Conference 7.286::digital

	I send a message to Ken Swanton (OpenVMS Marketing) when I spotted 
this, and he handed it off to one of his staff to do the right thing.  Stay 
tuned.  This particular columnist in Comm Week is something of a loose 
cannon.

		David

    
    ....commence bombing...
    
    
    
    
    :*) (only kidding - I think)....:*)....hmm..

    By all means I hope we respond to Ed M. as we don't need this message
    out there. BTW, I've worked with him here in  NJ (he's based near
    Princeton) and he is NOT DECfriendly. As the lead consultant on a
    global net mgmt project for my client, he had JUST recommended our net
    mgmt tools (not MCC, a UNIX-based tool which name I can't recall at the
    moment) when we announced the Netview deal...the account was very
    impressed with how "well connected" he was within DEC. ;-)
    
    SteveS

    I expressed my concerns about the article to the editors.  Readers
    of this magazine rely on information from the magazine.  Readers 
    assume that authors have researched issues that they write about.  
    
    The research by Ed M in the stated article makes me wonder what other
    inccorrect information exists in the magazine.  I hope that this
    article is not a start of a trend from the magazine as it has been a
    reliable source of information in the past.  

    I agree that the article is wrong and Digital needs to set the record
    straight, however, I would think that the "vast majority" of Digital
    customers know that the VAX is still supported and would quickly draw
    the conclusion that the author "was poorly informed".  This would most
    likely reflect badly on both the author and the publication, not
    Digital.
    

    re: -1...
    
    Ah, yes - but what about the "vast majority" of non-Digital customers
    who read that rag -- uhhh, mag, I mean?  Think about a non-Digital
    customer who is currently being "woo-ed" by a Digital or
    Digital-partner rep to buy into our lines?  Even if he/she is looking
    to buy Alpha, what would he/she think about us supposedly *abandoning* 
    millions of customers because the new stuff is better??!
    
    Yeesh!  Some people (like Ed M.) shouldn't be allowed near typewriters. 
    This guy is obviously dangerous :)!
    
    M.
    

    Didn't Digital Review fire its editorial staff over similar
    anti-DEC, er, Digital writings sometime in June '94?
    I'd really like to know more about that.
    
    I for one found it interesting that when the new editorial staff took
    over and announced that they were no longer going to focus on DEC's,
    er, Digital's failures, but rather its strengths - 
    
    The overall size of the publication decreased!
    
    Publius

Re: Digital Review

Is this the same mag. that Jack Fergeus worked for?  I see that he
doesn't seem to be with them anymore.  Anyone know what happened 
to him?

                            James. 

>Is this the same mag. that Jack Fergeus worked for?  I see that he
>doesn't seem to be with them anymore.  Anyone know what happened 
>to him?

    I think he left DR to become the editor-in-chief of Client/Server magazine.
    Don't know whether the mag still exists or whether he's still there.

Article 53303 of comp.os.vms:
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From: [email protected] (Agermain)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: How is this for bad PR?
Date: 2 Feb 1995 18:04:17 -0500
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John Cason  <[email protected]> writes:

>In the January 23, 1995 issue of "Communications Week".  A column on 
>networking solutions contains the following statement about Digital 
>Equipment Corp:
>
>     "Its latest - and currently, only - model is the Alpha.  When
>      Digital unveiled the Alpha a couple of years ago, it stopped
>      making the previous model, the VAX.  It stopped offering spare
>      parts, and even service, for the VAX."
>
>How is this for inaccurate reporting.

We thank you for your concern. Communications Week regrets the columnist's
error
and will print an explanation from Mr. Mier in the February 13th issue
(#543).



The Editors of Communications Week
"The Newspaper for Enterprise Networking"
internet: [email protected]

�We thank you for your concern. Communications Week regrets the columnist's
�error
�and will print an explanation from Mr. Mier in the February 13th issue
�(#543).
�
�
�
�The Editors of Communications Week
�"The Newspaper for Enterprise Networking"
�internet: [email protected]

This is pretty weak.  "We thank you for your *concern[?]*."  Print an 
explanation?  How about just saying "Digital is still shipping and manufacturing
the VAX line and has, in fact, improved the performance by XXX% in the last..."


Bruce

    
    re: -1
    
    	That would be too simple. Mass media types do not like to print
    retractions, clarifications, or errors of ommission - it makes them
    *look* bad, or at best, inconsequential. 
    
    	What our marketing folks should do is send them a letter to the
    editor detailing your point, and suggesting that factual reporting
    be applied to colunmists as well as in-house reporters.
    
    		the Greyhawk

> What our marketing folks should do is send them a letter to the
> editor detailing your point, and suggesting that factual reporting
> be applied to colunmists as well as in-house reporters.
    
  If the letter is phrased correctly, that second message
  will be clearly implied; there's no need to explicitly
  state it and rub their noses in it; they (and the readers)
  will get the idea.

  The letter author might mention that we're still actively
  supporting the PDP-11 market as well.  If we've discussed the
  "Viking" PDP emulator (running on Alpha), it would make an
  ideal proof-point.
                                   Atlant

    �and will print an explanation from Mr. Mier in the February 13th issue
    
    Can't wait to read this.... Let's see if he can really mess it up...
    

>  supporting the PDP-11 market as well.  If we've discussed the
>  "Viking" PDP emulator (running on Alpha), it would make an
>  ideal proof-point.


	Cool! Now we can bring back TRAXX!!!

							mike

>	Cool! Now we can bring back TRAXX!!!
    
    I have saved some of the documents; they were spelled with only one X. 
    (It made quite an impression on a young college hire when a big banner
    went up in MK1 saying "TRAX HAS SHIPPED" and then, soon after, the
    search for the guilty began.)
    
    Meanwhile, back to the point of .0 -- the "VAX is dead" rumor happens
    fairly frequently.  If it's of any use to anyone, here's the reply I
    put into comp.sys.dec in December.
    
    
Article: 9922
From: [email protected] (John L. Henning)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: Will DEC stop supporting VMS in one year?
Date: 17 DEC 94 21:44:05
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
 
 
>In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] 
(Brian T. Schellenberger) writes:
 
>|>Perhaps the gentleman in question is confusing Digital's apparent
>|>desire to drop support for the *VAX* (as vs. AXP) with a desire to
>|>drop support for VMS.
 
and Ken Cowan (of Digital) wrote - 
 
>This looks like the start of a rumour too.  Where did you hear
>"Digital's apparent desire to drop support for the *VAX*"?  
>Didn't we announce new VAX systems in the past 9 months or so?
 
What *is* true is that the fastest CPU performance will be found with Alpha,
not VAX.  But that does not mean the VAX is dead.  I just had occasion to
study up on recent VAXes, as I gave the VAX server performance talk last
week at US DECUS.  A few key points on recent VAX server announcements, all
within the last year:
 
  - New desktops   VAX 3100-85    16 VUPS, 110 tps (estimate)  62.5 Mhz
                       and -95    32 VUPS, 165 tps (estimate)  83.3 Mhz
                   and 4000-105A  32 VUPS, 181 tpsA            83.3 Mhz
  - New deskside   VAX 4000-505A  32 VUPS, 185 tpsA            83.3 Mhz
                       and -705A  45 VUPS, 280 tpsA           111   Mhz
  - New datacenter VAX 7000-710   50 VUPS, 314 tpsA,          137.5 Mhz
                                          1004 tpsA with 6-way SMP
 
The talk immediately preceding mine was by the manager of VAX product
management, Vaughn Mackie, who stated that there will continue to be
announcements of new VAX products, although probably not at the rate of the
last 12 months.
 
Qualifiers: I am not the VAX product manager, and prior to last week I was
not a spokesperson for VAX performance.  However the above statements are
believed to be accurate since I recently reviewed the available VAX
performance data. 
 
As to VMS being dead or near death, that was addressed head-on by Jesse
Lipcon, the VP of the business unit responsible, who quoted recent
shipments, future plans, industry studies, and business analyses to debunk
the rumor.  It is simply not true.
 
  John Henning
  CSG Performance Group
  Digital
    

    It's too bad that the VAX4000 family hasn't found some more IO than the
    DSSI can provide, like maybe DSSI2 (16 bit - more ID's available etc)
    or a "modern" SCSI buss.
    
    I had suggested to V4000 designers some years ago a chopped box with CI
    interface in place of 2DSSI and Qbus. It could sit on top of an HSC
    with 30 to 40 vups, memory and Ethernet...real low cost alternative to
    a VAX6000.
    
    Their answer was that the CI was dying out. Now we have an HSJ with
    SCSI drives.
    
    Bottom line - every couple of months we have aggressive additions to
    the design of our PC's and our Alpha's in terms of IO capacity,
    multiprocessor daughter cards, PCI option busses, re-cast silicon for
    the processor chip (faster alpha on one side, pentium on the other).
    The VAX gets another little tweak of the clock that could have been
    done long ago.
    
    It's not dead yet; but it's not growing either.
    
    	Rob Wall
    	Kanata Manufacturing Engineering Support 621-4407
        [Former Vax/Alpha manufacturer.]

    And I was one of those that fielded that request.. about half a dozen
    times from various quarters, as I recall.
    
    And every time, there was no justification to do it. CI is not a pretty
    bus to design to, and nobody was willing to fund the effort. Storage
    actively discouraged it.  It probably wouldn't be "real low cost",
    because you wouldn't have a lot of volume to amortize the chip
    development across. (I'll leave the 6000/4000 political impact as an
    exercise for the reader)
    
    You did, however, get the A series (after I left that group) with extra
    spigots, and the VAXbricks. With a RAID box behind those, there really
    isn't much ground left to conquer in terms of bytes and spindles. You
    got those because the original 4500 design was sufficiently clean (Ow!
    it hurts when I pat myself on the back like that!) and
    (with a lot of help from our friends in Hudson and Israel) modular 
    that, in many cases, the designs were done before the products were 
    even funded.
    
    Having said that, I think the VAX business is still paying a fair part
    of the bills around here; I've lost my insight into what's left in the
    pipe. The team that did the 4000's has scattered far afield (well,
    actually a clump of 'em eventually re-coalesced), and I'd guess the
    enhancements to that family have about run out.
    
    ...tom