Conference 7.286::digital

    FWIW: COMPAQ managed $2.5b in revenues this last quarter, blew by Digital
    to become #1 in the lucrative server market in both the US and Europe,
    and has a grand total of 234 salespeople.  kb
    

    Really???  50% of all sales people TFSO'd *today*?  THat's thousands of
    people, right?  
    	Jim_who_doesn't_know_much_about_sales

RE .1

Digital's end-user sales force (or what little there is left of it
after this morning) are in a very different market than that of the
Compaq salesperson. It is unfair to compare a sales force that sells a
commodity such as Compaq with a sales force selling complete
information systems. 

A much better comparison would be to compare the Compaq sales force 
to that of our PC-by-DEC telesales organization. When a company is
going to purchase a large scale commercial computing environment to
run a "bet-your-business" application - say claims processing for
example - they don't call Compaq.

I am not saying one business is better or more profitable than another.
I am just saying you cannot compare them. It is not fair to all the
excellent sales people that are losing thier jobs as pointed out by .0.

-M


	

    To my understanding, we had 2200 sales folk in US. Approx 1100 were
    canned this morning. I heard fleet admin called in 1000 company cars
    today.
    
    My level 1 manager told myself only 2 weeks ago I was totally "safe".
    
    HP & IBM must be watering at their mouths! Free food.

Compaq sales force is focused on selling to their resellers.

Digital has a direct sales force.

If Digital gets rid of that direct sales force, it needs to increase
its reseller force.

I am not going to question the decision to change the selling model, its
become very obvious that the current way of doing things is not the most 
effective,

BUT there are 2 ways we can do this:

1. Sack the direct sales force, have a big lag while we build up the 
indirect force, train new resellers, fix our margins so we are the most
attractive of the options a reseller has....leading to no account handover,
a big revenue slump, opportunities for competitors, ...

OR

2. As we build up the reseller network, we gradually change the nature of
our salesforce by giving them resellers as customers with explicit goaling
to ensure the resellers are successful. The salesmen may even join the
reseller. The customer gets sensible account follow-on and remembers that
Digital didnt dump them or relegate them to a second string account.

Seems like the former is being done. I think this will be a disaster.

In my town, Digital has done most of its selling directly to date. There is
only one reseller that has any SI capability and they are rubbing their
hands together at the prospect. But they are not ready yet, and there is
a tendency for them to push even Microsoft vapourware (EMS) over our 
product (Mailbus 400) because the sales cycle for our goods is harder. We 
have an infrastructure totally dedicated to the direct force, this has to 
change. I am not seeing planning that accounts for these lag effects at 
all.


- John

Is the statement in .0 a rumor, or what actually happened?  Can someone con-
firm this?  I've seen notes in here that state 60% were layed off on (I assume)
Monday, August 1.

Rob

>>Is the statement in .0 a rumor, or what actually happened?

The author of .0 was TFSO'd yesterday, so it's a fact.  The New York Financial
"District" is now down to 17 reps (from over 50 not too long ago).  Many
valued support people are gone.  Some managers are gone, but most found
IC or other management jobs.  Some were warned, some were suprised.  New
regional "marketing" teams are being formed as we speak.

The changes were inevitable.  Implementation, however, is questionable.

    As I set here this morning it is eerily quiet, almost like a ghost
    town. About 50% of our sales force was wacked yesterday...many with 10
    or more years with Digital, some as they attended DEC100. I didn't
    sleep well last night, even though I was spared this time. The thoughts
    of how the 2 remaining sales people that we have on the world's largest
    company are going to cover that account kept running through my head.
    The answer kept coming back that we're not...we're going to be lucky
    to answer the irrate customer phone calls and keep the current installed 
    base serviced for things they want to buy. We won't have much time for 
    selling. But hey, we're savin' money.
    
    I recently ask senior field management for something to use to answer
    my customers' questions about were Digital is headed...after all these
    cuts. I got nothing back, because noone knew. I looked at the recently
    released Digital "In Focus" pitch...it says nothing. What's missing is
    some VISION for Digital. All we have are some financial statements and
    some technical product directions. Without a vision, it is left up to
    the customer to figure out what to use Digital for and how to use the
    spiffy technologies that are highlighted. Even the trade rags are on
    our case that we haven't defined a marketplace that we're going to
    focus on or how we intend to generate the revenue stream that is
    necessary to turn this company around. 
    
    My fear is not that we're another WANG, but rather that we're another 
    DG! We seem to be spiralling down towards some smaller, steady-state 
    based primarily on hardware buying from a VAR customer base. 
    
    OFWAMI 
    
     
    
     
    
    

Re .7,

Sorry, I didn't realize that the author of .0 represented 50% of the sales
force :-) :-) :-)

Maybe I should have formulated my question better...

Is there any official announcement on this being corporate or US-wide, or is
this just local observation?

Rob

    
    And all those big SPLAT sounds you hear are the deals all these people
    were working on when they were canned. No transition, nothing....
    
    If someone up there would have used a little common sense and set it up
    so that a TFSOed salesperson would work as a contractor for 3 months to
    close or transition work in progress and get payed a protion of the
    profit. Now HP or IBM will attack and capture the business before one
    of are very competent VARS as a chance to react.
    
    

    What I find most dispicable is that the upper level managers who were
    layed off were able to keep a job as an IC, and fire the IC instead.
    Probably keeping their much inflated salary too! Should this stuff be
    allowed!
    
    Say it ain't so Todd.  And by the way whats going to happen to that big
    deal you guys were working on with HBO.  ??????????????????????????????
    
    

>>    What I find most dispicable is that the upper level managers who were
>>    layed off were able to keep a job as an IC, and fire the IC instead.
>>    Probably keeping their much inflated salary too! Should this stuff be
>>    allowed!

Happens all over the place, over and over and over again...

I heard a rumor that the job code freeze that was in place was, in part, to
take care of this type of deal (mgr->ic usually ment a job code change).  It
didn't matter.....

bjm

    All part of the problem and the general concensus from the I/C
    personnel that this company ain't taking getting back on it's feet
    SERIOUSLY!   
    
    Chapter 11 will come sonner than you think, they don't smarten up!
    
    p/t

Re: .9

>>Sorry, I didn't realize that the author of .0 represented 50% of the sales
>>force :-) :-) :-)

Why the smileys?  You think this is funny?

>>Maybe I should have formulated my question better...

>>Is there any official announcement on this being corporate or US-wide, or is
>>this just local observation?

I believe this is CSD-wide, but your local mileage will vary, I guess.

>>Sorry, I didn't realize that the author of .0 represented 50% of the sales
>>force :-) :-) :-)

>>Why the smileys?  You think this is funny?

  I don't think the person who replied thought it was funny.  Inaccurate maybe. 
  I haven't heard anything in our area about the sales force being cut.

>>I believe this is CSD-wide, but your local mileage will vary, I guess.

  What does that mean? What is CSD-wide?  Is that a specific area?  
  Do you mean 50% of the entire sales force, or 50% of the sales force at 
  one particular site? Please clarify.

    It was more than 50% in our district (North Texas/Oklahoma).  We went
    from 42 direct reps to 17.  We let go of nearly all the secretaries and
    level 1 managers.  Many of the sales support were hit too.  We have two
    reps that will be in charge of handling all calls from customers that
    no longer have direct reps (in addition to their other
    responsibilities).  I've heard the average rep is to carry a $4M budget
    in our district.
    
    ..Larry

    The CSD has 35,000 people. The PC group is sheltered. Let's assume it
    has 3,000 people. The CSD announced that it will cut ~14,000 jobs.
    
    That's 14,000 out of ~32,000 people or 43.75% of the CSD will be cut.
    
    
     

	Same here, whack, whack, ...whack Sales and Sales Support. Based
	on who they laid off in Sales Support, looks like heavy (future)
	emphasis will be on NT and UNIX. VMS type Sales Support folks were
	hit hardest in our area. Is this true in other areas? If so, what
	impact/ramifications will this have on our "VMS Installed Base"?
	Or am I concerned over nothing? 
	Just asking.

	RC.

Re: .15

CSD (Pesatori's Computer Systems Division) is cutting about 50% of the sales 
force.  This doesn't include sales folks associated with other divisions.
I'm not sure if non-US people are affected.


Clear enough?

    Of what remained in SoCal, we lost 50% of sales, about 40% sales
    support, and 60% product sales "specialists."  Also lost about 45% of
    L1 managers, and a few L2 mgrs.  Nationwide, I hear most of the L2's
    found a new home as Global acct mgrs.
    

    Well, I'm gone as of this coming Friday and we've lost six of 15 sales
    reps in Phoenix, 2 of six in Las Vegas and 2 of six in Tucson.  It 
    feels horrible!  I feel so r e g e c t e d!  Yeah I know, my mom still 
    loves me but, I have to say goodbye to my other family --  and it hurts
    so bad!!!!  I'll try not to cry but, it's so hard!!  Silly me, I
    thought I was safe in the New Account Development sales unit.  I wish
    Digital well but, I feel so hurt and r e g e c t e d that I could just
    die right now and no one would give a damn.  Hey, you have to save
    money, right?  Who cares?? No one.  I'm outta here.... .. . 
    

    The cuts in sales amount to a focus on the 1000 accounts and the
    elimination of a layer of management.  Sales support was cut because
    the financial models dictate the ratios of sales support to sales. 
    When you cut sales you cut sales support till the ratio is what you can
    afford.
    
    L1 (unit/branch) managers as we knew them are gone.  The former L2
    (district) managers now manage individual contributors (troops).  Some
    L1s got jobs as global accnt. mgrs. (L1), some got marketing (manager) 
    jobs.  Many will not be with Digital after this week.  There is a
    similar story for L2 managers.
    
    I have not seen any examples of managers moving into IC jobs in the CSD.
    I have seen at least one example of an IC moving into a manager's job.
    
    I think that the implications of where these cuts were made and the
    staff retained is interesting.  To my mind it seems that we will be
    COMPLETELY out of the non-billable systems integration business.
    When a customer wants a 'solution' they had better be willing to pay
    for more than just the sum of the HW/SW bits.  The only way I can see
    us having the capability to do non-billable integration is on the
    largest deals where management makes the call to pull technical support
    from a larger territory and focuses it on one deal.
    
    In my customer base the definitely means a need to do some radical
    reengineering of customer expectations!  It will be interesting to see
    how well we handle the customer sat. issues that are likely to arise in
    this process.
    
    Peter Dillard

    Re: .4

    >HP & IBM must be watering at their mouths! Free food.

    In fact HP has far less sales people and only has focus on the top n
    accounts, most of their sales take place by using 3rd parties.  In fact
    IBM does exactly the same it's only Digital that does not and we aren't
    making a profit !!!

    Are these people from sales without a job ?  From what is being said is
    that they will hopefully be employed by the 3rd parties to service the
    accounts that they had been in the past, this may happen or may not
    depending on the 3rd party.

    The SG&A figure is far too high because we spend far too much on sales,
    and general administration compared to other vendors.

    Why is it that every time we have downsizing we see it as negative ?  I
    do feel sorry for the people but there is not much that could have been
    done.  I look forward to seeing this company turn around and I feel
    that this is going to happen within this financial year.  There is a
    buzz about the whole place I am sure that we will all be busy and
    productivity will go up.  I feel very positive.
    
    Regards,
    
    Sunil

I have to disagree with .23

The tactic of cutting the direct sales force to try and force a shift in the 
ratio of direct to indirect business (and expense) will only work if the
following are satisfied:

(i)	The 3rd parties see something in it for them in selling DEC kit - money.

(ii)	The customers ask for DEC kit

I don't believe there can be any more money in selling DEC kit over HP, IBM or
SUN so (i) doesn't work. For (ii) to work there has to be some demand created
by either advertising, general awareness, trendiness or perhaps the direct
sales force working hard to convince people to not adopt the lemming school
of IT strategy and buy HP or SUN. I do not believe customers will ask for DEC kit
today without such intense work by the direct sales force so I do not believe
the tactic of cutting direct sales to force a shift will work. Of course it
may do in the short term as there will always be some momentum in the system.

The bottom line is that DEC kit is not seen as trendy, open or desirable so we
have to work hard to sell it. If we don't, no-one else will. There is more
to this than just cutting sales.

Mike C

re .14,

What I meant to say was: I didn't realize that the salesforce was already down
to TWO people....IOW, the author of .0 would have been one of the two, or 50%.
It was your statement in .7, ie "The author of .0 was TFSO'd yesterday, so it's
a fact", that prompted my statement.  That is, since the note is dealing
with 50% of sales being fired....oh well, I hope you understand what I meant
to say, and I'm deeply sorry if I offended anyone, it was not my intention to
do so. 

And, no, I don't think that it's funny when anyone looses their job.  I think
that management has done an abysmal job, Bob Palmer included, and all of his
current hype is less than satisfactory.  The sheer stupidity in laying off a
large portion of the sales force in one fell swoop defies description.  Only 
a completely inept and incompetent manager would do something like that, or
one whose goal it is to ruin the company.  As far as I'm concerned, Bob Palmer
could fit into either, or both, categories.

Rob

I believe the model of using VAR's or even distributors to sell our wares
is a good one. However sacking the sales force is about as good a financial
strategy as depending on a megabucks win tomorrow to pay your bills!

I have a friend, who was layed off from Digital, and he has been looking
to Digital distributors for employment. What he's finding is that 
VAR's, distributor's etc are NOT hiring to fill this gap.


Imagine you are a distributor of Digital products and you want to plan
your investment strategy for the coming year. Would you expand or contract your
Digital department?  I think you would look at digital laying off it's
salesforce and ask yourself 'why should I have more confidence in Digital's
future than they have?'

Most people seem to be adopting a "wait and see" attitude.

M

Re: .22

>>    I have not seen any examples of managers moving into IC jobs in the CSD.
>>    I have seen at least one example of an IC moving into a manager's job.
  
Peter

At the risk of being facetious, all you need do is look down a few offices
to your left and you'll see one Branch Manager now carrying a bag in the
new NY Financial Account Group.  And another Branch Manager is now managing
a global account (ie, managing an account, carrying a budget, acting as an IC).
And there are still at least 2 branch managers looking for IC jobs this week.
And, I've heard similar stories in NJ.  (see also note 3295).

Yes, some L1 and L2 managers are gone, but many are still here.

BTW, re: your example of an IC being promoted.  If it's the same guy I'm 
thinking of, the "promotion" is job grade only.  He's not managing anything
except a budget.

Bob

    I seem to be in a minority here but I think thatthe model being worked
    by CSD is completely correct. In the UK we moved to this style of
    operation 4 months ago, having being getting there gradually for some
    time. It is all really very simple. The Top 1000 accounts (120ish in
    the UK) have 1 or more dedicated sales people. These accounts are 75%
    of Digital's revenue ($9bn) and us account managers for them sell
    everything (MCS, TOEM, DC, third party, SI, boxes etc etc) through the
    appropriate channel for the customer. My own account buys indirect
    mostly so my role is demand creation and growing Digital's base from
    its current 1% of spend ($1.5m pa) There is loads of opportunity here
    in even the Top 1000 as we have seldom if ever got over 10-15% of even
    the largest customers IT spend.
    
    In the Systems Business Unit, the goal is to have each sales person
    running a large geographic area through a couple of channels plus
    application partners. This way each sales person could be running
    several hundred accounts - great cost of sales as long as the VAR
    incentives are there to encourage them to work with Digital. The
    original Damiani model in the UK called for geographic sales yields to
    be a minimum of $6m pa per head.
    
    The UK took the hit to go to this style a few months back and the
    numbers of sales people reduced accordingly as did the numbers of
    managers. As an example, our branch has 12 sales people, 4 presales
    people and a L2 manager with a budget of about $32m. We support about
    14 major accounts. A typical geographic branch would have about 5 or 6
    sales people and a budget of $25-30m.
    
    I reckon CSD is going in the right direction although it is always sad
    to see people go.
    
    Paul

    Re: .-1
    
    > ... I think that the model being worked by CSD is completely correct.
    
    I don't think anyone is denying that we still need to downsize. The
    criticism is the WAY the downsizing is happening. It has been too
    rapid, with too much knee-jerk reaction. A lack of planning and
    consultation has also made the situation worse. 
    
    Your second sentence shows the problem:
    
    > In the UK we moved to this style of operation 4 months ago, 
    > having been getting there gradually for some time.
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    
    There's a dispute in the UK now between BT and one of the unions. Both
    recognise that BT needs to downsize, but BT wants to do so immediately,
    while the union wants to stage the redundancies over four years to
    allow the company and the employees to plan for the changes. 
    
    I recognise that we probably don't have 4 years in which to turn things
    around, but I'm sure we could afford to plan for a slightly longer term
    than tomorrow afternoon!

    In NY I am aware of only 1 level one manager who "agreed" to leave. 
    I'm sure he was offered a "carry a bag again" job if he wanted it.
    
    My former branch/unit manager will be taking over my account. He's
    a great guy, but what sense does this make? I have all the
    relationships built and project knowledge. He will need a learning
    curve. I doubt the customer is willing to start from ground zero.
    
    He can't go to the sales support rep who worked with me 'cause he 
    got canned also.
    
    I will offer my services to transition my account, but for a fee.
    Should it be per hour or percent of project value? Otherwise, this
    business will go to someone else. To my knowledge, distributors
    and vars don't have the expertise/resources to sell On-Demand Video
    Servers or turn key Internet/Seal projects.
    
    Anybody got a contact at HP for their video server sales?
                                                              

    re: .22
    
    >>>a need to do some radical reengineering of customer expectations!  
    
    I must be missing something.  I thought a company that wanted to sell
    something engineered its organization to meet customer expectations,
    not the other way around . . . 
    
    --bonnie

The #1 priority is to focus on the customer. The recent changes will do quite 
the opposite.

    From:   GRANMA::GRANMA::MRGATE::"MAAELF::GRANPA::A1::MANAGER"
    To:     @Distribution_List
    CC:
    Subj:   DATALINE IN D.C.
    
    From:   NAME: GRANPA A1 Manager
            FUNC: S/CC CNS O/A Services
            TEL: 800-332-2468              <MANAGER AT A1 at GRANPA at DCO>
    To:     See Below
    
    
    This is from John Helfert at DTN-372-5254 and Joe Coughlan at DTN-339-5547.
    
                                  DATALINE IN DC!
    
    
    DATALINE, Incorporated, one of our VAR Authorized Business Partners
    headquartered in Virginia Beach, VA has opened a local office to cover
    theWashington-Baltimore Metropolitan Area. The new office is being opened by
    Ken Doyle, a former Digital Sales Representative and Sales Manager with
    over 9 years of Digital experience. The new office will be responsible for
    commercial sales in Northern VA, DC, and MD, while also covering the
    Federal Government.  In May of this year, DATALINE received its 8(a)
    certification from the U.S. Small Business Administration.  DATALINE's
    performance of over $2.5M in Digital Product and Services sales in FY'94
    made them one of Digital's new partner start up success stories.
    
    We welcome DATALINE to the Washington-Baltimore Area and wish them
    continued success in FY'95.  DATALINE is available to help you by
    supplementing or complimenting your own efforts in your accounts. 
    Please feel free to give Ken a call at (703) 329-7230 or FAX (703)329-8138. 
    The mailing address and new location are as follows:
    
    
                            Ken Doyle @ DATALINE, Inc.
                          3601 Eisenhower Ave., Suite 450
                               Alexandria, VA  22304

    re .27
    
    Bob,
    
    I know about the Global accont position.  That is considered a manager
    position (direct report to the reg. VP).
    
    I did not know about your other example.
    
    The IC moving to manager will in fact manage people unless there is
    another change in those positions.
    
    Peter Dillard

    
    	re: all
    
    	Yep, this is tough. Lots of good, solid sales/sales support people
    are gone. The question is, "Is there a method to this madness?". I
    believe there is; my question is when.
    	It is kind of like building your kid's new bicycle from the box at
    Christmas. Lots of parts, adequate instructions, you have to supply the
    tools, and it is going to take longer than you thought. But you will
    have it ready Christmas morning, even if the sunrise finds you sleeping
    next to the finished product. Welcome to the new Digital.
    	We are going back to our roots - we engineer & manufacture
    world-class computing systems which are mostly sold thru resellers who
    add some additional sort of value. Back to the future.
    	My bet is that when all this turmoil is completed, this will be a
    pretty good place to work. Can you complete the cycle? That is the
    question only each individual can answer. Personally I approve of what
    is happening, and it has been long overdue. We hired too many people in
    the 80s and are paying for our overly optimistic sales forecasts. The
    original DEC model worked, and is still valid today.
    
    	Let's go get the business, folks - and support your customers,
    whether internal or external, to the best of your ability. The rest
    will happen.
    
    		the Greyhawk 

    re: -1
    greyhawke... perhaps you are right.
    
    
    BUT WHY IN GOD'S NAME CAN'T THE SLT CONVEY THE VISION IN CLEAR, PRECISE
    LANGUAGE... SO WE CAN ALL STOP WONDERING WHERE THIS SHIP IS HEADED?
    
    tony

    This isn't a ship, it's a submarine.

    Now if 20,000 of you would like to take a walk on the deck we're going
    to make a little change of dir
                                  e
                                   c
                                     t
                                     i
                                     o
                                     n
                                     .
    
    Ian.

    re .36
    
    Enrico had a 'town meeting' in NYC yesterday.  In my opinion he did an
    excellent job of relaying the business vision and rationale for the CSD
    in a very succinct (1 hour) and rational manner.
    
    Peter Dillard

    
    They have communicated the vision, it's just that many of us
    don't like it -- and are adversely affected by it.
    
    The only way they could say it clearer is to start naming products 
    that Digital doesn't intend to keep/continue, which would impact revenues.
    
    As an example of all of this, here's some question and answer data
    I found posted in another conference:
    
        Q   WHAT IS YOUR SOFTWARE STRATEGY?  WHERE IS RESPONSIBILITY FOR
            SOFTWARE AT DIGITAL?  IT SEEMS THAT YOUR FOCUS IS CLEARLY
            HARDWARE AND SERVICES.
    
        A   Certain software is critical to satisfying customer
            requirements for computing platforms.  We continue to invest
            in leadership, open operating systems -- OpenVMS, OSF/1, NT.
    
            We will continue to invest in software such as PATHWORKS,
            Database Integrator and COM to make our products network-ready
            and provide easier integration in customers' complex
            environments.
    
            We will also continue to implement all relevant industry
            standards to assure that third party applications can be fully
            implemented on our open platforms.
    
            Virtually all of the software development will reside in CSD.
    
       Q   WHAT ARE SOME OF THE PRODUCT AREAS THAT YOU NO LONGER CONSIDER
           STRATEGIC TO YOUR PLAN?
    
            We will provide details as they are available on products
            which we may transition or divest.  In May, for example, we
            entered into agreement with Touch Technologies who will assume
            responsibility for development and maintenance of several
            Digital applications. And, this month, we announced that
            MENTEC which will now assume responsibility for ongoing PDP-11
            software.  These kinds of developments allow us to focus more
            of our resources on strategic products.
    

    
    Kevin -
    
    	Change is a B***H, granted. Especially when one has troubles. But
    you are correct. Ugly is in the eyes of the beholder. I am finally
    getting reengerized by these changes. And think Digital is getting on
    the right track. But it is one damn heavy train we have to move. So
    let's everybody get to work, move this puppy over, and fire 'er up.
    	GO DIGITAL
    
    		the Greyhawk

    re:38
    
    just came back from town hall meeting in Southern California hosted by
    Enrico and Rita Foley--
    
    you are correct very good and i know what our direction is and how we
    are going to get there
    
    all of us have to get on board and do it--we can
    
    rick

    .41
    Can you give us more specifics?
    

    Greyhawk:
    
    Wanna tell everyone either which drug you're on or which one you're off
    of?  I can't believe the change in your "manner" and am totally excited
    that you're "back" on the ship....8^)...
    
    Toodles.....jp
    

	I sure wish all this good talk that Enrico and Co. are giving
	would filter down to the rest of us. I'm tired of our lack of
	communication in this company.

							mike

    .43 and .44
    
    Agreed!!!!!!!
    

Enrico visited southern California this morning and met with the survivors of
the latest cuts.  His talk was good.  He showed that he was a businessman, had
analyzed the hell out of everything, knows what "costs are out of line with
revenue" means and why, and has a good idea of how to fix it.

He astutely pointed out that the big challenge is in the execution of the plan
to fix the ills.

He had one slide that looked sort of like this:

  8000  --------------        --------------        --------------
        |            |        |            |        |            |
        |            |        |  <$100K    |        |            |
        |            |        |------------|\       |            |
        |            |       /|            | \      |            |
        |            |      / |  >$100K    |  \     |            |
        |            |     /  |------------|\  \    |            |
        |            |    /  /|            | \  \   |            |
        |            |   /  / |            |  \  \  |            |
        |            |  /  /  |            |   \  \ |------------|
        |            | /  /   | >$1million |    \   |            |
        |            |/  /    |            |     \  |            |
     20%|------------|  /     |            |      \ |            |
        |            | /      |            |       \|------------|
        |------------|/       |            |        |            |
        |            |        |            |        |            |
        # of accounts            Revenue                 SG&A
                                                    

Here's how I understand his description of what the picture represents:

We get most (below the "<$100K" line) of our revenue from about 20% of our
accounts, which requires less than half of our SG&A.  So, by laying-off the
SG&A people associated with the other 80% of the 8000 accounts we're "calling
on," we can whack the expenses and keep most of the revenue.

The big trick is to increase, like crazy, our efforts to sell to and through
indirect channels.  I think the, by far, biggest challenge is to get the right
people in place to sell to the VARs, OEMs, distributors, etc.  I think that's
where, HP (to whom Enrico repeatedly compared us), IBM and SUN kick our asses.

I hope that, when the latest shaking of the bird cage is finished, the "good
ole boy" system doesn't land incompetent, near-miss TFSO Digital old-timers in
the very important channels sales and marketing positions.

I heard from someone who attended some network sales training two weeks ago that
we just hired 500 people from outside and who were in attendance at the
training.  She spoke to at least one of the new people and he told her that he
has connections in channels and knows how to sell 'em.  So that's (anectdotal)
good news.

My friend (the one who attended the training) was laid-off this week.  She had
been a PATHWORKS sales support consultant for four years and had been forced
into a PATHWORKS sales specialist position in Q3.


Bruce

    Re .46
    
    Does it occur to anyone that this process of discovering that 80% of
    your business comes from 20% of your customers is recursive?  So look
    out for someone saying "Gosh!  Look at that!  80% of what remains of
    our business comes from 20% of what remains of our customers." 
    Thereupon more long knives, more cuts and an ever smaller base on which
    to support our management superstructure.  Meantime other companies are
    quietly picking up our business.
    
    dave_P

    re .48
    
    Very good point!  A conclusive argument against ever expanding or
    moving off base.  Wish we had though of that earlier.

    My notes from Enrico's meeting in NYC:
    
    	- Digital Consulting has strategic resources important to the CSD
    	  NIS, SI and Outsourcing - these will be kept
    
    	- SG&A in the SBU is now 50% of revenue; it should be 20%
    
    	- We now cover 8K zccounts directly.  20% of these generate 80%
    	  of the revenue and consume 35% of SG&A; Accounts that do less
    	  than $100K/year in revenue consume 65% of SG&A  We will move
    	  to cover 1K accounts directly
    
    	- The job of the ABU is to maximize the percentage of IT spending
    	  that goes to Digital accross all businesses and through any
    	  channel
    
    	- The ABU will have systems integration capability needed to be
    	  successful transferred from DC into Technical System Integration
    	  and Expertise Centers
    
    	- The majority of DC capability will be focused on Digital specific
    	  solutions (and so will not compete with potential partners like
    	  the other system integrators)
    
    	- After making these changes Digital's revenue per employee should
    	  be $220K vs. $140K now.  HP is at $250K/employee
    
    	- Network capacity will be focused in CSD and MCS - Enrico forsees
    	  no coordination problems
    
    	- Technical Expertise Centers will house industry, SI and product
    	  and technology experts.
    
    I did not attempt to capture all of the information relayed (there was
    a lot more than noted here).
    
    Peter Dillard

    This again raises the question of what is going to happen to DC as it
    is now?
    
    1)	The Palmer annoucement said that DC is going to continue as it is.
    2)  The Palmer announcement ALSO mentioned that required consutling
    areas were in NIS, SI & Strategic Services (what???) - no mention of
    Technical Consulting - you know, the bread and butter.
    
    Also, I am sure that relations between Palmer and Brebach must be
    little strained after the on/off/on/off negotiations with CSC.
    
    Martin

    
    
    Digital will continue to downsize to fit the level of expertise
    of its management.
    
    more VP's gimme a break.  It took one VP to build a $500 millon dollar
    PC division. How many will it take to get us to $2 Billion?
    
    a retorical question....
    
    

    
>>    	- We now cover 8K zccounts directly.  20% of these generate 80%
>>    	  of the revenue and consume 35% of SG&A; Accounts that do less
>>    	  than $100K/year in revenue consume 65% of SG&A  We will move
>>    	  to cover 1K accounts directly

And from a Pauline Nist briefing a few weeks ago,  she said that for 
CSD, the lower 80% of the customers produce $1 Billion in revenue and
cost us $1.5 Billion to service.

If that's really true,  we'd be $500 million ahead by just throwing
away that end of the business.

Garry

    
>>    	- We now cover 8K zccounts directly.  20% of these generate 80%
>>    	  of the revenue and consume 35% of SG&A; Accounts that do less
>>    	  than $100K/year in revenue consume 65% of SG&A  We will move
>>    	  to cover 1K accounts directly

While I would agree that the 80% doesn't generate anough revenue to justify
direct sales representation, I question the accuracy of the 65% of SG&A
being attributable to these accounts.  Since SG&A covers all expenses
not directly associated with manufacturing products (maybe not an exact
definition, but sufficient for my purpose here), how can anyone really
track expenses (other than sales rep and support costs) by account?  Or
did someone say, 65% of our sales reps cover 80% of our accounts, so
65% SG&A must be attributable to that base?  

Maybe the 65% number is accurate, maybe not.  But I would suspect that 
this is a convenient use of statistics to justify some of the cuts.

    .51
    
    I don't recall Palmer saying DC would stay as it is.
    

Heard this morning from a friend, formerly sales support consultant, who has
taken a job selling "client/server middleware," i.e. ACCESSWORKS, etc.

He spoke to his newest "boss" recently.  The boss told him that he really should
concentrate on selling Alphas, because some of his local customers have a lot of
VAX systems with Rdb on 'em and think of all the license credits we'll get for 
Rdb on AXP!

Now, I'd think, silly me, that according to Enrico's new model, this c/s sales
guy should be concentrating on finding and selling to resellers (VARs, OEMs,
systems integrators, distributors, ISVs) who would be willing and interested in
selling our middleware as part of their solutions.  Furthermore, I'd expect that
the person chosen to be the manager of my friend's group would realize this and
facilitate his doing so.

But, it seems that my (and others') greatest fear is being realized:  The people
chosen to fill the regional channels sales and marketing positions are better at
(and much more interested in) playing Digital internal certs games than they are
in growing the business.

Who will tell Enrico?


s/
Bruce

Re -1

I see nothing has changed, despite the rhetoric.

    when I read the fiscal figures over the years, we added some 30.000
    employees
    during the years '86...91', mainly in sales and sales/marketing related
    jobs.
    this was the adventure of the 'industry-focus' - during which we also
    lost
    about 2/3rds of our OEM's - now we are paying the bill... but bear in
    mind
    the following...
    
    
    the old 20/80 simplified business rule is missing one simple fact of
    reality:
    namely the time-dependencies of dealings....
    
    it takes some 3 to 18 month to aquire a new customer...   zero revenue
    it takes some 3 to 18 month to deliver the solution...    assume 20
    million $
    it slows down during another 3 to 18 month of life-cycle  assume  1
    million $
    
    so if I'm seroius about the wisdom in large versus general accounts we
    should
    handle this (a.m. theoretical customer)
    
    during phase 1 not at all...
    during phase 2 directly....
    during phase 3 via a reseller/partner etccc..
    
    customers and partners will love it,
    
    what a wise move, ;-)
    
    
    was it A. Einstein who said:
    
    'we have for all the complex realities of the universe -
     simple, but wrong models...' ?,
    
    was it NON-ANALOG, who has invented:
    
    'for even the simple realities -
     we have complex, but wrong models' ?
    
    HJU
    

     re:-1
    
    	What a minute!
    
    	Just because one middle manager has his/her head in the wrong
    orifice does not been the whole company does. These new guys are
    demonstrating that they know how to keep score. It will take time.
    A year from now you ain't goin' recognize th' joint. Give it a
    chance, folks.
    	And if your buddy has got a lousy manager, he better shop around.
    'Cause they're getting wacked too! :-)
    
    		the Greyhawk

    Um, Greyhound,
    
    have you been touched by someone?  i mean, wow, your attitude is really
    positive.....kinda did a 180 there.....kind a like your performance
    against budget last year....
    
    oh, wait, this years budgets aren't set yet right? :)  that expains
    everything!!!!!   
    
    Ha!
    
    

    Anybody know what the real body count from last week was?
    
    					andrew

    Body count is an interesting query?
    
    How about lost customers (no more direct coverage)?
    
    How about lost revenue (lose the relationship, lose the sale)?
    
    How about time lost picking up the pieces from the
    bull-in-the-china-shop approach?
    
    How about counting up the dollars floating in restructuring charges
    (PCs, company cars, last expense reports)?
    
    
    
    ...change is needed...
    			  ...change can be good...
    						  ...change can be wrong or
    right...
         
    This last cut was a p..s in the wind...
    					   ...and then there's the death of
    Digital Consulting...
    
    
    Strider
    
    

    Sort of makes you think about the Viet Nam war and the Johnson
    administration's actions and press releases.
    
    And then there's that piece of wisdom from Forrest Gump's mother.
    
    
    
    Strider

Ugh, I hate these jellied things!

Got any chocolate peanut clusters?

    
    	Forget the box of chocolates. Like the "Gumper", we just need to
    focus on our customers. I believe that is happening. The Digital
    Consulting slice and dice, sans Gresh, is a move in the right direction
    (can't wait to see what all you DC people "flash-on" now).
    	It is basic business - bring all the resources closest to the
    customer under as few managers as possible. To paraphase a great
    Bostonian - All sales is local. And the sooner we get there, the
    better for all of us.
    
    		the Greyhawk

    I wouldn't say "flash-on" GH. 86ing Gresh and cutting DC into
    ineffective pieces only calls for more reorganizations, job title
    changes, etc. Before Gresh, every change in the consulting business was
    greeted with complete apath from the field. Gresh's _Looking Forward_
    approach was the only focus from top-to-bottom we've ever seen.
    
    Now that they lumped us back into the rest of Digital.....
    
    --- Gavin

    .65
    
    Obviously, greyhawk is smoking something we're not. He must have found
    a horse's head in his bed this morning. (Remember "The Godfather")
    Either that or he's from Waco.
    
    

re: .67

>    Either that or he's from Waco.

Of course, WACO stands for we ain't coming out, so he can't be from there.

Perhaps, what was noticed by prospect buyers, was that the competency in
DC is even more Digital centric, than believed. Perhaps the effort to make
it different was considered to be too much too quickly. Finally, the message 
may have come through to Digital management as well. (Pure speculation from
my part)

With this latest move, the goal seems to be to use competence, we (almost) 
have, ie. to promote Digital's solutions. Obviously, all of us are not 
needed for that. And we still don't have enough UNIX & NT & PC & 
TCP/IP & Internet knowledge even for our own needs now and in near future.

We also don't have enough consulting and service offerings to fit to the
lean and mean organisation or to work through distributors and partners. 
Sometimes it feels like next to everything in Digital is planned to maximize
the usage of manpower and people are proud (and enjoy?) when they have 
accomplished something after a tedious detective work and fights. The 
problem is, that less and less customers are willing to pay for that.

--Ritva

    Ritva,
    
    You are correct. I sometimes forget that I'm not a typical DC (err,
    previous DC) employee. Some of my collegues are very DEC product
    specific, and were distressed when 'Looking Forward' was discussed.
    
    I saw the effort to change DC into a non-DECcentric organization as the
    herald to a new day. I can see how a potential buyer of DC would see
    otherwise.
    
    It's all water over the bridge anywho.
    
    --- Gavin

Gresh was brought on when we were still trying to be a bigger, better, more 
capable company, with more products and services.  Those days are long-gone, 
now, as if I had to tell anyone...

I think 'Looking Forward' is a great document and a good plan for a consulting
organization.  Unfortunately *for Digital* we've decided to re-trench as a 
hardware vendor.  Anything that doesn't directly contribute to selling more of
our hardware has no place here.

Our software strategy, our services strategy, our strategy, period (as far as I
can tell) is to sell Digital equipment.

I do sales support for information management products.  We've been trying to 
get the corporation to port Rdb to other UNIXes (it will ship next month on
DEC OSF/1).  Though Digital has made no comment one way or the other, that we
will port to HP/UX or AIX or SUNOS or Solaris seems very unlikely.

I suspect that someone somewhere is trying to figure out what to do with 
LinkWorks, award-winning and multi-platform.  It's apparently too good to just
kill, but how do we justify investing in software that runs on non-Digital
platforms?

Bruce

    Well, as the Greyhawk said, let's press on with a focus on our
    customers especially with as few managers as possible.  
    
    Well, I have a know who the accounts are that Digital will call on
    direct, and it is not the TOP buying accounts.  Also, the list of
    recent TFSO folks indicates that the primary folks that were
    transitioned were the sales rep III, sales exec I, and sales exec II
    folks.  VERY distinctly, most of the managers were kept on board.
    
    Clearly, they will have to back fill until they find positions
    elsewhere.
    
    I hope those who remain do a good job,
    -jr

    I am also a customer of this corporation...when will my needs be
    satisfied???

>I do sales support for information management products.  We've been trying to 
>get the corporation to port Rdb to other UNIXes (it will ship next month on
>DEC OSF/1).  Though Digital has made no comment one way or the other, that we
>will port to HP/UX or AIX or SUNOS or Solaris seems very unlikely.

Oh God ! Do you really think the market is awaiting RDB on Sun, HP, IBM, SGI,
DG, ... ?

    re. -1
    
    >>Oh God ! Do you really think the market is awaiting RDB on Sun, HP,
    >>IBM, SGI, DG, ... ?
    
    No. The point is that we can continue to be a follower or we can be 
    a leader. Leaders create markets, they don't wait for them to
    materialize.
    
    jc
    
     
    
    
    
        

>        -< RDB on Unix(es) : a lot of resources that can beter used ! >-
>Oh God ! Do you really think the market is awaiting RDB on Sun, HP, IBM, SGI,
>DG, ... ?

	Wake up and smell the portable coffee. Anything running on a single
	hardware vendor's platform is perceived by the market as proprietary
	and closed, period. Doesn't matter whether we run in OpenVMS, OSF,
	and NT -- unless we can move off of DEC hardware and provide
	customers with at least a second vendor choice.

	That's the reality of software. That's why IBM is porting DB2 to
	Solaris and HP/UX. That's why Oracle dominates the rdbms market, and
	Sybase is doing quite well. 

	Is the market awaiting? Of course not. No market waits for any
	product. But taking the world's best database technology and making
	it available on the best-selling platforms is a much better strategy
	then shackling software to a single hardware vendor's products.

	Roy

Well, we had ported FUSE product to SUN and HP platforms but it doesn't seem
likely that engineering will get funding to release new versions of this
product on SUN and HP, only OSF they say. Checkout the BENONI::FUSE notes
conference. 

Point is it is not enough just to make software products available on 
non-Digital platforms but committment of sustaining and supporting the 
products on multiple platforms is very important.

Avinash

> Point is it is not enough just to make software products available on 
> non-Digital platforms but committment of sustaining and supporting the 
> products on multiple platforms is very important.

Which is *very* difficult when you effectively work for a hardware
vendor...  (We seem to understand that we need to be able to sell
components like disks elsewhere to get volumes, etc., but when it
comes to software, we still frequently "don't get it"...)

>    No. The point is that we can continue to be a follower or we can be 
>    a leader. Leaders create markets, they don't wait for them to
>    materialize.
 
By puting RDB on Unix(es) !!! I just hope you are joking ... 

Trying to always be number one everywhere has shown the result !
 
>	That's the reality of software. That's why IBM is porting DB2 to
>	Solaris and HP/UX. That's why Oracle dominates the rdbms market, and
>	Sybase is doing quite well. 

>But taking the world's best database technology and making

Well ... Do it ... Put RDB on OSF/1 and then please analyze the result ...

Anyone who will enter a Digital office will be told that RDB is the best
existing DB, that Oracle, informix, ingres are good BUT ...

In other words you will not be able to be neutral anymore ! And a prospect
looking for a Unix platform to run 'a' database will for sure prefer our
competitors who will *not* push towards a unique direction ...

Not convinced ? It's because you already forgot the story about the person who
enter Digital to buy a Unix box and who is being told that Unix is good BUT VMS
is even beter and blablabla ...


I would prefer to see Digital spending his resources to make Digital the best
platform of choice for Oracle / Sybase / Informix / Ingres / ... to make *new*
devolpment taking profit of our 64 bit architecture, integration with failover,
... 
By doing this, you give Digital the platform of choice to run databases and
guess what : people will buy Alphas.

    re: .79
>Anyone who will enter a Digital office will be told that RDB is the best
>existing DB, that Oracle, informix, ingres are good BUT ...
>
>In other words you will not be able to be neutral anymore ! And a prospect
>looking for a Unix platform to run 'a' database will for sure prefer our
>competitors who will *not* push towards a unique direction ...
    
    	Anyone who will enter an Oracle office will be told that Oracle is
    the best existing database, that Rdb, informix, ingres are good BUT ...
    
    
    	I think that you are saying that if you have the best software
    *and* the best hardware then you are sure to fail because customers
    will suspect you of bias if you try to sell either of them.
    
    	Since (as shown by Microsoft) the money seems to be in the software
    business these days, we should obviously sell off our hardware business
    to any buyer that might be interested, and since it *is* at least one
    of the best in the world there should be some interested buyers. Then
    we can concentrate on making money from software like Oracle,
    Microsoft, Sybase, ...

>    I think that you are saying that if you have the best software
>    *and* the best hardware then you are sure to fail because customers
>    will suspect you of bias if you try to sell either of them.

No, what I say is :

If a customer enters Digital, yes I'm afraid that the *same* people who told
them some months ago VMS is that much beter than Unix, will now tell them that
RDB is that much beter than any other databases ... and even worst, without
having ask what the customer's real problem was ...

These people should be put on our competitors payroll ...

If you want to put some resources to port RDB on top of OSF/1, HP-UX, ...
because you think it is one of the most important thing to do nowadays, we will
definitevely never agree. 

Seems like we might want to consider a DEC Software Components Division
separate from the DEC Computer Systems Division.  (We seem to be able
to manage to deal with selling disks to competitors.  IBM WSs ship with
DEC disks in some cases.  Intel runs their specmarks using DEC disks.)
A true software division would need to have the freedom to ship software
on ALL applicable platforms without interference from hardware (just as we
make hardware platform decisions ignoring software issues in many cases.)
Of course, given the damage done over the last few years, it isn't clear
to me how viable such a division would be.

One key is that it would have to be separate and *remain* separate for
an extended period.  As long as things get "yanked back" such that DEC
software doesn't have a believable story on non-DEC platforms, it's going
to be effectively either a continuing "loss leader" (on top of the fact
we're going to have razor-thin margins on hardware), or we're going
to wind up being over priced, or we're going to wind up being feature
poor (or more likely, a combination) give the lack of volume for
the base systems.

In any case, it would probably be a good idea to organize divisions
along the lines of companies in the industry.  (This leads to the most
"open" result in that there's less "linkage" between the divisions
that will cause people to question whether the solution will cause
a lot of extra baggage or "linkage" in terms of solutions.)  e.g.

    Silicon manufacturing
    Silicon design
    Disk manufacturing
    PC manufacturing
    Computer systems (HW+base SW) manufacturing
    [Layered software - e.g. database products, add-on network HW/SW,
	probably some SW development, etc.]
    [SI consulting]

The more we try to merge things into divisions that don't parallel
the componentization of the industry, the more likely those "misplaced"
products will have problems because of differing views of priorities
on the part of the management chain, and also because of competition
with companies in other parts of the layering (e.g. Oracle/RDB) that
other layers don't want to have problems with.  (Note that each "layer"
above can identify direct competitors in the given marketplace.)

Upper management appears to have decided that even having a separate
entity for SI won't work, and it doesn't look like layered software
is going to have a much better fate.

>No, what I say is :

>If a customer enters Digital, yes I'm afraid that the *same* people who told
>them some months ago VMS is that much beter than Unix, will now tell them that
>RDB is that much beter than any other databases ... and even worst, without
>having ask what the customer's real problem was ...

    But OpenVMS(tm) is much better than Unix by just about all critieria
    that production systems are measured by.  But that's why there are 
    Escorts and Crown Victoria's in the Ford car line, so people have
    a choice of features (that they want/need) and price points they're 
    willing to pay.
    (BTW with XPG4 branding, OpenVMS is more OPEN and more compliant with 
     the proposed SPEC 1170 than most of our competitor's Unixes...)
    
       But this is not the point.
    
    
    >These people should be put on our competitors payroll ...

    Is this the new plan for TFSO -- have our competitors fund our
    employees who support a 2+ billion dollar revenue stream?  Since
    when did a 2+ billion dollar a year business become the work of
    the Devil?
    
    Unix or OpenVMS? Unix or OpenVMS? Do I want something that's less
    filling or with Great taste...
    
    If a customer want's a salad and you offer him ONLY a full steak dinner
    I agree they will be angry with you but if you take his salad order, 
    there is nothing to stop a GOOD waiter from asking if they would like
    Steak or Potatoes on the side or a High Availablity OS with the most 
    stable production qualities in the in industry, XPG3 and XPG4 branding
     (to prove Openness), scalablity up to 96 Computer in a tested CLUSTER
    configuration, Mom, Apple Pie, and so on... 
    
    Get it right, if we don't sell everthing Digital has to offer we're
    not playing with a Full DEC...
    
>If you want to put some resources to port RDB on top of OSF/1, HP-UX, ...
>because you think it is one of the most important thing to do nowadays, 
    >we will definitevely never agree. 

    RdB(tm) just posted the Fastest TPC-A benchmarks with OpenVMS/AXP
    in the Industries history.
    
    RdB has a large customer base by virtue of the Digital Installed Base.
    
    Digital Customers who move to different Digital platforms will feel 
    more comfortable with the same NAS/Database/Networking tools
    on each platform waiting for them when they arrive.
    
    When our customers are comfortable with us and our products they tend
    to buy more products and services.  Digital is in business to sell 
    products and services last I checked...
    
    Q.E.D. RdB will allow customers to purchase Digital Style Database
    tools instead of third party Database tools.  This is not nessisarily 
    a bad thing...
    
    As RdB continues to make Money for the corporation after the expense
    of engineering and distributing the software, I don't have a 
    problem with that.  No one else should either...
    
    John Wisniewski

There is no doubt that VMS, RDB, ... are the *best* products in the world.

The problem is that a growing market seems not to agree. And if you want to
enter this market, you *cannot* do it by convincing them they are wrong ...
Digital has tried this the previous years with the success that we all know.

There are 2 questions here : 

	1) Do you want to enter this market ? 
	2) If yes, how ?

It seems clear that Digital has choosen to enter this market. Maybe not because
they want to do it, but because they are just forced to do it.

The second question is the one where it seems we do not agree. My point of view
is that porting RDB on different Unix(es) will *not* help us to make it happen,
even worst, it can generate board effects ... I think that we should use the
resources to do something else.

I don't say we have to stop VMS, RDB, ... For sure not ! I just say that if you
want to enter another thinking market, you cannot do it by just porting products.

>    As RdB continues to make Money for the corporation after the expense
>    of engineering and distributing the software, I don't have a 
>    problem with that.  No one else should either...

I'm happy with the above ! Great ! 

But you will not avoid Digital to continue to loose market share by porting this
outstanding succesfull product on Unix(es) boxes ... 
This will not help me to sell OSF/1. So if you want me to contribute to the
success of *our* company, please give me the right tools ...

    re: .84
>This will not help me to sell OSF/1. So if you want me to contribute to the
>success of *our* company, please give me the right tools ...
    
    	Maybe this is where the problem lies. "*our*" company has a good,
    successful database product, that is designed to be available on many
    platforms. Why should *our* company feel the product needs to help
    OSF/1 any more than Oracle feels its product needs to help the sales of
    SunOS? SunOS and OSF/1 should be able to survive (or not) on their own
    merits, regardless of Rdb.
    
    	Rdb engineering are offering you the opportunity to sell into HP,
    IBM, Sun shops, and you want to turn it down???  It might be just a
    single Rdb licence today, but if they gain confidence in us as a
    supplier *and* we make a profit on that sale then we are in a good
    position to persuade them to move their software to the fastest
    or best base platform, which might be OSF/1, AXP.

    Re: .84
    
    > This will not help me to sell OSF/1.
    
    That sums up the problem. This company doesn't know how to market or
    sell software. Digital is still a hardware vendor at heart. The company
    has flirted with the idea of becoming a software/services company or
    even a Systems Integration company, but we don't have the mindset for
    that. Far too many people still see the primary (only?) goal as
    shifting boxes, by whatever means necessary, including giving away
    consultancy and massively discounting software. 
    
    The point of this chain is that if a product (like Rdb) is good enough
    to be a contender for "Best-in-class" it should not be shackled to
    hardware sales. I still think that the VAX and AXP systems are the best
    around, but there's a huge market place that doesn't agree. We can
    either bury our heads in the sand and continue to sell to the people
    who agree with us, or we can go after new business. 
    
    What companies are making the bug bucks today? As I see it, Microsoft
    and Novell are two of the major players in any league (revenue,
    profitability, prominence). Funny, but neither sells hardware. 
    
    Maybe selling Rdb would be the best thing - for Rdb! At least the
    buyer may be interested in promoting the product rather than just
    using it to leverage sales. 

    Oops, that should have read 
    
    What companies are making the big bucks today?
                                  ^^^
    
    Mind you, remembering MS-DOS V6.0, bug bucks may be right.

Marc,

If you want to contribute to this company, why would you give away the
revenue stream of a an excellent and profitable product ?

By the way, the biggest piece of the Rdb porting effort has already been done.
The COSI layer ( common operating system interface ) is already there in
v6.0 today, running in production all over the world talking to vms on vax and 
axp. Rdb on OSF/1 is now in field test T6.1-3. The Rdb engine and it's
layers above share one source code base. COSI effectively shields them from
all operating system specifics. So we can port to any operating-system/hardware
combination today with a rather limited effort, depending on business 
opportunities, market demand etc ... 

_Luc
    

    Even if I'm not using always the correct words to explain my idea 
    (Sorry but english is not my mother language), I have now the feeling
    that you hear and understand only what you *want* to.
    
    I'm working since 6 years for Digital and always had to face the
    problem that you may not give any criticism about a Digital product
    without generating directly a lot of sentimental/aggresive replies.
    
    It seems people here can simply not accept any remarks about their
    babies (VMS, RDB, RMS, ...)
    
    My input was only the following : move the RDB porting resources to the
    AdvantageCluster program, and it will bring much more benefits to
    Digital ... 
    and I understand people may not agree but please just stop
    to translate my message into : 'he wants to stop RDB, he is against
    VMS, ...'

>   My input was only the following : move the RDB porting resources to the
>    AdvantageCluster program, and it will bring much more benefits to
>    Digital ... 

OK. Would it be fair to say that you are against porting RDB to Unix(es)?

I will agree that having Rdb on OSF/1 will probably not help sell OSF/1
systems.  If that is the goal, then the port is a bad idea.

If, on the other hand, the goal is to make even more money on Rdb by
taking Oracle's advantage (Same DB across multiple platforms) and adding
it to Rdb's other advantages (speed, robustness, adherance to standards)
then I'd say that it is money well spent.

Kevin

    >OK. Would it be fair to say that you are against porting RDB to Unix(es)?
    
    Today, I'm against. Put the efforts and provide me a cluster '� la' VMS on
    OSF/1 first. Then, afterwards put the efforts on RDB if you want.

    Rdb on OSF and OSF clusters are not so independent as you may think.
    The Rdb locking mechanisms implemented today may well become the OSF
    cluster distributed lock manager. 
    
    _Luc

>    Rdb on OSF and OSF clusters are not so independent as you may think.
>    The Rdb locking mechanisms implemented today may well become the OSF
>    cluster distributed lock manager. 

Thanks for the info. But does it change something ?

    RE: .86 and SOFTWARE companies making money....
    
    Take a look at the market and see how well Compaq, HP, Intel etc. are
    doing - and they are HARDWARE companies....
    
    It is NOT just software that sells - what sells is what people want to
    buy. And people don't WANT to buy Digital, 'cos its not "trendy"
    anymore.

    	I think what he is saying is that if you want clusters on OSF then
    you had better keep the Rdb engineering team on, even if they are
    permitted to spend 10% of their time implementing Rdb on Solaris.
    
    	Even if DEC can't make any money on selling Rdb on Solaris it might
    be worth getting the engineering team to do it since that is the way
    you retain the engineering expertise to have OSF clusters.
    
    	Solaris is just quoted as an example, but you don't motivate
    engineers by telling them that you don't need what they have produced
    in the past. You don't motivate them by saying "We won't sell Rdb on
    Solaris even if you make it". You are much more likely to motivate them
    by saying "You are funded to produce Rdb on Solaris, but if you manage
    to make OSF clusters work as a moonlight project it will be very
    appreciated".   Or you can save money by firing the lot of them - that
    is what Oracle would probably do to them - it is what DEC has done to
    employees of companies taken over in Europe.

    I've been dealing with a local vendor that's having a problem with a
    new DEC PC. He keeps complaining to me (like *I* can do something about
    it!) about the fact that he no longer has a single point of contact in
    Digital. It seems that his sales rep got TFSO'd and he now calls an 800
    number for info and gets whoever happens to be next in the call queue.
    
    But his major complaint is that Digital just cut his margin from 12% to
    8%. Guess who's PC's he won't be selling unless a customer *insists* on
    getting that particular brand? He's going to sell the ones that he can
    make some money with... And as far as he's concerned, that isn't the
    ones from that uppity company based in Maynard. :-(
    
    Harry
    

     >> RE: .86 and SOFTWARE companies making money....
        
     >> Take a look at the market and see how well Compaq, HP, Intel etc.are
     >> doing - and they are HARDWARE companies....
       
    'scuse me - anyone heard of Microsoft ?

>>    'scuse me - anyone heard of Microsoft ?

Yeah, they're that high-profile software company, trying hard to catch up
with the revenue level of Compaq and Intel, and dreaming that someday they
might have HALF the revenue of HP.

--RS

    But look at their profit level - HP, Intel DREAM of having half the
    profit level of Microsoft!

    re.: last couple
    
    Keep in mind that having a computer box alone produces just hot air,
    having just a database product on top produces empty reports. It's the 
    final application that makes computer system plus near-system software
    (e.g. database products) useful for others to make their money. Some
    companies participate like parasites in this 'food chain'. Intel and
    Microsoft sell because Dells and Compaq sell because end users want to
    run THEIR application from various companies. 
    
    But DEC seems to think different. DEC can sell just because an AXP is
    fast, VMS has nice features, OSF has 64-bits. If there's nothing you
    want to run on all this OR if there are cheaper pieces to run your
    application on you starve because you're out of the food chain.
    
    Rdb without incentives for software developers/companies to choose it 
    as a competively priced base component has no market future. DEC never
    ever thought about end-user applications like others HP, Microsoft even
    IBM. IBM never devloped all the end-user applications...it just 
    referenced them.
    
    Guenther

>    But look at their profit level - HP, Intel DREAM of having half the
>    profit level of Microsoft!

I believe that Intel does have the profit level of Microsoft.  Indeed there
was a debate on the Internet a while ago about which was more profitable, 
producing $20 notes or producing 486s...

My assertion is that both Intel and Microsoft have incredible profits due
to a monopoly position...