Conference 7.286::digital

2997.0. "HP marketing" by IDEFIX::65296::siren () Wed Apr 13 1994 10:42

I have recently received several invitations to symposiums/seminars from
Hewlett Packard. The top of the line was today, when I received a
phone call inviting me to a fiber networking seminar.

These are typically FREE one day seminars. Examples of the issues covered
are: Protocol conformance testing, Communications material design for
high speed networking (basicaly ATM),   Distributed systems design and 
the last one Fiber network design. Speakers are mainly from outside of
HP.

Marketing of these seminars is interesting - a leaflet sent to the 
address list of the visitors of a big trade show.

Why it's done, is another issue. They could be promoting HP's test 
equipment, or they could be promoting HP's consulting capabilities.
While the first one seems to be more obvious, it doesn't obviously 
hurt the consulting marketing either.

Any comments or opinions related to what we are doing?

--Ritva

    We just offered a free networking seminar in the Detroit
    area AND tossed in one free hour of consulting time during
    the seminar for those that were interested. Every consulting
    slot was filled for 3 hours and we received numerous leads.
    Turnout was outstanding.
    
    		-Jim-

We held a Network Technologies Seminar here in Syracuse in March that brought
in over 100 people with a mere 600 invitations, plus word of mouth by the
account reps.

We set up a demo area where we showed the DEChub 900, HUBwatch, and the 
wireless networking technology.

Feedback has been quite good, and a number of opportunities are being pursued
as a result.

We also received outstanding support from the network marketing folks.

Bob