news conference the new corporate logo
is unveiled: a red, white and blue light bulb.  The business and trade
press have a field day.  One newspaper heralds the merger with the
headline: "A DIM Future for IBM and DEC."

	On Sept. 1, the corporation announces its three top priorities:
to build a bullet train between Armonk, N.Y., and Maynard, Mass., to
shuttle executives between the two headquarters sites; to offer users a
way to integrate proprietary Systems Network Architecture and DECnet
networks by year's end; and to fully consolidate their international
sales and service organizations.

	But plans for the new bullet train fall apart.  The estimated
cost of $13.9 billion is said to be too much for a ride that still will
take more than an hour.  Instead, a new fleet of corporate jets will be
bought, and two new private airports built in each location.  Total
cost: less than $10 billion.  Wall Street heralds the move as a hard
business choice.

	In October, the company unveils a new networking architecture:
DIMnet Phase VI.  The solution to SNA and DECnet incompatibility?  To
migrate both protocols to new ones based on the Open Systems
Interconnection specifications.

	Wall Street heralds the move as a sure winner.  DIM's stock
rises to an all-time high.

	Two days later, with quarterly revenue figures in hand, DIM
announces it will lay off three-fourths of its remaining employees, and
that it will pull of out of the information-technology business once
and for all.  Instead, the company will commercialize the two new
airports and begin offering charter air service.

    A little DIMwitt I see....
    
    8^)...
    

Oh goody - I got a 2nd cousin that lives in Armonk. Are they going to serve
lunch on those flights?

    When I read it, I thought about why his premise is so silly.
    
    Nobody goes into the airline business any more.

    If the DIM stock can stay at $35/share for three quarters...I'll buy.

    Hmmmm -- So a while ago a customer gave me a Mier's article on DEC and I
    got a little testy.  This Mier person is a royal pain  -- in his
    parody, he delivers an ugly picture of Digital and the view that we
    can't figure out what to do.
    
    I just hope that some day soon we get the train rollin' down the tracks
    -- And when we du, I'm going to personally take Mier and tie his fat
    a## across those tracks -- The guy is really startin' to pi## me off!
    
    Aaaaaaaaarrrrgghhhhhhh!
    
    Dennis
    
    

    
    
    DIM is a registered Trade mark of panties ...