Conference 7.286::digital

    Check the date on that piece - October 94. Since that date:
    
    (a) the Aberdeen article has been brought to Palmer's attention
    (b) a response/rebuttal has been written
    (c) the response, in Palmer's name, has gone off to Aberdeen
    (d) the response has received wide circulation within Digital (well *I*
    saw it, cascaded down through my management chain, and/or via Readers
    Choice - but I didn't keep it so I can't post it here)
    (e) I don't know about anything else e.g. did anyone publish the reply.
    
    regards
    john

    Can someone post the response?
    

You can focus on the positive or the negative.  I prefer the positive.

This was in LIVEWIRE on Friday.







                                                           Date: 06-Jan   
               

                  Industry analysts praise Digital's 
                  mainframe downsizing solutions
 
         Independent studies by Dataquest, Business Research Group, and 
   other leading analyst firms say Digital is positioned for success in 
   the hotly competitive computer "downsizing" or "rightsizing" movement.
         "Digital is in the enviable position of having equal potential 
   for success in all three 'rightsizing' transformations," said Brad 
   Day, Dataquest's director of client/server computing worldwide.
         Such "transformations" include mainframe downsizing, upsizing 
   (PC LAN expansion or consolidation), and "midsizing" (supporting the 
   VAX customer base with ports to Alpha OpenVMS, OSF/1 and Windows NT 
   systems).
         Day based his comments on information gathered from interviews 
   with 200 IS directors within the Fortune 1000.
         Day noted the success of Digital's OpenVMS cluster systems at 
   the expense of mainframe processor upgrades, which "...corroborates 
   Digital's expertise in addressing the cost concerns of IS executives 
   who were used to being locked into a mainframe processor upgrade as 
   their only alternative."
         In addition, Dataquest reported that Digital's new OSF/1-based, 
   high-availability AdvantageCluster systems "should be well-accepted in 
   the applications-driven client/server sector of the downsizing market." 
         Especially important in this sector are applications such as 
   order processing, customer service, and decision support.
               
   Results of BRG study 
 
         A recent independent study by Business Research Group (BRG) said 
   Digital is now rated the No. 2 company -- just behind IBM -- in doing 
   the best job at providing rightsizing and process redesign solutions.
         BRG found that Digital is rated "best" by three times as many 
   respondents as Hewlett-Packard Co.
         The BRG study was based on information gathered from 305 IS 
   respondents from the manufacturing, finance, retail/wholesale, and 
   government sectors.
         "Organizations of all kinds are using Digital's family of Alpha 
   and Alpha-ready VAX systems to move line-of-business applications off 
   legacy mainframes to achieve business objectives and cut costs," said 
   Steve Koenig, director of Digital's Mainframe Downsizing Program. 
         Five-year cost-of-ownership studies reveal that the combined 
   maintenance, power consumption, and floor space of an AlphaServer 2100 
   system, rated at up to 65 MIPS, costs less than 1 percent of the 
   45-MIPS IBM 3090 mainframe, a savings of nearly $650,000 in hardware 
   alone.  These savings improve further when software is added. 
         "As the company that first introduced many of the technologies 
   to enable mainframe downsizing, Digital continues to introduce 
   solutions that lead this market -- the highest performing 
   semiconductors and systems, standards-based networking and operating 
   environments, and client/server software frameworks, as well as 
   worldwide services and support," Koenig said. 
         Digital was the first to provide users direct access to computing, 
   the first to move applications from the mainframe, the first to coexist 
   with mainframes, the first to provide an SNA gateway, and the first 
   open client/server company.

















































                       FOR DIGITAL INTERNAL USE ONLY
 


    It is a fairly well known fact that Aberdeen is extremely biased
    towards HP.  I have the Digital rebuttal and will post in a subsequent
    reply to this note.
    
    Aberdeen chose not to reconsider their stance on Digital even after we
    asked to meet with them a second time to clarify a few things...

From:	KACIE::NEMTS::NEMTS::MRGATE::"MRMTS::SALES::A1::CORP_COMM" "11-Nov-1994 0927" 11-NOV-1994 09:31:10.47
To:	@Distribution_List
CC:	
Subj:	:Responses to Negative Aberdeen Report                                 2

From:	NAME: Corporate Communications      
	FUNC: Corporate Communications        
	TEL:                                  <CORP_COMM AT A1 at SALES at MRO>
To:     See Below

 Author:Nancy Scull @MLO              
 	Analyst Relations
 Subject:Aberdeen point/counterpoint
 
 AberdeenGroup, a small Boston-based consulting firm, has published a 
 highly negative "Market Viewpoint" report dated August 17, 1994, entitled 
 "Digital:  Slip, Slip, Sliding Away".  Our competitors are distributing 
 this report freely to our customers.  
    
 It contains a number of misleading and erroneuos comments which Bob Pamer
 has refuted in a letter to the President of Aberdeen,John Logan.  The 
 report was also published prior to our release of Q1 FY95 results, which 
 showed improvement.
    
 It is important to note that such well-respected analysts as IDC and 
 Forrester Research, while also advising caution, believe our new approach 
 announced in July is definitely on the right track.
    
 The following Aberdeen statements, fundamental to their analysis, are 
 misleading:
    
 Statement 1:
 "...none of the news was as disappointing as [Digital's] public 
 statements that indicated it was committed to transforming itself into a 
 hardware components-only supplier within the information technology (IT) 
 industry."
    
 Digital's Response:   
    
 Digital has not made any such statements.  In fact, Digital's SERVICES 
 business comprised almost 47% ($6.26B) of total FY94 revenue.  Digital's 
 Multivendor Customer Services Business Unit continues to thrive and be 
 solidly profitable.  Our $1.5B Systems Integration business -- the fourth 
 largest in the world -- is being integrated into our Computer Systems 
 Business to ensure that we continue to meet the full range of our 
 customers' needs.
    
 SOFTWARE is also very clearly a critically important part of Digital's 
 business strategy.  We have leadership products, and are establishing 
 Software as one of the P&L centers of our systems business.
    
 NETWORKING competence continues to provide key value to our customers.  
 Our Network Products Business Unit delivers hardware products.  Network 
 software facilitates the integration of heterogeneous systems.  Our 
 services organizations provide significant support for tying it all 
 together.

    
 We are clearly committed to remaining a full service provider.  Our newly 
 intensified focus on PARTNERSHIPS to build on our own core competencies 
 will significantly enhance the breadth of product and support our 
 customers receive.
    
 Statement 2:   
 "...Digital sent a wake-up call to [its] customer base when it 
 revealed plans...to no longer service directly 7,000 of its 8,000 customer 
 accounts, and to be a components supplier -- not a full service vendor."
    
 Digital's Response:
    
 The 'components supplier' issue is addressed above.
    
 As for the change in coverage for 7,000 accounts, not only can Digital not 
 afford the disproportionately high cost of selling directly to these 
 accounts, but our competitors -- HP, etc. -- have already implemented a 
 similar indirect approach for their smaller accounts.
    
 All that has really changed for these customers is the way they buy.  
 Digital still offers total solutions and worldwide support, whether they 
 work with the Accounts Business Unit or through an indirect channel.  And 
 more intensive involvement by Digital with indirect selling partners 
 should also stimulate new business from additional accounts beyond those 
 with whom we do business today.
    
 Digital believes that overall, the new combination of telephone support 
 and partner servicing of these accounts will actually provide them better 
 coverage than previously.  Accounts that have received little support from 
 Digital in the past will now do business directly with VARs who understand 
 their business, with distributors who also sell them other products and 
 can justify spending more time with them, etc.  Several of them have 
 confirmed this improvement.  
    
 Statement 3:   
 "Regardless of what happens to Digital, it is rather obvious that the 
 company will never be the same as a supplier, as an employer or as an 
 industry force."
 
 Digital's Response:
    
 The industry has changed dramatically.  Digital must change with it.  The 
 new Digital will play by the new market rules.  The resulting improved 
 agility will make Digital better able to meet evolving customer needs.
    
 Statement 4:
 "In comparing the old Digital to the new one, as described by its 
 senior managers, Aberdeen concluded that the company will not:
    
    	"o  Maintain the same breadth of product coverage;
    
    	"o  Provide the same level of service to its customers;..."
 

 
 Digital's Response:
    
 In fact, by better focusing our investments in areas where Digital's 
 competence is strongest, and by working more closely with partners who are 
 leaders in their particular business segments, Digital will be able to 
 offer its customers the best IT solutions across the board.  
    
 In the data base market, for example, Rdb is technologically the best, but 
 it has very small market share.  The much larger participants can afford 
 to reinvest relatively more significant amounts in their products, thereby 
 providing customers with increasing levels of functionality and speed.  
 Rdb's pending sale to Oracle will assure long-term support and product 
 improvements.
    
 Disk drive manufacturing is a similar example.  While Digital's strength 
 is in developing and delivering balanced systems and subsystems, we can 
 succeed in that business by buying the disk drive technology on the open 
 market and still provide customers the best solution available.

   September 29, 1994
   
   
   
   Mr. John Logan
   President
   Aberdeen Group, Inc.
   One Boston Place
   Boston, MA  02108
   
   Dear John:
   
   Aberdeen's August Market Viewpoint report on Digital is fundamentally 
   flawed.  While your desire to alert customers to changes in Digital 
   is understandable, suggestions that customers need to plan for 
   migration away from the Company are simply without merit.
   
   Your opinion that Digital's plans will preclude our being a strategic 
   IT partner with our customers is also wrong.  We will continue to  
   support our loyal customer base with the best technology and services 
   in the industry. We are committed to being a full-service vendor with 
   even greater ability to support our customers.
   
   We remain very much in the Systems and Networking Integration 
   business. As Enrico Pesatori explained, our $1.5B Systems Integration 
   business, the fourth largest in the world, is being integrated into 
   the new Computer Systems Division, and our Network Integration 
   business will fit quite synergistically into our Multivendor Customer 
   Services Business Unit.  This will enable Digital to continue to 
   provide fully integrated customer solutions.
   
   Software is also very clearly a critically important part of 
   Digital's strategy.  We have leadership products, and we will soon be    
   managing this important business as a separate profit center within 
   the Computer Systems Division.
   
   As Digital focuses on our core competencies, our partnerships will 
   enhance the breadth of product and support our customers receive.  In 
   many cases, this is how our competition already supports their   
   customers, relying much more on indirect channels than Digital.  Our 
   current leadership in open products--as stated in the Gartner report, 
   which said "Digital will provide users with best-of-breed 
   technology...[and] because it has one of the best commodity and UNIX 
   standards strategies, Digital is less likely than other vendors to 
   lock in users"--places us in a uniquely advantageous position to 
   serve customers through and with partners.
   

   Our experience shows the transition to indirect distribution can be 
   accomplished rapidly and without real customer difficulty.  This 
   direction in no way abandons our smaller accounts.  Our objective is 
   to improve their coverage and satisfaction, and our new Systems 
   Business Unit's performance will be measured on these metrics.  
   Competent channels are the best way to serve these accounts.  A 
   younger Digital successfully served customers by significant 
   partnership with OEMs; there is no reason why we cannot use channel 
   partners to serve today's market.
   
   Part of your report seems to confuse issues that are confronting the 
   industry as a whole with those that affect Digital.  Everyone in this 
   industry is facing declining margins and everyone is finding new ways 
   to do business.  Digital's response to these problems such as
   reducing costs, reducing employee population, and managing cash flow 
   better are prudent activities that any well-managed company would 
   undertake at a time like this.
   
   You have recently heard from John Rando, who heads up our Multivendor
   Customer Services organization.  Undoubtedly, he told you that that 
   part of our business is best in class in the industry by norm 
   measures.  Digital recently won the first annual InfoWorld magazine 
   award for "Best Client/Server Technical Support," based on a poll of 
   225,000 readers.  We intend to keep our lead.
   
   Our cost structures for personal computers and certain other products 
   are already competitive with leaders in the industry, and Digital 
   will enjoy an increasingly absolute performance and cost/performance 
   advantage over our competition, as a result of our second generation 
   RISC technology.  No one has yet challenged Alpha AXP in these 
   categories.
   
   With our growing Alpha product sales and available applications, 
   customers can have the best platform in the industry with the 
   applications they require.  With our partners, a full panoply of 
   offerings is available to our customers.  With a more focused 
   Digital, we can provide customers with lower costs and better 
   support.  With our technology and strategic plans, we will clearly be 
   influential in the information technology market of the future.
   
   John, as you can imagine, I found your report quite misleading.  I 
   hope this brief response helps set the record straight.
   
   Sincerely,
   
   
   
   Robert B. Palmer
   
   RBP:jw
   
   CC: 	Thomas Willmott
   	Vice President, Aberdeen Group



Distribution:
You received this message because you are in APA or Americas Sales or have 
selected to receive Analyst Reports on your Readers Choice Profile.  To 
modify your Readers Choice profile type VTX PROFILE.



To Distribution List:

KENNETH           MASSEY            @MLO,
MAX               MAYER             @MLO,
JAMES             MCANDREW          @MLO,
MARCIA            MCCANN            @MLO,
CHRISTINE         MEYER             @MLO,
DEANNA            MICHAELSON        @MLO,
PETER             MILLER            @MLO,
HENRY             MORRIS            @MLO,
GEORGE            MURPHY            @MLO,
MICHAEL           MURPHY            @MLO,
PAUL              NICHOLAS          @MLO,
MARY ANNE         NORTH             @MLO,
KRISTIE           OBRIEN            @MLO,
MARK              OCONNELL          @MLO,
RUTH              OCONNELL          @MLO,
JOHN              OELFKE            @MLO,
RICHARD           PALM              @MLO,
NANCY             PARNELL           @MLO,
WILLIAM           PICOTT            @MLO,
DIANE             PILLARI           @MLO,
DARREN            POPHAM            @MLO,
JULIE             PORTER            @MLO,
LOUIS             REEG              @MLO,
PHILIPPE          RIBEYRE           @MLO,
NEIL              RICH              @MLO,
CHRIS             ROBINSON          @MLO,
GEORGE            ROBINSON          @MLO,
RICHARD H         ROGERS            @MLO,
JOAN              ROSS              @MLO,
REBECCA           ROUCOULET         @MLO,
CLARENCE          RUSE              @MLO,
PETER             SANBORN           @MLO,
CHRISTINE         SARKISIAN         @MLO,
MARTY             SCHMIDT           @MLO,
SUSAN             SHAPIRO           @MLO,
SARA              SILVERSTEIN       @MLO,
DONNA             SLATTERY          @MLO,
ROBERT            SLONE             @MLO,
PATRICK           SPRATT            @MLO,
SUSAN             STEVENSON         @MLO,
NANCY             STRECKER          @MLO,
LALIT             SUDAN             @MLO,
PETER             THAYER            @MLO,
COLETTE           THIBODEAU         @MLO,
JEANNE            THOMPSON          @MLO,
GERARD            VADEBONCOEUR      @MLO,
ALBIN             VASKAS            @MLO,
WENDY             VINCENT           @MLO,
FRANCIS           WALSH             @MLO,
BARBARA           WARD              @MLO,
PETER             WARREN            @MLO,
RODGER            WILCOX            @MLO,
MARK              YANOW             @MLO,
CAROLYN           BARNARD           @MMO,
CYNTHIA           BARNEY            @MMO,
JOHN              HENSON            @MMO,
JERRY             KIESTLER          @MMO,
MARVELL           MITCHELL          @MMO,
DONNA             STRICKLAND        @MMO,
LUC               BRUNET            @MOW,
VITALY            FRIDLYAND         @MOW,
VLADIMIR          ORLOV             @MOW,
DIMITRII          SOKOLOV           @MOW,
SERGEI            SOKOLOV           @MOW,
OLEG              VINOGRADOV        @MOW,
OLGA              WHITE             @MOW,
DMITRY            ZAKHAROV          @MOW,
JAMES             AKERLIND          @MPO,
JILL              BALLARD           @MPO,
MARY              BOLIN             @MPO,
JON               BRAU              @MPO,
MITCH             BROWN             @MPO,
TIMOTHY           CERLING           @MPO,
CHRISTOPHER       COXE              @MPO,
RICHARD           DALE              @MPO,
THOMAS            EXLEY             @MPO,
EUGENE            HAAG              @MPO,
WILLIAM           HESTER            @MPO,
WILLIAM           JAMES             @MPO,
DONNA             KAZANOWSKI        @MPO,
GEORGE            KERR              @MPO,
JAMES             KUNITZ            @MPO,
ANN               MCMILLON          @MPO,
NANCY             MOGEN             @MPO,
DENISE            PATTERSON         @MPO,
SHELBY            PENROD            @MPO,
GREGORY           POWELL            @MPO,
CHARLEY           PRICE             @MPO,
RODNEY            REHOR             @MPO,
GARY              ROWLAND           @MPO,
STEPHEN           SANDERS           @MPO,
ROCHELLE          SCHROFER          @MPO,
ALLEN             SHORT             @MPO,
MICHAEL           SIDLER            @MPO,
THOMAS            SPENCE            @MPO,
MARK              STEEVES           @MPO,
LINDA             STOKER            @MPO,
DOUGLAS           SWANSON           @MPO,
DIANE             WEBBER            @MPO,
GILLES            BASTIEN           @MQO

    You fail to take into account GARTNER's similar stance on Digital and
    Digital's TFSOing of all of the field software marketing people.  I do
    not see Digital taking actions that indicate it is at all interested in
    being a software APPLICATIONS company.  O/S maybe, to leverage
    hardware.  But the necessary steps to make APPLICATIONS and middleware
    successful thru our business partners have not been taken.  GARTNER is
    recommending people avoid commiting to Digital software assuming
    anything beyond 'current asis functionality' and continues to credit
    our 'lack of a stable long term software strategy and the lack of any
    apparent process for reliably defining a strategy'.

    
    I applaud Digital/BP's prompt rebuttal to John Logan's assertions.
    However I truly doubt that mr logan would change his stance, no
    matter how much facts are provided, simply because Aberdeen cuts its
    teeth WITH HP. Aberdeen was about the only talking head that believed
    in HP's risky RISC venture years ago (the other guy is andrew somebody
    from the RISC newsletter). So this loyalty runs quite deep.
    
    Logan is and will be TOTALLY biased against Digital. I do wonder 
    that perhaps there was some unpleasant interaction with him and 
    the old DEC that is coloring his attitude.
                        
    If you think his write-up is negative, he's even more venomous in his
    presentations. BTW he is often invited to speak at INTEREX, HP's
    Decus.

    Re: .6
    
    Gartner's stance on Digital is not nearly as negative as Aberdeen's.
    There are consultants within Gartner Group (Paul McGuckin for example)
    who are also PRO-HP and/or anti-Digital.  There are also consultants
    within Gartner Group that are not so blatantly biased towards HP.
    
    So, while I agree that Aberdeen is not the ONLY analyst writing
    negative reports about Digital, there are also a number of analysts
    that have recently written positive reports about us (Illuminata,
    and DH Brown are 2 that come to mind).
    
    All evidence (at least from our last few announcements) is contrary to
    your statement that we are not investing in middleware.  Perhaps the
    strategy has not been clearly articulated to the industry analysts?
    With respect to Digital being "a software APPLICATIONS company" I'm
    afraid I agree with you.  I don't believe that we are headed in that
    direction and the reasons are somewhat intuitive:
    
    - successful middleware is based on open standards (whereby Digital can
    influence the market vis-a-vis standards bodies)
    - successful applications are adopted by the market and then become de
    facto standards (Digital probably decided not to fight an uphill battle
    with the likes of Microsoft, ORACLE and the like!)
    
    Our strategy seems to be to build OPEN middleware that is required (but
    really not seen by the end-user) in order to run the end-user's
    favorite application.
    
    And, as Dennis Miller says, "Of course that's just my opinion.  I could
    be wrong."

    This editorial is from the Patricia Seybold Group Open Information
    Systems December 1994 Issue (Vol 9, No 12).
    
    Digital's NT Maneuver By Michael A. Goulde (Editor-in-Chief)
    Capitalizing on Gaps Left by Microsoft
    
    In May 1992, I wrote an editorial that discussed the significance
    of the newly announced Microsoft and Digital agreement to work
    together on Windows NT-related products for Digital's Alpha RISC
    platform. I discussed the potential impact of complementary products
    and services and other indicators that this was more than a simple
    marketing agreement.
    
    At the time, it appeared that Digital would primarily be bringing to
    the table its reputation as an enterprise vendor and large-scale
    integrator, while Microsoft would be supplying most of the software 
    technology.
    
    Two-and-a-half years later, a markedly different picture is emerging.
    Digital is preparing to release over the next six months a number of
    products that could make the company a force to be reckoned with
    as Windows NT, as well as Alpha AXP-based systems, gain increasing
    credibility in the marketplace. Digital is positioning itself as a
    provider of software technology that creates a solid bridge between
    Microsoft's proprietary architectures and the open systems-based
    approaches being pursued by most of the rest of the industry.
    
    The upcoming products include:
    
    	ObjectBroker, a CORBA-compliant object request broker that makes
    	Microsoft OLE objects immediately capable of distributed operation
    	without modification.
    
    	Multia, winner of the a Byte Magazine award for best desktop at
    	Fall Comdex, an aggressively priced, high-performance Alpha AXP-
    	based desktop computer that adds some Digital enhancements to
    	Windows NT Workstation 3.5 to create an easy-to-configure,
    	centrally managed, LAN environment. Multia is attractive to VARs
    	and other resellers because it is fast, easy to install, and simple
    	to manage.
    
    	PolyCenter NetView for Windows NT, which extends SNMP network
    	management capabilities to Windows NT, an area that Microsoft has
    	virtually ignored.
    
    	Windows NT Clustering, based on Digitals's vast experience with
    	VAX clusters, which promises high availability and scalable
    	performance for any vendor's Intel servers as Alpha AXP systems
    	at extremely attractive prices. The scalability offered by
    	Windows NT clusters should outstrip that offered by many low-end
    	SMP systems.
    
    	PolyCenter AssetWorks, a product that extends Microsoft's System
    	Management Server (SMS) to include a range of Unix platforms,
    	including Digital's OSF/1, SunOS, HP/UX, AIX and Solaris, making
    	software distribution and configuration on heterogeneous systems
    	easier and less costly.
    
    	ACMS Desktop for Windows NT, one of the few OLTP desktop APIs
    	available for Windows NT today.
    
    	PathWorks Client for Windows and Windows NT, which provides support
    	for DCE, NetWare, NFS, and other distributed environments. For
    	many customers, the DCE and NFS client support are particularly
    	important.
    
    Digital's products address critical gaps in the Microsoft Windows  NT
    product offering, opening up opportunities that were not within reach
    with the solutions Microsoft itself offers They respond to the growing
    call from MIS for systems and network management products to manage
    client/server environments. Digital is answering the need for
    interoperability among Microsoft's standards and de facto standards
    such as DCE, SNMP and NFS.
    
    In 1992, I pointed out the paradox that the key architect of Windows NT
    was formerly the lead engineer for Digital's VMS. A new paradox is
    emerging - Digital is providing technologies that might help make
    Windows NT acceptable to enterprise customers. 
    
    While few vendors are left in the industry that deny that Windows has 
    won the desktop, Digital remains one of the few that is aggressively 
    piggybacking its strategy for the future on Microsoft's Windows strategy. 
    If the VAX, VMS and DECnet hadn't crashed and burned in the early 1990s, 
    Digital probably could never have adopted this strategy. Few companies
    have been able to successfully reposition their product lines. Whether
    or not Digital can do so remains to be seen. At least, the foundation
    is in place. 	

    RE: -.1
    
    hmmm... very interesting.  Well, at least ONE analyst "gets it!"
    
    I had not seen this editorial prior to my reply in .8
    
    It appears that I may have been on the right track in terms of what
    Digital's strategy is after all... Although in this case it appears
    that they are focusing ONLY on our NT strategy to the exclusion of
    other O/S environments.  The beauty of Alpha is that it runs more than
    NT.  Now, if we could only get someone to clearly articulate our
    client/server strategy for those "other" Operating systems.  sigh :^(
    
    Is Digital's only strategy to augment Microsoft??  Would Digital be
    dead if we didn't have an NT strategy??  
    

    > Is Digital's only strategy to augment Microsoft?
    
    No, naturally not. But if Digital is auctioning its multi-colored
    strategy coat then I'll take two of the above please.
    
    If Digital really is percieved as a "provider of software technology
    that creates a solid bridge between Microsoft's proprietory
    architecture and the open system-based approaches" then I submit
    that that is a wonderful, wonderful place to be.
    
    It would be an achievement high on the Richter scale to have moved
    from a company percieved as having proprietory architectures to one
    that is percieved as resolving _other_ companies' proprietory 
    architectures inside of 2 years.
    
    re roelof

Digital is now a hardware company, doing only the minimal amount of 
software itself that's necesary to remain viable as a harware vendor.  
Get used to it, or get out.

--PSW

    An interesting comparison:
    
    According to Jobs section of a local newspaper IBM and ICL are hiring
    several solutions/software people. Microsoft is also looking
    consultants and system specialists.
    
    --Ritva
    

>Digital is now a hardware company, doing only the minimal amount of 
>software itself that's necesary to remain viable as a harware vendor.  
>Get used to it, or get out.

Paul,

    I agree that it sure seems like a hardware company in general, but not
    consistently so.  For instance, are PathWorks and AccessWorks *really*
    necessary to remain viable as a hardware vendor?

			Ken

    And we do $4B+ in services.
    

    RE: .14
    
    No, PATHWORKS is one of the legacies from back before we decided just
    what business we're in.  Rdb was in the same boat.  As long as
    PATHWORKS pulls its own weight (i.e, is profitable) and seems to
    leverage hardware systems sales, it will be tolerated and will survive
    and even be enhanced.  But I wouldn't be a bit surprised to read
    tomorrow that it is on the auction block to be sold off, like Rdb.
    
    Please note that the above observation does NOT indicate my own
    personal opinion on the value of PATHWORKS.  The above is my take on
    how uppermost management views it, based on what they are doing
    (whatever they might be saying and whatever the party line might be). 
    I'm a software engineer, and it's painful at times to know that I'm in
    a company that values software only insofar as it helps sell hardware,
    rather than as a good business to be in in its own right.  But I'm a
    realist and not about to delude myself or anybody else.
    
    --PSW 

    No, PATHWORKS is one of the legacies from back before we decided just
    what business we're in.  Rdb was in the same boat.  As long as
    PATHWORKS pulls its own weight (i.e, is profitable) and seems to
    leverage hardware systems sales, it will be tolerated and will survive
    and even be enhanced.  But I wouldn't be a bit surprised to read
    tomorrow that it is on the auction block to be sold off, like Rdb.

Rdb was very profitable, despite the fact that it was often heavily
discounted to sell hardware.  And it leveraged *lots* of hardware sales. 
These facts did not make any difference, once senior management decided
that they didn't want to be in the database business.

RE: .16

>    I'm a software engineer, and it's painful at times to know that I'm in
>    a company that values software only insofar as it helps sell hardware,
>    rather than as a good business to be in in its own right.  But I'm a
>    realist and not about to delude myself or anybody else.

    Me too, but I think this is more due to the fact that the majority of
    our top-level management come from hardware backgrounds rather than
    any coherent strategy that includes the tenet "software is only valuable
    to the degree it leverages hardware".  In last week's SBU/ABU dvn, for
    instance, Harry Copperman started out by saying that the SBU's business
    is simply "workstations, servers, and networks".  But later in his talk,
    he cited Pathworks and (I believe) AccessWorks as a couple of the most
    stellar successes in the SBU to date.  Whatever the case, I doubt that
    many software engineers in this company are spending their hard-earned
    pay on shades so they can look directly at their bright future here.
    I know I'm not.

The strategy I've heard recognized correctly that Oracle "owned the franchise"
for client/server databases and that it would be extremely difficult to
dislodge them and continue to grow market share without *MAJOR* investment.

Rdb was good.  No doubt about it.  But the decision to sell was not totally
ill informed.  It was part of a rational plan to return the company to
profitability.

I think Digital sees networking as a core strength, but perhaps also
recognizes our software business model, management, and marketing as a
potential weakness.  Not a happy picture for software professionals,
but not an anti-software conspiracy either.

- Peter

      Also much easier to co-operate with Oracle on things like the
    just-announced 64-bit database for Alpha if we're not trying to eat
    each other's lunches elsewhere. The more competitive the relationship
    is, the more difficult true co-operation becomes, because both sides
    will hold back for fear that information revealed will be misused
    elsewhere. Not to say it can't work; but it is much more difficult to
    make it do so, especially for anything other than an obvious and
    immediate mutual advantage.
    
      Selling Rdb to Oracle means that we can both concentrate on what we
    are best at, to mutual advantage, and without worrying that, if we are
    too free with information, assistance etc the other side will (mis)use
    it to steal a march over us elsewhere. 
    
    Ken

    re .16:
    
>    No, PATHWORKS is one of the legacies from back before we decided just
>    what business we're in.  Rdb was in the same boat.  As long as
>    PATHWORKS pulls its own weight (i.e, is profitable) and seems to
>    leverage hardware systems sales, it will be tolerated and will survive
>    and even be enhanced.  But I wouldn't be a bit surprised to read
>    tomorrow that it is on the auction block to be sold off, like Rdb.
    
    I think one of the reasons for which we didn't (yet) sell some software
    products is clearly stated by BP's statements like "we want to be
    leader in Client/Server market".
    
    This can explain why we sold RDB but didn't sell DBI. Pathworks is used
    to build C/S stuff, just like DBI and so on.
    
    Am I too optimistic? Or are we keeping those products just for a while
    and then become just a hardware company?
    
    May be you have a broader vision than the one I have from here, but as
    another example, tha only training which is being done in Digital
    Consulting is about Client/Server stuff.
    
    �AA

    Name a software product that meets the SLT's definition of being a
    leader in the market (either number 1 or 2; possibly 3)? Maybe the
    company is still engineering the before mentioned products because a
    satisfactory deal could not be done! 
    
    

    >Name a software product that meets the SLT's definition of being a
    >leader in the market (either number 1 or 2; possibly 3)? Maybe the
    
    ALL-IN-1
    

    	I would guess that maybe our Ada compilers might come into that
    category, and maybe our real-time operating systems (real-time excludes
    Unix, MS-Dos). The product I am working on at the moment (DECMcc) would
    probably also count because there are only about 3 products in that
    sort of market. I don't know any figures, and even if I did I  would
    probably not be allowed to publish them here, but I wouldn't be
    surprised of VMS isn't amongst the top few in the batch processing
    market.

An operating system is different in that the usual advice of "install the
newest version" is often impossible due to layered product (Digital or 
third-party) restrictions.

				Steve

    re .25
    
    That explains why we have given our ADA9X business to Rational for a
    paultry sum, this also has a huge impact on ADA83 future sales.
    
    Steve.

    We could be a market leader with DECwrite.
    
    	1 Free factory install on each PC we sell
    	2 Doc kit to PC customers (with PC hardware order) for $38:95
    	3 Doc kit / media in stores for MSR $64.95 (40 bucks to DEC).
        4 Hotline support for $19.95 (x calls)
    
    The product already lives, the kits would cost about $10 or $15 a pop.
    
    
    	
    Around 40k new users per month.
    
    Instead we are buying MS Word licenses.
    
    Rob Wall

    Maybe.
    
    But the momentum of the market is clearly against it, and (shields up)
    it's a so-so product (as an amalgam of a word-processor and a
    page-composition tool, it gets a little non-intuitive..). Although I
    have DECwrite on both my VAXstation and my PC, I haven't used it for
    months. Too painful. I use WordPerfect mostly, sometimes Word (which is
    what everybody else in my group uses).
    
    Without a seamless way to read and generate Word and WP files, it'd
    probably be stillborn. It's not clear there ever was a time when it
    would have been able to wedge itself in to the market; bottom-end users
    are happy with Windows Write, and just about everybody else has a
    legacy or a religion driving their choice of tools.
    
    But hey, I'm an engineer. I just use the stuff.
    
    ...tom

  Remind me again why I would buy "DECwrite" rather than the newly-
  announced "FrameMaker 5"? What features does our code base offer
  that theirs doesn't? Which is more likely to offer another release
  in the future? Which offers import/export to MS/Word? Which one
  do I run into at major trade shows? Which one do I read about
  in the trade rags (both editorial content and advertising)?

                                   Atlant

    Are you SURE you want to start extolling the virtues of this product? 
    I'd have to rummage my memory, but as I recall, not too awfully long
    ago, as in when version 3 came out (perhaps 3.1), DECwrite was changed
    so that unless you were printing to a Postscript printer, it didn't
    print your last page.  And despite the complaints from users, my
    recollection of the response was "Tough, get a Postscript printer!  We
    have no plan to change the product..."
    
    Not to mention that DECwrite MAY not always be the most robust...  I've
    got it on both the VAXstation and my PC ONLY because the customer for
    whom I'm on this project has done all their specifications in DECwrite. 
    BUT, for over a month I haven't been able to use it on the PC because
    DECwrite randomly failed and now bringing up ANY document causes a GPF. 
    
    I'm simply not willing to go through the hassle of installing it for
    the 4th time in 18 months because something happened causing the
    product to become unusable.  With luck I'll be done with this project
    within the week and after that I can use the standard and go with Word,
    which SO FAR has NEVER randomly stopped working...
    
    Unfortunately, I STILL have a few documents in DW on the PC that I'm
    going to have to move to the laptop, drag into the office, and read
    into DW on the VAXstation so I can dump them as text to move them into
    Word on the PC.  I wouldn't care, but one of them is my resume...
    

I have been running DECwrite on the VAXstation for years and on the PC since
V3.0. While there *are* occasional problems, they can be worked around in most
cases. And since DECwrite development/support has moved to Ireland, their
responsiveness is more than impressing.

I've read about the problem with non-PS printers, but still have to see it
myself - printing to a Epson Stylos Color without problems.

Yes, I've seen several GPFs (I'm using the German version, which does not get as
many updates as the English one), but the recent update has cured them all. And
while talking about GPFs, I attended a Word training session about a year ago
(using the pre-V6 version) and it was no fun having to reboot the PC four or
five times during the afternoon.

I have Winword on my PC as well, but use it rarely - mainly if a document needs
to be transferred to a Word user.

A heavy word-processing user in my former group, who is very familiar with both
DECwrite and Winword, also claims that DECwrite is far superior in almost all
aspects (features, ease of use, stability). Unfortunately, we've kept this as a
trade secret instead of marketing it to the public.

I've seen the suggestion mentioned in .28 (pre-install DECwrite on all the PC's
we sell) a few months ago - it's sad that apparently nothing happened meantime.
Yes, a import/export filter for word would be a big plus; it shouldn't be that
difficult to write one...

I do hope that the "reanimation" of DECwrite is driven professionally and not as
an alibi action for existing customers.

Hans.

    I also vote for DECwrite over Word, particularly DECwrite on a
    VAXstation. The list of lists concept was quite straightforward. 
    On the PC, I could never get the 3 button mouse to work
    properly, and it was no fun using DECwrite without the three buttons.
    I did have the postscript printer issue bite when trying to print a
    fairly complex DECwrite drawing.
    
    Force of numbers has meant I've moved to word - literally all my
    customers use it as their standard wp.
    
    Teh last PC version I had was 2.something, I think, If there's a later
    one on the net somewhere, please post a pointer. I'd like to give it
    another go, particularly for large documents.
    
    regards,
    Michael Watts.

re.33

the latest DECwrite kit (T3.1) was announced just today. See the
galvia::decwrite notes conference, note 10.last for a kit pointer. T3.1 has many
bug fixes over V3.0 & is a much better product.

re.30 You can export to Winword from DECwrite by using the export to RTF
feature. Winword can read your RTF docs. The reason that DECwrite supports RTF &
not native Word format is that at the time the converter was written, MS
recommended the use of RTF format for interchabge with MS-Word.

I think that .28 is a great idea. I tried persuading the product manager to do
something similar with the OSF version, but he's decided otherwise.

Tom Quigley,
(spare-time DECwrite developer)

    The (one of the ? ;>) ) difficulty with RTF is that graphics are not 
    catered for - even simple line drawings must be redone.
    
    regards,
    Michael Watts.

Not 100% true. RTF caters for everything you can have in Word. It is just
the CDA converter, which doesnt support more than text.

regards,
/Gerold

    
    
    Sorry about taking so long to get back. I suppose this duck is getting
    cold 8^)
    
><<< Note 3620.30 by ATLANT::SCHMIDT "E&RT -- Embedded and RealTime Engineering" >>>
>
>  Remind me again why I would buy "DECwrite" rather than the newly-
>  announced "FrameMaker 5"? 
    This is an interesting, and deeper point than you might think. A
    co-worker some years back suggested that we (DEC internal) should have
    to pay REAL money from our CC's to purchase DEC products such as
    DECwrite. Kind of a double edge sword. Currently your internal customer
    gets a freebie - and that is your incentive to "buy". [On the other
    hand, if your CC had to pay in any case, it wouldn't hurt so much
    to go outside to purchase.]
    If, though, you still bought the internal offering; the "source" CC
    would have auditable revenue, and therefore justification AND BUDGET to
    enhance and develop the offering. Rightsize imunity?!? More reactive to 
    internal comments on form/function?
    
    >What features does our code base offer that theirs doesn't? 
    Beats the lunch out of me! On second thought, probably nothing...but
    then we really havn't tried to appeal to the mass market on this one
    have we?
    
    >Which is more likely to offer another release in the future? 
    Hmmmm. Do I hear a little resentment at DEC starting into markets and
    getting cold feet? We keep walking up to bat but when the ball is
    coming we get spooked and fall to the ground. Corporate insecurity.
    
    >Which offers import/export to MS/Word? 
    If we had half million new users each year then probably we would.
    
    >Which one do I run into at major trade shows? 
    Ditto.
    
    >Which one do I read about in the trade rags (both editorial content and advertising)?
    Ditto.
    
    >                               Atlant
    Now, my turn.
    So whose document format takes less storage (not that it matters to
    this GB+ generation of PC users)? ...and by what ration? (I am guessing
    that the .DOC format is pretty small - by the way, is it propietary?).
    
    You know, I saw another note where someone was complaining about the
    cost differential between box+NT and box+(openvms/D unix). I think
    Microsoft paid for NT with the $50 advance copies they were selling to
    everyone ($50 X 500,000 = 25 million$). Now they are literally giving
    it away for market share against the "esablished" (read proprietary)
    operating systems. If we leeked at DECwrite and said "OK, we've sold
    enough that we recouped our development cost - now lets make a
    decision..."
    
    1 kill it. get out of a "non-core competency"
    2 milk it to a few thousand suctomers (suckers/customers) that haven't
      seen a calendar in a while.
    3 push it out to our entire customer base for just enough to cover
      distribution cost plus 5 or 10 developers (sorry - only one manager 8^)
      and maybe a few percent in the black. And don't wait for them to ask
      for it, include it with their FIS image.
    
    
    What do you think is best vs what we (DEC) will do?
    
    Face it DEC, the world wants to buy MS type stuff for $49.95. Give it
    to them...
    
    notes
    vtx
    decwrite
    ftsv
    ucx
    inspect
    ad naseum (sp)
    
    Our marketing want to make $1M on a product, looks out the window and
    sees 1000 customers that can afford to give us $1000 profit and therefore 
    has met it's goal. DEC is left a niche player with 1000 customers
    (fortune 100?!?). What we need to see is 10,000,000 customers that will
    give us each $20 per product.
    
    
    Gee I fell good now.
    
    Rob Wall
    Kanata Manufacturing.
    [Get 'yer PC's here, step right up]
    
    
    
    

>    ad naseum (sp)

I'm not familiar with this expression, but I imagine
it means to carry on the discussion in the style of
a certain no-longer-in-DEC noter.  The bit in parentheses
must be a reference to sporks.

    "ad naseum" is Latin for "as long as your nose".

>  Remind me again why I would buy "DECwrite" rather than the newly-
>  announced "FrameMaker 5"? 

  Actually, "I" was asking the question in a more general context than
  simply as an employee. "I" meant either me, personally, or any hypo-
  thetical customer. (This doesn't invalidate your answer, by the way.
  And your suggestion that CC's pay money even for internal products
  sounds good at first glance; that would probably have caused a lot
  of Darwinian evolution/extinction of our products and that would
  have been good for the health of our little niche in the ecosystem.
  A lot of egos might have perished, however.)


> -< Forget margins - go for VOLUME. >-

  Bingo! A leason WE HAVE NOT YET LEARNED. Whether you look at Rdb,
  VAXnotes, DECwrite, or PDP, VAX, or Alpha, the leason still befud-
  dles us!

  DEC: GET A CLUE! Learn Kent Glossop's Mantra: "Low volume = endangered"!

  The big underlying reason that I'D *NEVER, NOT IN A MILLION YEARS*
  buy DECwrite is that nobody else does.  Because nobody else buys
  it, that means:

    o You've got to charge me big bucks to try to turn a profit

    o You can't fund a big development or support team because
      you can't amortize the expenses over a zillion copies

    o I can't trade DECwrite documents with my friends (File con-
      version? What a hassle -- Who needs it! Use the/a lingua
      franca format to beggin with!)

    o After a make a commitment to you, And struggle through
      years of your promises to "catch the missing competitive
      features up" in the next release, you'll dump the product
      like you've done with so many others. And then I'll *REALLY*
      need to do file conversion!


  Thanks, but no thanks. 


> So whose document format takes less storage (not that it matters to
> this GB+ generation of PC users)? ...and by what ration? (I am guessing
> that the .DOC format is pretty small - by the way, is it propietary?).

  As you say: Who cares? The minimum allocation unit on my Gig-sized
  disk is upwards of 32K. And most of the things I do in Word or Word-
  Perfect seem to fit fine in one allocation unit. I have no direct
  experience with FrameMaker 5 and its file sizes, but I'd *ASSUME*
  that, being based on the same code base as DECwrite, its file
  format is similarly efficient or inefficient.

                                   Atlant

    Actually the term "ad naseum" is a term used by insiders in the 
    advertising industry to describe an adverising program that has an enormous
    initial success and then wonders where it should be going for
    the follow-on 30 years.
    
    The term is of course derived from Nasa's space program characteristics.
    
    re roelof

    
    
    
    Ad Nauseam, in latin means literally "till you get nausea", and is
    usually used, for example, when you mean to say you've repeated the
     same thing so much that you ended up with stomach ache.
    
    To put it in back in the advertising context ;^)  you can say :
    
    "This advertising campaign has been going on and on, ad nauseam, that I
    can't stand it anymore "
    

Well, I imagine most of us know what "ad nauseum" means.
However, that doesn't appear to have much to do with *this*
note.  We're all busy discussing the phrase "ad naseum",
as used in .37

    
    
    Sorry,
    
    must of got confused by the (sp) next to it, and thought there was a
    spelling mistake.
               

This point about volume and market share is crucial, but often mis-applied.


Business studies from the late 60s and early 70s showed that as volume
doubles, the total cost to deliver the product to the customer drops
by around 20-30%.  Furthermore, companies with greater than 30% market
share are almost always profitable, whereas companies with less than
15% market share almost always lose money.

The critical point that is often overlooked is that market share
is defined by market segment.  There is only room for a few profitable
producers in each SEGMENT.

Unfortunately, most businesses choose to focus on strategies to
achieve incremental positions in broad markets.  They are far less
enamored with "segmenting the market into a sufficiently isolated
segment which can be dominated."

***
For example, it continues to amaze me that people still think the Mac
is dead, dying, or in trouble.  Apple is consistently one of the top
three volume producers of personal computers, and they have a significant
lead in important segments including:

  Publishing
  Grahpic Arts
  Multimedia
  Education
  Home

The place where they are weakest is Fortune 500.  Just a year ago,
the PC trade press proclaimed that with Chicago about to ship,
the Mac was dead, Apple might not survive till Christmas.
Three consecutive quarters of record sales and profits later,
it's a different story, but few asked how the press could have
been so wrong?

The pundits reasoned Apple only had 10-12% of the PC market,
and that wasn't enough to remain viable.  Having successfully
differentiated their product, and leading with superior technology
in several market segments didn't seem to register.
***

The traditional minicomputer software model is no longer viable.
We can't sell high priced software to a few thousand customers
that does essentially the same thing as low priced software others
are selling to millions of customers.

But the solution isn't simply to drop the price and target the big market.
Microsoft has such a strong product and installed base that the barriers to
entry are enormous.  The only way in is to segment the market.
To differentiate and target a real need in the market we can
serve better.

- Peter

    Of course, .42 does have the rare distinction of spelling the phrase
    "ad nauseam" correctly.  Most people spell it "ad nauseum."  I used to
    myself.  My thanks to the late, great Simon Szeto for pointing this out
    to me many years ago.
    					
                                        andrew

    >> Most people spell it "ad nauseum."

Clearly, "nauseum" is a place that contains a collection of things likely to
cause nausea.  ("Nausea" is a concatenation of "nau-" as in "nautical" and
"sea" as in "sea," referring to the sickness many people feel when they are
attempting being nautical on the sea.  They frequently feel the same way when
people start combining redundant word parts such as "nau" and "sea," hence the
typical association of nausea with repetitive motion.)  "Ad" is short for
"advertisement" (which is pronounced "advertisement," not "advertisement," but
you can't tell the difference because you are reading this (I think)). 
Therefore, "ad nauseum" means an advertisement for a place that contains a
collection of things likely to make you sea sick.  Common usage has led to the
connotation of "if the item under discussion keeps happening, you will feel as
if you have seen a display of sickening things."  QED (I won't get into that
one).

						Brian

>    Of course, .42 does have the rare distinction of spelling the phrase
>    "ad nauseam" correctly.  Most people spell it "ad nauseum."  I used to
>    myself.  My thanks to the late, great Simon Szeto for pointing this out
>    to me many years ago.

Wow. If that's true, then I am impressed.  I didn't even notice the
difference.  I stand (well, sit, actually) humbled before greatness
in the field of lexicography.

    
    Ad Nauseam: Adverb, Latin, 1647: To a sickening, or excessive degree.
    
    
    
    Nausea    : Noun, Latin, seasickness, nausea. 
                From the Greek, nautia, nausia,  and from the
                French, nautes sailor (1569).   
    
                1. a stomach distress with distaste for food, and an urge to 
                   vomit. 
    
                2. Extreme disgust
    
    

Following up on .45, the way companies come to dominate broad
markets is by dominating one segment at a time, and then expanding
to dominate others.

  HP didn't suddenly own the printer market.  They established a reputation
  for affordable high quality printers with their innovative inkjet technology.
  Their success and revenues from inkjets quickly expanded to include affordable
  color, personal laser printers, and then workgroup printers.  HP is now
  so dominant, they can redefine the market every six months, undercutting
  most other vendors products.

How did Microsoft beat out Word Perfect and Lotus 1,2,3?

  Microsoft's original application strategy was to write irresistable
  next generation graphical applications for the Mac, and then port
  them to the PC platform.  MS-Excel and MS-Word were originally
  written for the Mac.  After several generations of refinement and
  dominating the Mac platform, they were ported to the newly released
  Windows environment where their power and ease of use crushed the
  competition.

Ironically, Microsoft has become so successful with the Windows versions
of these applications, they've become sloppy on the Mac (especially
Word 6.0).  The opportunity to get a serious foothold in word processing
software is on the Mac.  Word Perferct is starting to make a comeback here.

Similarly, ClarisWorks started on the Mac, and now dominates Works
packages on both platforms much to Microsoft's embarrassment (MS-Works
was the origanal Works package).

Unfortunately, many managers in Digital have concluded that Microsoft
owns the desktop, and that the Mac is irrelavent.  Even if we're not
interested in desktop software, I think it's a mistake to ignore the Mac.
The Mac still has a large influence in setting the direction for PCs.
[Bill Gates isn't ignoring the Mac, he's obsessed with trying to beat it.]

- Peter

RE: .34
>the latest DECwrite kit (T3.1) was announced just today. See the
>galvia::decwrite notes conference, note 10.last for a kit pointer. T3.1 has
>many bug fixes over V3.0 & is a much better product.
>
>re.30 You can export to Winword from DECwrite by using the export to RTF
>feature. Winword can read your RTF docs.


Last time I checked (a long time ago) exporting to RTF resulted in all the
style names being lost and everything reverting to the RTF "Normal" style.
Local formatting was used so that the RTF document "looked" like the
DECwrite document, but any sense of "what this paragraph is" (ie.  it's
style) was lost during export.  (CDA_BUGS note 1508)

Is this still the case?

-Mike