Conference 7.286::digital

re:       <<< Note 3179.0 by PASTIS::MONAHAN "humanity is a trojan horse" >>>

> Since a fair part of Easynet is managed by DC

Can this be substantiated?

-Jack

    re: .1
    
    Absolutely.  Digital Telecoms is part of DC; we all report to Brebach
    via Hogan and McNulty.

I can see just shutting down the SI business, but selling DC is an example
of just the kind of things that are thought about by higher ups who don't
have a clue about how the work is really done.  We are *so* dependent on
Easynet in the field that without it, or something like it, we would
be severely crippled.  Reminds me of the recent stories about the Siamese
twins who shared a heart.  One died after the operation to separate them.
The other died just recently.  I am dubious about DC surviving without
the rest of the company...

    re: .2
    
    The current SLT list posted in livewire shows McNulty reporting
    directly to Palmer, not to Brebach.  
    
    --bonnie

re:      <<< Note 3179.2 by CTHQ::MOHN "blank space intentionally filled" >>>

Well, I guess tthat isn't what I actually meant when I considered the term
"controlled". E.G. many/most systems are managed or even owned by telecom
or related organizations, but the populace using the machine and therefore
contributing substantially to the value/information available there might
be engineering or a business organization. What value do the "controlled"
systems have without the input from the organizations who provide the
information?

-Jack

    re:.4
    McNulty wears two hats.  As CIO, he reports to Palmer.  As VP OMS, he
    reports to Brebach.  OMS owns the Easynet and other internal networks.

    If I'm not mistaken McNulty left us back two or three weeks ago. Are
    you fully vested after six months???
    
                              JJD

If Digital is busted up then I expect the remenants to adopt some kind
of IP-based network and abandon the current DECnet-based one. The easynet
will probably wither and die.

Can VAXnotes use IP as a transport? (UCX? TVG? Wollongong?)

Lee

>>    If I'm not mistaken McNulty left us back two or three weeks ago. Are
>>    you fully vested after six months???
  

Unsubstantiated rumor.

>>Can VAXnotes use IP as a transport? (UCX? TVG? Wollongong?)

	Yes.

						mike

    
    I just got the following info:
    
    As of about 5 minutes ago the Digital Consulting has been sold to
    Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) out of the Cambridge office.  This is what
    the employees there are being told.
    

    Cambridge Mass?  England?

    Massachusetts
    
    

 rep. 11

 Digital consulting is NOT MCS. Get the facts.

   Re: Note 3179.11 by DIODE::CROWELL "Jon Crowell"
   

    
�    As of about 5 minutes ago the Digital Consulting has been sold to
�    Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) out of the Cambridge office.  This is what
�    the employees there are being told.
   
   Who is telling the employees this?  Other rumor spreading employees,
   or someone who has some credibility in representing Digital to the
   employees on this matter?

Re: .11

What do you mean by 'MCS Sold??' in your note title?

My assumption:          DC =    Digitial Consulting
                        MCS=    Multivendor Customer Services

Lee

    re .8:
    
    "EASYnet .. DECnet based" well it used to be. Currently it supports a
    number of protocols including IP. It strikes me as a shame that more
    people are not aware of this.
    

    Back to the topic...
    
    DC does manage a considerable part of E-net.  It may even own some
    (most?) of it, I do not know. BUT, the important part here is that in
    seperating DC from Digital you have to address these support issues. 
    This is compounded by DC being responsible for a LOT of other
    functions that make up the Digital environment.
    
    Unfortuantely, networks do not manage themselves, internal software
    systems do not change to meet new requirements of the ever changing
    Digital.  Of course, them there is training...
    
    And, of course, there are the external customer projects done by DC.
    
    Unfortunately, DC suffers from much the same problem that is faced by
    Digital.  Very few know what it does completely.
    
    If DC is to be spun off (all or part) there would (IMHO) have to be a
    major re-structuring of DC in order to better define its components and
    roles in order to make a more accurate assessment it.  Given the rumor
    of the 'holding company' organization making the rounds, this may be
    that step, I do not know.  Merging it with MCS (part of the holding
    company rumor) presents some interesting possibilities.
    
    How would all this affect E-net and the way we work is THE KEY
    question.  E-net, IMHO, is much to close to the souil of Digital for
    comfort.  It would have to stay as part of Digital and so would the
    cost of supporting it.  And I guess, the costs would go up.  Or E-net
    would be 'right-sized', whatever that means.
    
    So, how would we change the way we work if there were no (or greatly
    reduced) E-net?  Well, in 19070...
    rww

    Make that 1970.  I have fat fingers.
    
    rww

Most parts of Digital rely heavily on EasyNet and their value as a seperate 
business would be greatly reduced if access to EasyNet was removed, the 
buyer would have to invest heavily just to get the spun-off business 
operational again.

In this context the rumor that EasyNet is being sold to MCI and we will 
rent back capacity makes sense as a step enabling parts of Digital to be 
sold off as viable businesses and retain EasyNet access.

Maybe there is some sense in some of these rumors after all ...

Terry

RE: .20

	Get the rumour straight please. The rumour is that the DLN, the
	Digital Lightwave Network, is to be sold to MCI. That's basically
	in New England. Hardly "The Easynet" unto itself, just a part of
	it, and the hardware at that. The Easynet is hardware and
	software. Some of the hardware we lease from vendors like MCI,
	other parts we own outright, like the DLN.

							mike

DLN may be the part of our network that MCI wants to buy, but if I was a 
senior manager in Digital looking to sell off whole organizations that rely 
on the EasyNet I would be looking for a way to split off the EasyNet with 
minimal impact on the businesses I keep but allowing the business that get 
sold to remain viable.

Offering MCI a deal whereby they buy all the inter-site links that we own 
(and hence get DLN) and get a contract to provide us with all our 
inter-site communications (in the US at least) would seem like a good deal 
for both sides under the circumstances. With their link up to British 
Telecom (BT) MCI may even be able to provide the European and 
trans-Atlantic communications as well...

This is just my oppinion, I have no hard facts to back it up, other than 
the fact that MCI are interested in some part of Digital (why else would 
they file the anti-trust paperwork?).

Terry

    re:.22
    MCI already has that contract.  The vast majority of intra-US
    inter-LATA links were switched from AT&T to MCI last fall.  These
    include links used by Easynet, DTN and other networks.

re: DC's purported reliance on the easynet

why not just get on the internet like much of the rest of the world??
the death or sale of easynet need not cripple anyone unless they're also
determined to perpetuate anachronistic paradigms like trying to operate in a
worldwide market from a self-contained network, and the timeless 'proprietary to
the end' model.

mark

    I think it was Digital's reliance on E-net that was being discussed. 
    DC is only part of Digital that uses E-net.  But it does part a large
    part in the management of E-net.  Are you suggesting that Digital
    abondon E-net and convert to using Internet?
    
    rww

    As a user of both the Internet and the Easynet, I am not sure I would
    want my company totally reliant on the Internet.  First of all, it is
    not quite as easy as just getting everyone signed up through a service
    like Delphi or America On-line.  People need accounts and your systems
    need to be linked to the network (remember this is a network of
    networks).  If you require network access to your applications
    (remember how spoiled we are), then your applications must be capable
    of conversing via TCP/IP (how many of ours are?).  Most of this is not
    free, although it may be cheaper than buying everything on a dedicated
    basis.  Finally, you have millions of intelligent, curious people
    kicking the tires and trying to play open house with the systems we
    put on the Internet.  Would you want your intellectual property being
    perused by strangers - I don't think so. I realize that Digital has
    interconnected the Easynet, with the Internet, but we have used
    security magic to ensure that people see only what we want them to see. 
    I am not sure that you want to or can go the full route and attempt to
    use the Internet as the backbone.

    The issue is the not physical network we use, but the access we have to
    people on that net. One assumes that if DC is split off it will no
    longer have free access to ask engineers still at DEC for advice- via
    Enet or Internet or US Mail.
    
    I can tell you my success as a consultant would be SEVERELY cut if I
    couldnt get answers from DEC engineers using Notes, or Enet mail.
    
    And I do have Internet access, both at DEC and a personal account, and
    I do understand and appreciate Usenet news. Its also very valuable, and
    without it I would also be handicapped.

    Internet can well be a companys entire network. There are many
    applications that use TCP/IP (outside of DEC anyway).
    
    We sell a 'firewall' to connect compaines to the internet in a secure
    fashion. You get the connection you need, and the 'curious hackers'
    dont get in. Among others, the Whitehouse has a DEC SEAL connection.
    
    The Easynet is nice- buts it a only a way to talk to ourselves. The
    rest of the world seems not to view DEC as the center of the universe.

 >  The issue is the not physical network we use, but the access we have to
 >  people on that net. One assumes that if DC is split off it will no
 >  longer have free access to ask engineers still at DEC for advice- via
 >  Enet or Internet or US Mail.

well, you know what happens when one assumes.  this assumption is bogus. i can
be reached via an IP address by folks inside and outside this company...and
am on a daily basis.  that said, there is no reason that i am aware of that
would preculde the continuation and quality of contact that you and others have
enjoyed to date.
    
>    I can tell you my success as a consultant would be SEVERELY cut if I
>    couldnt get answers from DEC engineers using Notes, or Enet mail.

as per the above, i am unaware why this would have to be the case.


>    And I do have Internet access, both at DEC and a personal account, and
>    I do understand and appreciate Usenet news. Its also very valuable, and
>    without it I would also be handicapped.


that is right, usenet newsgroups provide the same kind of information exchange
that notes do...albeit with *far* greater readership by virtue of the fact that
it is not DEC-only.

cheers,
mark

    Is Internet world wide or U.S. only?
    
    rww

Internet is international. I would be surprised if it doesn't cover more
countries than ENET.

    I don't think easynet will get trashed, but if any orgs are sold
    off, they'll have to become gatewayed or removed from our internal
    Enet.  They'll most likely still be connected via Internet. 
    For example, our (former) Greenville SC plant is still gatewayed into 
    digital.
    
    From a business standpoint, internet is not the only way to go, or
    we can't just junk/sell easynet and work via internet (at least not yet).
    For example with me (or for the person who'll need to "reach" engineer's
    etc...) customers _could_ contact me via e-mail, and I _could_ answer
    them.  But the goal is to have our customers pay for service.  So in
    this context, we can't just say "we can use the internet".   People
    could use front end systems to connect into our knowledge base systems
    (which are served out/housed on our Enet) via internet and recieve service 
    that way (for a fee).  I think some of our front end systems could "use 
    improvement". 
    
    I fear Internet, at least in the US will come under federal guidelines,
    as a lot of what the "information superhighway" will use or suppliment
    "the internet".  This could cause problems.
                                                 
    Now is the time when we'll see all the little pieces and resources 
    available on the global network(s) called internet tied together.  Some 
    resources on E-net will be served out and become resources in themselves. 
    Companies who can best use these resources will have an advantage.  IMO: I 
    think digital is working towards leveraging this technology. 
    
    MadMike

    The Internet is far greater that the Easynet ever could be - it has
    experienced exponential growth over the past few years. It hit over 1
    million conected hosts some time last year - compare that to a few
    hundred thoudand on the Easynet (at best).
    If you want to see where the Internet goes get on the web (WWW)
    and look at some of the distant places connected from Antartica to most
    of the former Soviet Republics.....
    
    >>""Is the Internet larger that the Easynet?""
    
    See, we DO live in a closet !

    Re: a few back
    
    Sorry, but I don't buy the equality of an Internet news group with a
    notes file.  No way, Hose' - most of a newsfile is continuous drivvle
    with occasional information.  The very fact that the data ages and is
    discarded drives the repetition of the mundane questions.
    
    Charlie

DEC oughta whip up a version of Notes that runs on many different
platforms and turn it loose at a reasonable price... and make the clients
ultra cheap/free. Eventually it could become an alternative to
newsgroups.

Lee (who also grows tired of seeing the same old questions over and over
in newsgroups... even though there is a periodic FAQ).

So, if it's viable to sell off "the Easynet" and just use the
Internet for our comms needs, shouldn't we also shut
down the DTN and using the public phone service for all our
phone needs?

��    Sorry, but I don't buy the equality of an Internet news group with a
��    notes file.  No way, Hose' - most of a newsfile is continuous drivvle
��    with occasional information.  The very fact that the data ages and is
��    discarded drives the repetition of the mundane questions.

    You're kidding, right?  This file is a drivel magnet. Who
    cares whether the ZKO cafeteria has sporks?

    And mundane questions are never repeated here:
    	Can I get unemployment benefits while collecting TFSO?
    	What does TFSO stand for?
    	What are the details of the next early retirement?
    	What's the TFSO package after July 1st?
    	What's the phone number for the Worcester Centrum?

    And, TA DA, news has kill files, something notes sorely lacks!

    By the way, as a difference valuer, I think the name is Jos�.
    Hos� is what you ask for in a Canadian hardware store -- as
    in "Where's the hos�?"

Yeah but most product-related notesfiles have a high signal-to-noise ratio.

    
    
    i admit that there is some repeat of questions on newsgroups and
    i am sure that that is at least partly due to the fact that the
    newsservers do not keep the articles around forever.  notes does have
    this advantage.  kill files do have a use, as was noted earlier.
    
    personally, i prefer newsgroups to notes in just about all cases. the
    surprising yet key reason that this is true is that despite the fact
    that every newsgroup has a potentially vastly greater readership, i
    find the signal to noise ratio in technical conferences to be much more
    palatable than that in notes.  your mileage may vary.
    
    mark
    

    > So, if it's viable to sell off "the Easynet" and just use the
    > Internet for our comms needs,
    
    It's been established that it's not viable.
    
    re: Signal to noise of notes/news groups.
    If this stuff were offered by digital to paying customers via internet,
    I'm sure it would be moderated and packaged to look professional.
    We already have many notes files available though the WWW, and we
    have DSNlink which can find info located in our stars databases, and
    we have folks who sit on CompuServe conferences and other places.
    We need to take the next step (or steps) and consolidate our services
    into one standard, consistant group of services.
    
    MadMike
           

�             <<< Note 3179.35 by CSOADM::ROTH "What, me worry?" >>>
�                       -< cheap DECnotes for everyone! >-
�
�DEC oughta whip up a version of Notes that runs on many different
�platforms and turn it loose at a reasonable price... and make the clients
�ultra cheap/free. Eventually it could become an alternative to
�newsgroups.

See the conference ISVNET::NETNOTES.  Not by Digital, but by a former Digital
Notes engineer.  It runs on many different platforms, all running Windows ;-).
TCP/IP-based.

j.

    The Easynet can be discarded if one were to break Digital into several
    autonomous companies which no longer have much communication with each
    other.

>    The Easynet can be discarded if one were to break Digital into several
>    autonomous companies which no longer have much communication with each
>    other.

Only if the serveral autonomous companies were located geographically
in one place (each).

If the serveral autonomous companies were dispersed world-wide like 
the current monolithic Digital, then those serveral autonomous companies
would need several autonomous Easynets to talk, wouldn't they. ;-)

...petri

    Re: Notes and the Internet.  Digital already has Notes clients for
    Unix, Windows, DOS and Mac, and Notes (even DEC Notes for VAX 2.5) runs
    over TCP/IP as well as over DECnet.  There are also non-VAX servers. 
    So somebody today could run Notes over the Internet.  I proposed
    yesterday (in the INTERNET_TOOLS conference) that we publish the
    client-server protocol and make Notes an Internet standard.  We'd have
    a head start even as others implement it.  A problem, I've since
    learned, is that the existing Notes protocol is a bit ugly and would
    not look too good in an RFC....
    
    Re: Easynet.  In fact, Easynet runs a lot like the Internet.  There is
    no one owner, in the sense of having one manager inside Digital. 
    Ownership is dispersed among many managers, some of whom may seriously
    dislike each other.  A single top-level address space administration
    keeps them from clobbering each other.  But the circuits and routers
    are bought by different CCs, with lots of inefficiency and no attempt
    to be globally optimal.  Quite literally, nobody's accountable.  Each
    CC manager attempts to shift cost to the other CCs.  (This is like
    getting shopping around among public carriers for the best rates.)
    They are all supposed to roll up to Jim Hogan (VP, GCPS, part of OMS,
    part of DC) but Jim's latest "organization" literally divides ownership
    at least six ways.  Public Internet can't be much worse; at least its
    providers are mostly trying to make a profit, not shoot each other.
    
    Internet, however, is a "network of networks".  Digital as a user is
    supposed to put networks on the edge of Internet.  We could, I suppose,
    give up our cherished Net 16 space and create many local nets, tied
    together via multiple CIX providers, but it would probably be more
    efficient if we had a single corporate network.

>A problem, I've since
>    learned, is that the existing Notes protocol is a bit ugly and would
>    not look too good in an RFC....

Frankly, I find this hard to believe after reading through a few RFC's.  It
sure seemed like anything was fair game - but, then what do I know, I do
that other protocol.  ;-)

--Scott

     
    >Frankly, I find this hard to believe after reading through a few RFC's. 
    >It sure seemed like anything was fair game - but, then what do I know, I
    >do that other protocol.  ;-)
    
    well, given that RFC = Request For Comment it is true that anything
    goes...or at least, anything can go.  RFCs typically get refined thru 
    many iterations of comments and usually turn into quite credible papers
    proposing a standard or way of doing something.  conversely, there are
    some RFCs written about boring and/or quite esoteric things that
    receive little, if any feedback...and it is these that are the best
    candidates for a shabby result.
    
    mark
    
    re: that other protocol (OSI) - now there is an example of a protocol
    stack that seems to have been derived with complexity being the chief
    design goal!  (quarter smile here)
    
    

    rathole:
    
    Just saw a .sig that sums up the OSI protocol to a tee:
    
    X.400: same day delivery,
    ...in a nanosecond world.
    
    --- Gavin

The Internet isn't defined by protocol, but by connectivity, and as such, the
nodes in DEC represent a significant portion of the Internet.  I would say
that the Internet is similarly part of the Easynet.

And even if you define Internet as having an IP address, the number of IP
addresses assigned to devices in the Easynet are in the 10,000s and has the
potential for going to the 100,000s given the use of SNMP for managing
everything in the world.  Want to manage that disk drive?  Well, you need
an IP address for it first.

>    Just saw a .sig that sums up the OSI protocol to a tee:
>    
>    X.400: same day delivery,
>    ...in a nanosecond world.

Your statement is truer than you realize, but in a different way than you
probably expected.  If you read the notes related to decision to officially
drop GOSIP as a requirement, you find that X.400 and X.500 are the top
two protocols with significant impact on the services that users see that
are not met by Internet protocols.  OSI connectionless transport was noted
as the best candidate for the basis for IPng, but since this is not visible
to users, it is not driven by user and application requirements.

One of the major holes in our network products is support for RFC1006 in VMS;
if and when this becomes available, all the applications that we are well
acquainted with as DECnet applications become `IP' applications.  That could
very well offer the major new capabilities to users that would create an
increase in demand for network applications.  For many in DEC, IP offers
less capability with more aggravation.  Why bother with IP if you want to
use VTX when you can use VTX without doing anything?  Why bother with IP
to get stash and heave mail (like X.400) with SMTP when you get IMMEDIATE
delivery with MAIL-11 protocol.  But if you want stash and heave, why bother
with IP and all the mystery of SMTP and MX and sendmail and all the other
complexity of ALL-IN-1 mail when you can use the very simple and entirely
locally managed NMAIL.

The thing that you need to focus on is what the customer values, not the
technodrivel of the internals.  It is Mosaic that caught everyone's eye,
not gopher or www.  The key author of Mosaic notes that it is a bandwidth
hog, but within the environment of the Super Comuting Center, that wasn't
a problem.  The challenge for the original Mosaic team is to redo Mosaic into
something that can be used by people without access to high speed networks
and that offers enough value that people will pay for it rather than use it
because it is free.

Likewise, the Easynet will remain as a resource as long as it offers real
or percieved value to the people who have to authorize paying for it.

    re .-1
    
    Finally somebody who understands that the technobabble of the day
    (i.e. IP is cool, but DECnet and OSI is bad, etc.) is nothing but pop
    culture and bad technology.
    
    Technology offers alternatives and tradeoffs.  Internet is an
    ALTERNATIVE to one's own value added network - which we, Digital, have.
    
    The really sad thing about all of this is that we use so much bandwidth
    to internally communicate and not enough to effectively manage.
    
    As I said in a private note to one writer here...I know of NO
    Fortune-500 company who has the network access and ability to transport
    data that Digital has.  I can get ANYTHING to ANY Digital location that
    is on the network - and virtually all are (ok, save for Eastbejjesus or
    Westbygod).  However our real tragedy is not being able to focus this
    resource in effective delivery.
    
    The real crying shame is that most folks in Digital don't realize that
    they do have Decnet or IP connectivity and that we have done a poor job
    in advertizing it.  And, even when we do, the products like our Secure
    External Access Link (SEAL) are so poorly architected from an
    implementation, sales and support, that they are impediments.
    
    I hope that we DO retain Easynet - the multi-protocol network that it
    is. 
    
    Regards,
    j
    ^-sitting at a workstation in Pittsburgh with a window opened to an OA
    system in Chicago and another window into an ELF server to lookup a
    name while searching Sales Updates at a server in Mass in another
    window.....

    
    
    re: -1
    signed,
    mark - who is reading your entry in VAXnotes and setting display back
    to a DECstation over a SLIP link.
    
    

    
    	These past three notes (maybe five, who's counting) really make me
    wonder. Why aren't we selling the stuffing out of this?
    
    	Always believed in the "Network is the system", but Digital seems
    to get completely unglued at the prospect of actually promoting and
    selling our technologies that **enable** people.
    
    	Am I missing the politics?
    
    		the Greyhawk

    
>    	Always believed in the "Network is the system", but Digital seems
>       to get completely unglued at the prospect of actually promoting and
>       selling our technologies that **enable** people.
>    
>    	Am I missing the politics?
    
	Not the politics. Possibly the strategic marketing understanding and
    	capability to implement such a strategy.
    
        Digital's capability to enable a distributed working paradigm
    	is second to none. This is a combination of both technology _and_
    	organisational practices e.g. everybody is expected to read their
    	electronic mail (I've worked at companies where email was
    	considered 'too difficult' by management) also product
     	documentation, sales materials etc are all generally standardly
    	available.
    
    	Packaging and selling this enabling _capability_ i.e. the
    	capability to guide and support an enterprise to a true
    	distributed enterprise work paradigm instead of
    	just trying to push client/server _technology_ would show
    	real market differentiation in an area where Digital could
    	easily leave the competition in the dust.
    
    	What most of us do on the network everyday here in Digital
    	would make 95% of all enterprises green with jealousy.
    
    	Its obvious to me that Digital should not be just trying to sell
    	(client/server) _technology_ but _capability_ (i.e. the 
        capability to solve one of the most urgent requirements of
    	all large corporations - true enterprise wide connectivity
    	including _both_ the technology and organisational practices). 
    
        This is of course all just Marketing 101. So long Digital promotes 
        itself as the leading client/server solutions vendor it _is_ 
        positioning itself as a technology pusher and as such 
        is _undifferentiating_ itself from the competition.
        Instead of (desparately) trying to move _up_ the value add 
        chain it appears almost as if we're currently trying to move 
        back _down_. 
    
        re roelof
    	
                                                

    RE: .52
    
    HEAR! HEAR!!!
    
    Laurie.

    re: .51, etc...
    
    Selling the stuffing out of something is not quite so simple as it
    seems.  During my life prior to Digital I had occasion to work for a
    very large corporation as a Software Engineer.  I was an anomaly in the
    company as it was largely populated by mechanical engineers, linked to
    the main computer system at the mother company by modems.
    
    At any rate, I was a DEC literate and was campaigning for my group to
    purchase the latest thing, a MicroVAX II.  It took over a year to
    convince 'n' levels of management that I wasn't trying to replace the
    company 'mainframe' (a Cyber) and subvert the IS department.  Finally
    the system was installed in my department.  A co-worker and I then
    strung rs-232 lines to each office in our work-group for direct
    connectivity, including the work-group supervisor (a mainframe-limited
    imagination).
    
    Now at this company, meeting notices were duplicated from a master
    copy, cut into 3x4 inch cards and then hand-delivered to your desk
    by the department secretary.  My idea was simple.  Use VAXmail for the
    meeting notices through use of the distribution list mechanism!
    
    After showing my supervisor some rudimentary DCL commands and how to
    send email I was sure I had boot-strapped this company into the 20th
    century!  The next day when I arrived at work my supervisor took me
    aside and told me to pull the cable from his office as he had
    discovered a flaw in the email plan.  "It won't work because if someone
    doesn't log in that day then they won't get their meeting notice!".
    
    I was stunned by the simple stupidity of this situation!  Here was
    technology clearly solving an immense problem and opening up the future
    for all sorts of new ideas and it couldn't be used.  Why???  Because
    this company was paper-based.  They used computers to solve engineering
    problems but didn't use them to solve business problems.  The company
    was not mature enough to recognize the value of email or electronic
    networking but they were aware that they didn't want to change the way
    they did business.
    
    The lesson I learned from this episode (and others) is that we at
    Digital realize the value of what we have (easynet, notes, email)
    because it is the way we do business.  It didn't just spring up, it
    evolved and now is part of the fabric of Digital.  More than that, the
    users of the tools are intellectually enlightened enough to be able to
    build newer functionality simply becaues of their technologically
    evolution.
    
    When you go onto a customer's site as a user of the wondrous world of
    Digital you MUST get into the customer's way of doing business and
    understand it well (i.e. step back in time, way back!) before
    attempting to infuse the technology that we take for granted.
    
    Chuck

    Yes, the people who use a network every day know all the benefits of
    being able to instantly connect to the information they need, or at
    least search for it very quickly, or follow a trail of pointers to a
    person who can help.  We know the problems pretty well, too. 
    
    Trouble is, a lot of management, and I'm not speaking only about this
    company and I'm not speaking only about technically illiterate
    managers, don't see any benefits that are worth anything on a corporate
    level.  They see corporate problems, potential gaping corporate
    liabilities, impossibility of controlling proprietary information,
    whole new areas of interpersonal conflict and conflict of interest,
    impossibility of keeping the work force under control.  They see
    rabble-rousing, discontent, and general chaos.  They see employees
    sinking time into arguing about various aspects of the angels-on-a-
    head-of-a-pin questions when they should be working on projects.  They
    see line workers making alliances that undermine corporate structures. 
    
    No, a lot of people who make purchasing decisions are not big fans of
    international networking....
    
    --bonnie

    re: -.1
    
    Hmm, sounds like Digital's network. :)
    
    re: GOSIP/IP/DECnet/NETBEUI/ETC
    
    My X.400 joke was toung-in-cheek. IMO, a marraige of X.400 and SMTP
    would produce a very nice mail transport (P1/P2). My previous
    experiences with X.400 have been rocky at best. The management tools
    and knowledge base just don't seem to be there as they are for SMTP or
    VAXmail.
    
    X.500 at this point I can do without. My previous impression of the
    directory service protocol was that it would be the database to the
    world. Not only would it support X.400 addresses, application objects,
    etc., but it would also replace DNS for host->address mapping. I took a
    class at Interop on X.500, and didn't see all of the 'bits' present.
    
    I'm also glad that GOSIP compliance has been dropped. *Every*
    government agency I've worked with has a waiver for GOSIP. No general
    users ever had any idea of what GOSIP was, or any intention of using
    it. I think OSI is very important though...
    
    A friend of mine works at Colorado Supernet. His task for the last
    month or so? Carefully watching the Cicso router attached to the
    regional provider, and trying to implement classless IP. We've had long
    discussions concerning classless IP, IPng, RFC1006, etc. Address space
    exhaustion isn't the Internets big problem right now, 64MB or routing
    tables is. This is one big problem! :)
    
    --- Gavin

    
    .53,.54,.55
    
    	Veeery interesting. So it would appear the problem of selling our
    real networking technology (as opposed to hardware pieces), is our
    inability to explain to other firms' senior management why a classless
    society is good for them.
    
    	I expect it will be OK for them to understand that the alternative
    may well be "your kids/grandkids will need to learn Japanese/Chinese if
    they want a real job in the 21st century."
    
    	One thing I've learned in 25 years selling High Tech is real
    simple....
    
    	How you make profits today is not how you are going to make profits
    tomorrow. And I've flat told many CEOs - if you aren't the change
    leader in your marketplace, your competitors' will be.
    
    	Now how can we make this network thing a part number?
    
    		the Greyhawk
    

    Re: .57
    
>    	How you make profits today is not how you are going to make profits
>    tomorrow. And I've flat told many CEOs - if you aren't the change
>    leader in your marketplace, your competitors' will be.
    
    What kind of firms are you calling on that the CEOs didn't already know
    this?
    
    The point I was trying to make is that state-of-the-art is a concept
    help by the customer and not by the sales rep.  It is the position of
    the sales rep to be able to position the available product offering
    into the customer's vision of state-of-the-art.  For Digital this has
    always been easy as we lead the customers.  It is when we lead the
    customers by a long ways that it is difficult to sell anything as they
    do not have a vision.
    
    Sometimes what we are selling is absolute pure rocket science.  So do
    we educate the customer or dumben ourselves?  We lead most customers by
    too far and the customers vision is very short-sighted, thus it gets
    down to a price comparison (and because we're selling Cadillacs we
    lose).
    
    cw
    

With the current state of affairs, I have been thinking what it would mean to
leave Digital, and to work somewhere else (an S.I. company, for example).

From what I hear, very few companies - even I.T. companies - have any
connectivity at all. I was talking to somebody from CAP-Gemini last week, and
they have internal E-mail - no other applications, no connectivity with the
outside world.

I suppose I could do my job without the connectivity that I'm used to - although
I can hardly imagine it. I don't know, however, whether I could do my job *as
well* (as efficiently).

(I have the impression that smaller I.T. companies are more likely to have
 connectivity than larger ones.)

    re: .54 ....Amen!
    
    I've recently been on a customer site, IBM mainframe shop and mentality,
    even to still having 80 column punch cards.
    
    They also have a VAX because the software they wanted didn't run on
    "the IBM". (Strange aside, the IBM computer is called "the IBM" our VAX is
    called "the IDX".)
    
    One of the managers is concerned with knowing the outcome of a daily
    batch job (what else!).  I told him that I'd set it up so that he'd get
    an email message every time the job ran, reporting the results.
    
    He informed me that they didn't use email, they had taken a step up in
    technology and had voice mail (yup, just like digital's).  He
    considered email old technology and besides he gets everything he needs
    from "the IBM" and doesn't know how to use "the IDX".
    
    Talk about culture shock.  Here every manager has a PC on their desk
    and a ~$1500 HP laser printer.  No networking.  Paper memos are flying
    all over the place and each manager I know prints about 5 pages a day.
    They rarely share stuff even using floppies!
    
    There are, however, a lot of neat laser printed signs around about picnics,
    raffles, management announcements, decrees, etc.
    
    But it's obvious, this stuff doesn't sell itself!
    
     

.60 reminds me how "mail" worked on an IBM system (VM/CMS) I used previously -
to send someone something, you'd "punch" it on your virtual card punch, and send
it to their virtual card reader. They'd be notified that something was in their
virtual card reader, and read it.

That was also how they handled the interface between the batch and interactive
systems - you'd send your file to a special (nonexistent) card punch, and the
resulting "cards" would be read by a simulated card reader. You'd still have to
go to the computer building to pick up the printout.

    
    	My points exactly. Contrary to popular belief, most CEOs have the
    "technical" vision of snails, especially when it comes to "linking"
    people, procedures, and processes across an enterprise as opposed to
    within a department. A great many I talk to are amazed at their
    kids/grandkids abilities to "play" with PCs and haven't even mentality
    made the transition of this technology to their businesses. What is
    even more incredible, is that they look at PCs as word processors or
    spreadsheet machines, and nothing more.
    
    	My point in this conference is the gaining of ideas on how to
    "market" our networking skills and expertise to these people. Talking
    to their MIS depts. etc. is a waste of time, since they are most
    opposed to anything that "threatens" their (MIS) power base. This then
    becomes an exective issue, and must be sold accordingly.
    
    		the Greyhawk