Conference 7.286::digital

�        <<< Note 3810.0 by GVA05::MORIAUD "Si vis pacem para pacem." >>>
�               -< Why are our products ignored in PC magazines? >-

I believe that there are a few keys things that factor into if/when a 
vendor is mentioned in a PC magazine.

Months in advance, PC magazines send vendors a request for product review 
where the product should meet certain specifications.  If the vendor 
doesn't have anything at that time which meets those specifications or
chooses not to send in a product for review, the vendor doesn't show up in
the product review. 

Lead times for product review articles are fairly lengthy.

You might want to also ask this in NOTED::IBMPC-95 for input there.

I have seen Digital PCs mentioned frequently in recent issues of PC Magazine,
PC Computing, Computer Shopper and Windows Sources.  Indeed, Windows Sources
used the HiNote Ultra as its model of the "ideal" laptop - glowing reviews
of the HiNote line appear frequently with the recurring refrain that these
are elegant, fast (and pricey) laptops whose only real competition is the
IBM 701C (which is even more expensive and slower).

The Celebris line is also frequently mentioned as being a good performer and,
again, pricey.

The comparitive reviews are scheduled many months in advance and our newest
models haven't yet made it into the lineups - often there will be a sidebar
with new models and we have made it there.

					Steve

    Magazine reviews often depend upon "free" hardware for the review and
    the amount of advertising business done with the magazine.

    The magazine may not be intentionally be biased, but I'm sure them
    above items help to determine the relative priority of reviewing
    certain systems.  We cut back on both, so Digital is probably on the
    bottom of the list.


    							-Paul

To me this is one of the most blatant problems we have.

A large portion of the world uses PC Magazine or one of many others to 
make its buying decisions.  Often Digital is not even mentioned when it 
has excellant products!  This not only results in missing sales but also 
contributes to confusion, misunderstanding and misperception about 
Digital.  It looks like Digital isn't a viable or significant competitor.
Certainly it couldn't be a strong one!

The worst part of this is that the Marketing people think we ARE in these 
magazines.  While it is right that in PC or Byte magazine we get 
occasional brief mentions and many of these often say nice things the fact 
is in most areas we have less visibility than much smaller companies like 
Zeos.  Nowhere do you get the sense of product breadth that we have.  
Nowhere do you get the sense we have HOT STUFF!

In addition to key products like the 2100, Hinote and software the fact 
that we have a VAST array of network solutions is totally missed.  You'd 
never know we were big on NT.  You'd never know we have the fastest SQL 
Server in the world or perhaps the best PCI to Ethernet cards.  Or that 
our PCI to Ethernet chips are used in others cards or that we were one of 
three who invented Ethernet. You'd certainly never know we had an 
excellant X Window system for Windows (eXcursion), Storageworks storage 
solutions and offer service plans for anyone's PC.  Heck it's darn hard to 
know we're even involved with Microsoft Network.  And we havn't even 
talked about the Internet, Wireless or MPEG technology.

And this is if you're a PC Magazine reader.  The coverage is much worse 
relatively in others like Windows magazine, WIRED, Computer Life, PC 
Computing, Mobile Computing, Internetwork etc. etc.  

I am not suggesting we spend more time advertising.  I am suggesting that 
a serious on-going effort should be made to ensure that the staff of every 
PC and computer magazine out there is fully knowledgable in all that 
Digital has to offer and is kept up to date on what we have and perhaps 
even what is coming.  They should all be made believers.  Heck we should 
be able to impress the living daylights out of them!  We should generously 
supply product to review and to use.  This is the cheapest and best way to 
ensure that Digital is kept in front of the buying public.  After all if 
we get their hearts and minds... the articles will follow.

PS> I still think the talk show circuit is a great idea.

    If I remember correctly HomePC had a Dec pc as one of its
    ineresting new products in a recent issue.  The Dec pc folks seem
    to be doing an excellent job in terms of publicity, IMHO.
    

    re .4  I agree.
    If the 'game' is played a certain way, learning the rules is the first
    step to succeed.  While the magazines may announce the fact that their
    lead time is several months to review a product/service, I'm sure that
    if the *relationship* existed between a company and the mag. the rules
    could be bent/reshaped.  Let's be aggressive out their people!  The ads
    (eg. 'Hell has our phone number') were a good start; follow it up with
    the personal touch!
    My $.02
    
    Doug

    The reality is that PC Magazine and otherd *DO* mention Digital's
    products on an increasingly frequent basis, and usually very favorably. 
    We are often included in the short list of "quality" PC vendors by
    magazine columnists.  In fact, it's unusual for me to open an issue of
    these magazines and NOT see some mention of Digital PCs.
    
    We do work with the editorial staffs and provide them loaner equipment.
    
    				Steve

    We are getting mentioned by PC Magazine more frequently, and in better
    terms, than we were three years ago. But we still have a long way to
    go. My next door neighbor works for Dell, and part of her job is to
    specifically target "review" issues of computing magazines as part of
    Dell's marketing program. Dell has actually scheduled price reductions
    and option changes to meet press dates for these issues, because they
    are painfully aware of how much weight these reviews carry, especially
    in the mail-order channel. As Digital moves away from direct-selling
    methods to distributors who buy in quantity but sell in small orders,
    our marketing must adjust accordingly. We must make every effort to
    participate in the reviews and come out on top.
    
    Geoff 

Re: .8

What makes you think we don't do that as well?  We do.

			Steve

    I have to agree with .4  I've only recently started paying serious
    attention to the PC world, and my impression from reading the PC
    magazines is that Digital is definitely a second (or maybe third) 
    tier player in the PC business.  That's not a scientific, reasoned
    view; just a gut reaction from reading a bunch of magazines.  In fact,
    it it wasn't for the fact that I work DEC, my reaction to the idea
    of buying a Digital PC might well be "Digital who?"

I agree we are doing much better.  I simply contend we have a LONG way to 
go.

I would propose a simple test.  For the next couple of months, anyone who 
sees a review or evaluation of a category of products in which Digital has 
products that should have been mentioned but weren't, post it here.  You 
should include the name of magazine or publication, the issue, article and 
page and perhaps a brief comment on what was missing.  I think articles 
back to Jan 1995 should be allowed.

Perhaps we can demonstrate how far we have to go.



To get the ball rolling a quick review...

There are of course the easy ones like the fact that the March 14, 1995 
issue of PC Magazine review of 16 V.34 Modems on page 241 did not mention 
the Digital V.34 Modem described on p.34 of Digital's March 1995 PC 
Catalog. That can be excused.  We are not really in the modem business.

And I guess I can't say much about our lack of appearance in the Feb 1995 
issue of Data Communications except to one phrase on the fact Digital has 
an FDDI switch and a whole sentence explaining that Telnet is used to 
emulate Digital's VT Terminals even though quite some time is spent on 
page 29 explaining Fore's leadership in ATM switching.  After all the test 
on page 85 was of TCP/IP packages and the cover was on Frame Relay.  We 
don't have anything in either space correct?

While the March 1995 issue of Byte Magazine did say nice things about the 
HiNote Notebook (p.40) and the DEC Alphastation 400 4/233 (p.117) it said 
nothing about Hierarchial Storage Management software (we have solutions 
here correct?) (p.137) or Tape Drives (p.144).

Lastly a quick check of the February 1995 issue of Internet World shows no 
mention of Digital at all.


Now don't get me wrong, I don't consider any of the above to be 
significant problems in and of themselves but it does leave one with a 
misleading view of Digital's role in the computing world.  

What can others come up with?

    PC USer April 1995 great review of the Hi-Note Ultra, gets 9/10. IBM
    Thinkpad gets 8/10

    Business Week isn't a PC magazine, but I notice all of our competition
    (IBM, HP, COMPAC, DELL, etc) advertizes in there every week. Not just
    PCs, either. I see ads for notebooks, printers, and client server stuff
    every week.
    
    Deb 

Well how about the opposite?    (This is just from what I have handy in the
office - I have more at home.)

PC Magazine, Jan. 24, "First Looks" review of the HiNote CT475, quote:
   "Overall, the new HiNote is good looking, light-weight and performs up
    to snuff."

PC Magazine, April 11, "First Looks" review of the HiNote Ultra CT475, quote:
   "The HiNote Ultra may send IBM and Toshiba back to the drawing board."

PC Magazine, April 25, (Network edition, "Hot Prospect"), review of 
   Netrider 90 and 900.

Computer Shopper, May 1995, reviews of HiNote CT450, DEClaser 3500 and 
   DECwriter 90ip.

Indeed, every single one of the recent PC magazines I have handy contain
at least one Digital product review.   In other magazines I've seen more
reviews of the HiNote, the Celebris XL (and Celebris desktop) and several
Digital printers.

I think the PCBU marketing people are doing a fine job here - with limited
resources, I imagine.

					Steve

    Atlant,
     
    I've noticed that also. And not only are they mentioned in almost every
    issue, they are usually mentioned multiple times per issue (usually as
    a point of comparison to what ever the article is about).
    
    Deb

  It's also interesting to read the "Index to Businesses" that
  each of the business magazines and newspapers publish somewhere
  in each edition. (The index points to each place that each com-
  pany is mentioned within that issue.)

  Our competitors are often in *EVERY* issue. The news may not
  always be good, or germane, but their names get ink and are
  kept in front of the business public. We, on the other hand,
  only show up occasionally.

                                   Atlant

    April 25 1995 PC Magazine - E-mail/Messaging Issue
    
    	Not only was Digital absent in this issue, it contain the following 
    statement on page 139 in the 1st paragraph of its Cover Story. 
    
    	"To play in the big leagues of the PC software industry today, you
         must not only sell messaging technology but also offer your
    	 customers an overarching strategy for its deployment throughout
    	 enterprize. Only four companies have the resources to take up this
    	 challenge today - IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, and Novell."
    
    

    Ummm...I didn't really think that we were *in* the PC software industry
    in a big way.  Our focus in that arena seems to be in terms of
    integration -- i.e., Pathworks, Teamlinks, etc.
    
    If necessary, excuse my ignorance.  I follow the hardware side of PCBU
    much more closely than anything in the Software side of Digital.
    
    M.
    

	I'm usually more on the positive side of this arguement
	these days but I did happen to notice that the most recent
	issue of Advanced Imaging had a lengthy article on Video Servers
	that mentioned everyone under the sun except us....Advanced Imaging
	usually mentions us fairly frequently, so this omission seemed
	rather blatant.....

	_kelley

    President Clinton isn't the only one with a need to use the term
    "relavent" to describe his place in the scheme of things. We've become
    irrelevant to many, if not most, in the PC and other IT and industry rags.
    I've been tracking other rags, such as Industry Week, Manfacturing
    Magazine and others for years. We used to get ink in every one every 
    month, but we  became irrelevant to these folks a couple of years back. 
    Now the ink goes to HP, IBM, SUN and even SGI, more than Digital. The 
    reason is simple, our market share (and thus "pull") has declined such 
    that we are now lost in the clutter that makes up that most ubiquitous 
    chart category - OTHERS. A sad fate for a company that used to have its
    own little labeled sliver of the pie charts.
    
    -OFWAMI-

re Note 3810.20 by GLDOA::WERNER:

        I feel like it's the mid-80's all over again -- we (Digital)
        strategically are reluctant to go all out for the desktop and
        the mass markets (with the exception, this time, of near-
        commodity items) and instead are pursuing the glass house and
        the data centers once again (not in itself a bad market for
        us, but limited).

        I am particularly saddened by the weakness of our Internet
        and Web activities in comparison to IBM, Sun, and SGI.

        Bob

    I'm speculating, but I believe that the focus is on selling the
    channels and I think that this is succeeding based on the reviews I've
    seen in VAR Business and Computer Reseller and others.  Computer
    Reseller runs competitive product reviews periodically and the primary
    factor that drives the ranking is the opportunity for sales growth and
    profit.  Digital rates very well, and compares favorably or beats out
    HP and Sun.  Still, there are questions about our long term viability
    and commitment to using the channels.
    
    The concrete measure of success is the shift from 40% indirect to now a
    solid 60% indirect.  While this transition has taken place, we have
    increased volume significantly and increased revenue and profit
    modestly.  From the trade press, I suspect that we have lost business
    as a result of shifting to channels due to confusion and to a certain
    degree due to customers feeling that we're not giving them the
    attention that their huge $25K a year purchases deserve.
    
    One of the reasons that our prices seem high is because we have
    intentionally raised our list prices to increase profit margins to
    resellers while increasing the amount that they can discount from list. 
    This has been noted positively by PC Week and CRN and in quotes from
    distributors and resellers.
    
    The trade articles relating to storage, terminals, and printers is
    positive and reasonably accurate.  Again, the message is that DEC seems
    to be focusing heavily on the channels and avoiding channel conflict.
    The trade seems to consider our terminals as innovative, StorageWorks
    is a good product, and overall our pricing thru the channels is very
    aggressive.
    
    While the businesses like video, internet, etc., servers aren't highly
    visible, an article I saw this evening specifically noted that only HP
    of all the major players, IBM, SGI, DEC, etc., was going the direct
    route.  If you think about these kinds of products, no sale will be
    something that is closed by calling 1-800-video; they will require that
    someone in the TV or cable equipment business be involved.  The press
    is quoting us and our partners to the effect that we're helping our
    resellers make the sales.
    
    The black hole has been in the network space.
    
    One strategy that appears to used is to stop PR work in one or more
    area a month or more prior to a big announcement.  I don't know if this
    is intended to increase the impact of the annoucement or whether the
    work needed to prepare for the media blitz so severely taxes the
    resources that the ongoing PR work can't be done.
    
    So, I'm not surprised to hear from one of the trade rags that this week
    (or next) we'll be rolling out "enVISN", a virtual network
    architecture and additional products to support the existing DEChub and
    recently announced PORTswitch.  This is clearly needed to unify the
    broad line of network products that are often presented in isolation.
    I'm hopeful that we finally have a marketing and channels strategy in
    the network area and that this will make some of the holes higher
    priorities to fill.  (Modems are one of the holes; are we going to
    partner or simply recommend/resell?)
    
    The press coverage of "software" is not good.  Its hard to explain how
    we have addressed a major part of our software product strategy by
    selling Rdb to Oracle.  You really have to take a long view to see the
    value of selling a $100M revenue stream for $100M so that Larry Ellison
    can close the $8B gap between he and Bill Gates.  However, there are or
    soon will be more Oracle sales people selling Alpha that there are DEC
    sales people and all will be talking 64 bits.  This will force the
    other database vendors to deliver 64 bit database software which means
    software that runs on DEC computers.  Its hard to explain how
    down playing Rdb, (and increasing its cost), is a positive step for
    all database customers, but a lot of people believe that it is.
    
    Over all, I think that the press coverage reflects the state of our
    products, marketing, and engineering strategy.  Not all is good, or
    bad, or in line with the way that HP or IBM do business.

    Just as FYI, I have a friend, a former MCS Sales Digit, who now works
    for a Microage franchise.  He says that he can quite competitively sell
    the Digital PCs to certain of his customers, because, despite the fact 
    that they cost more, they are so much better engineered than most other
    PC hardware.  
    
    M.
    

    The May issue of Byte has a nice Dec presence in three
    articles.
    

I agree we are in many more places than we WERE...and we are doing better 
than we were hmmmmm...

I would like to get back to delineating in how many places we aren't that 
we should be.  That will allow us to focus on the problem not sit back and 
pat ourselves on the back saying how good we are.

How about putting somebody (or two) in place to review the top 50 
magazines that come out every month and publishing a report to the top 
management and marketing community and employees on how many times we were 
mentioned vs. how many times we SHOULD have been mentioned AND were we 
mentioned positively or negatively. 

This should help us focus on getting the word out.  It might also be a 
good measure of our PR folks.

    FWIW...from Dr. Dobb's Journal, May 1995. A book review of _Regional
    Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128_, by
    Annalee Saxenian, Harvard University Press, 1994.  Reviewed by Peter D.
    Varhol, chair of CS and Math departments at Rivier Colleg in New
    Hampshire. Shamelessly quoted without permission.
    
        "Saxenian goes on to make some interesting observations
        regarding corporate organization in the two regions. Route 128
        companies...tend to be vertically integrated, performing
        virtually all engineering and support functions in house. 
        
        ...
        
        "Her obvious example in New England is Digital Equipment Corp.,
        which at one time made virtually every componentn for virtually
        all of their systems. To many, it was heresy when the company
        adopted, however briefly, the MIPS processors for its first RISC
        systems. Because of DEC's early success, other startups had to
        emulate its business model to look respectable, and the capital
        investment need to do so probably discouraged many would be
        entrepreneurs.
    
        "This is like beating a dead horse, however. For better or
        worse, DEC, the region's largest employer [I thought GenRad or
        Raytheon was...-rl], had a profound influence on the area's
        attitudes toward high technology. Virtually everyone I knew
        (includeing myself, in my younger days) wanted to work for DEC,
        because the company had the best of everything. Now, the firm is
        simply irrelevant. Most of the bright people I know don't even
        consider DEC to be a part of the computer industry today."
    
    Not sure what it means, if anything; I'll leave that to the wise and
    discerning among us.

More omissions/errors:

PC Magazine (Network Edition) April 11, 1995

- Digital Video article...no mention of Digital or our FullVideo products.
- 100mbps Ethernet Adapters...no mention of Digital.

Mobile Office, March 1995

- Portable Printer review, p74.  No mention of Digital.
- Buyers Guide to 61 Active Matrix Color Notebooks, p. 104
    One line on CT450. Lists 240MB max disk. Lists street address as 146 Main Street.

PC Magazine (Network Edition) April 25, 1995

- Chart on p.NE20 includes 21 ATM Vendors.
   Indicates Digital has no ATM adapters or switches only routers.  Says Digital has no
   Web home page!!!


In many smaller firms failing to mention one of the firms products in a review or article 
results in a letter to the magazine from the marketing manager outlining the omission and 
making sure the reader knows the company has a product that should have been included.  
These are often printed in letters from readers and serves to correct the improper 
impression the magazine has given.  Have we grown so big that we have forgotten this 
basic technique?

Isn't allowing the omission of Digital in an article to go without challenge admitting we 
have nothing to contribute?  At least it says if we have products that we aren't serious 
about promoting them.  If we are not serious about promoting them, why should our 
customers seriously consider buying them?  

And why are we surprised when people don't consider us a player?

Even (especially?) if we sell through partners there has to be demand for OUR goods and 
services.  People who come to a partners are often just looking for answers.  Many 
partners would just as soon sell them HP or IBM.  First we have to let them know we have 
something to offer and then we have to give them a compelling REASON to buy from Digital.

We're doing better...but we still need to improve.  Any more examples?

  <<< Note 3810.27 by CAPNET::25707::Mains "Notes from a PC...never work!" >>>
                             -< More examples... >-

More omissions/errors:

PC Magazine (Network Edition) April 11, 1995

- Digital Video article...no mention of Digital or our FullVideo products.
- 100mbps Ethernet Adapters...no mention of Digital.

Mobile Office, March 1995

- Portable Printer review, p74.  No mention of Digital.
- Buyers Guide to 61 Active Matrix Color Notebooks, p. 104
    
    One line on CT450. Lists 240MB max disk. Lists street address as 146
    Main Street.

PC Magazine (Network Edition) April 25, 1995

- Chart on p.NE20 includes 21 ATM Vendors.
    
    Indicates Digital has no ATM adapters or switches only routers. 
    Says Digital has no Web home page!!!


In many smaller firms failing to mention one of the firms products in a review
or article  results in a letter to the magazine from the marketing manager
outlining the omission and  making sure the reader knows the company has a
product that should have been included.   These are often printed in letters
from readers and serves to correct the improper  impression the magazine has
given.  Have we grown so big that we have forgotten this  basic technique?

Isn't allowing the omission of Digital in an article to go without challenge
admitting we  have nothing to contribute?  At least it says if we have
products that we aren't serious  about promoting them.  If we are not serious
about promoting them, why should our  customers seriously consider buying
them?  

And why are we surprised when people don't consider us a player?

Even (especially?) if we sell through partners there has to be demand for OUR
goods and  services.  People who come to a partners are often just looking for
answers.  Many  partners would just as soon sell them HP or IBM.  First we
have to let them know we have  something to offer and then we have to give
them a compelling REASON to buy from Digital.

We're doing better...but we still need to improve.  Any more examples?


    

    The PC Magazine article on MPEG cards did review the RealMagic card,
    which is all our FullVideo card is.  We did have a full-page ad there.
    
    				Steve

    This is, by and large, an extremely negative string.  (What else is
    new...we are all too jaded now to become instantly positive!!) 
    However, let me make a few positive and/or neutral remarks here...
    
    1.	In order to get our products reviewed, we have to (a) know which
    magazine is reviewing what product and (b) supply that magazine with
    one of "ours" for testing and review.  We cannot be everywhere at once,
    and if we were, there are some people out there (in and out of Digital)
    who would simply complain that Digital still isn't focussed on its
    "core" businesses, it is trying to do too much at once.
    
    2.	It is possible that the various manufacturing and marketing
    organizations that have "missed out" on magazine reviews have done so
    on purpose.  Remember, these reviews speak to price *and* performance. 
    Perhaps we are intentionally staying away from product reviews in which
    we would be unfavorably compared to the majority of the competition,
    due to either higher price or lower performance.
    
    Just my thoughts.
    
    M.
    

The fact is that virtually every survey of buyers indicates that 
editorial press coverage is far and away the most important and most 
trusted source of information about products.  Industry marketing gurus 
like Regis McKenna reinforce this basic truth about computer industry 
marketing.

Advertising, by the way, tends to play supporting roles here, and is NOT 
the most cost-effective vehicle.  What advertising is needed for is:

1) to create and maintain awareness on an ongoing basis and burn the 
product into the buyer's awareness so that when they go to consider 
products for purchase, they consider yours;

2) to convince knowledgeable and cynical wavering buyers that we are 
"serious" about our products and willing actually to invest real dollars 
in MARKETING our products.  

There have been several "experiments" in the company where groups have 
been allowed to do their own press relations.  The most recent is the 
PCBU, whose success has been cited in several earlier replies to this 
note.  An earlier one was the late Personal Computing Systems Group in 
the period around 1990, when we had two full-time P.R. people, and 
PATHWORKS was mentioned favorably 5-10 times a month in the trade press. 
Coincidentally, this was the period when the PATHWORKS business was 
growing 50-100% a year!

The kiss of death for a successful P.R. strategy is "Centralization 
Constipation", which was inflicted on the corporation a couple of years 
ago with predictably devastating results.  The need to go through layers 
upon layers of bureaucracy to get access to the media, to get someone to 
even pay attention to the editorial calendars (which EVERY trade rag 
publishes months in advance!), to get funding for evaluation systems to 
place with reviewers -- is GUARANTEED to result in the invisibility that 
we have reaped.

I find it ironic that Enrico, after having demonstrated the success of 
decentralized P.R. and marketing in the PCBU, is tolerating the 
continued existence of bottleneck bureaucracies at the SBU and corporate 
levels, far, far above the individual product family levels where 
effective marketing takes place.

There is a role for these central organizations.  The corporate function
should be worrying about and developing the corporate image, but it need
not control every bit of public exposure any group in the company gets
to deliver that image.  They could have a much more positive impact
if they would develop the image and campaign styles, and then offer a
subsidy to each product group that uses their look and feel in its own
promotions -- sort of like co-op advertising on an internal basis.  This
would lead groups to consider them allies instead of the loathed 
"thought police".

The SBU should address the problem of how to facilitate access by all
the product groups to the APPROPRIATE people in their distribution
channels.  Their focus should be on enabling that access, not 
controlling it.  It will be hard to do this without becoming the 
"channel police", and I don't have a solution right now.  Other Note-ers 
are invited to make suggestions.

    Packard Bell has never spent any money (read $0) on corporate
    advertising (the only advertising money spent is for Co-op ads... for
    example they help to fund Lechmere to advertise Packard Bell in their
    sales flyers)...but no image/brand positioning/etc. advertising.
    
    Reviews in trade journals for Packard Bell are at best mediocre, and
    sometimes downright poor (such as in customer service reviews)
    
    There are a lot of assumptions in this thread indicating that PC
    buyers read all of these trade mag reviews and see all of the corporate
    advertising and use this information to choose product vendors.
    How is is then that Packard Bell is the #1 computer of choice on the 
    desktop, and only 2nd behind Compaq in the entire PC arena? 
    
    (One other note....Packard Bell's sales are at $3 billion with 2,200
    employees.)
               

I was pleased to see an Elek-Tek Ad in yesterday's Indianapolis Star saying
that they now are carrying Digital's Starion line.  For those of you outside
the Illinois/Indiana area, Elek-Tek is a regional Computer Superstore chain,
and in my opinion is leading CompUSA locally in several ways: knowledgeable
sales force, pleasant environment, better prices and selection.

The distribution channels are getting broader! I love it!

Ram

I just received the latest PC Magazine, and Digital didn't spend a
dime on advertising in it.

I think people buy Packard-Bell because they don't know any better. If
they read things like PC Magazine, they probably wouldn't.

When it comes to asking "which PC should I buy?", most people I know
have asked friends who are more computer-literate, and said friends
are often PC Magazine readers. I think we'd do well to spend a lot on
PC Magazine, PC Computing, PC World, etc.

Pete

People buy Packard Bell because:

	1.  It's cheap
	2.  Retailers are encouraged to promote them
	3.  They're everywhere
	4.  See #1

				Steve

    This is a general problem to our company, not just PC's.  It is tough 
    to sell services coupled with our products when we never advertise
    them.  I deliver our Internet Firewall solution.  Ever see an ad for
    it?  Our customers certainly see ads for our competitors products.
    I also deliver our disaster tolerant cluster solution.  Do you  realize
    Digital is the only company that can replicate data in real time
    over 150 miles?  Do you also know that the fault tolerant business is
    expected to grow to a 2 billion/year business by 1997?  Everytime there
    is a disaster that makes the news, we have a marketing opportunity,
    be it an earthquake, power outage, or flood.  How many people in this
    company can even name the product?  It also doesn't take a rocket 
    scientist to figure out where we should be spending advertising money.
    Here is my short list:
    	
    		Network World - there isn't a nw geek/telcom person
    				out there that isn't reading this rag...
    
    		PC Week	      - ditto, add PC support people to above
    
    		Unix Review   - Unix geeks
    
    		Business Week/WSJ  -  people who write the checks...
    
    		Datamation    - ditto, add MIS directors to above...
    
    		USA Today     - guaranteed to be in every hotel across
    				US...
    
    Notice that most of the above are *FREE* to the end user, this is
    very important (ever hesitate to call an 800 number?)
    
    Brad.

    in re .36:

    You may want to consider Internet World as well. They carry a big section
    at the end regarding internet related products. I've seen firewall software
    there many times and that section was, in fact, the first thing that came
    to my mind when you were talking about advertising about our software.

    >Per

March 1995 Issue of Popular Mechanicshad an article about Color printers for
Pc's. I was impressed the start of the article accross 2 pages was pictured
a DECcolorwriter 120ic. 

I just got the latest copies of Windows Sources and they reviewed TWO products,
the Celebrus and the HiNote.  Both got VERY HIGH marks...

-mark

Nusbaum in .31 seems to have a good understanding of why we are where we are and
he highlights areas that need improvement.  

He also validates or confirms that we have a problem.  In the past it has felt
that folks were just in denial.  "But we ARE in the press!"  Accepting our
invisibility as a problem is a key to fixing it. 

As someone not in the marketing community I never understood WHY we don't see
Digital like we should in the press.  That is, I have only been able to see
the symptoms of the problem.  Nusbaum's assessment of the cause seems to ring
true to me.  Silly me, I had assumed the whole point of the new CSD
organization was to empower product groups to be able to do things like work
their own PR.  That's why I thought it was such a wonderful idea.

It is obvious if you do not invest in getting yourself visible in the trade
press it won't happen.   It is also obvious that we are WAY behind and need to
play catch-up.  To do that will probably require ADDITIONAL extra investment. 
It would seem to me that because of the fragmented computing world we are in
that individual product groups must be allowed to promote their wares in their
niche of the computing world.   

I agree that advertising should supplement and support your corporate image
which is best communicated via PR and resulting editorial endorsement. It would 
seem to me that have people on staff to promote your wares is just what is
needed.  

To respond to another previous reply... If a Digital Full Video board is just
a RealMagic board what is our value added?  If there is none why are we
involved?  Also if our products are not competitive why are we trying to sell
them? 

Perhaps some compromise can be reached with the central group doing corporate
PR and the product groups doing product PR.  You could have the PR to certain
publications coordinated by the product group most closely affiliated.  ie.
PCBU coordinates PC Mag relations... SBU does Datamation... Network Product
does Network World... Internet Business Group does Internet World.  Any group
wishing to get their message to those magazines would work with the coordinator
who establishes and maintains an on-going relationship and acts as the voice of
Digital to that publication.  The central group acts as a conductor setting
standards but not acting as a gate (or roadblock) for public relations. 

Funny...sounds alot like account managers.

Maybe first we should find a way to measure our visability and then work on 
improving it.  After all, some have said you work on what you measure.

    PC Magazine had an excellent review last week on the Hi-Note Ultra.

    I'm a UNIX geek, and I have a very low opinion of
    UNIX Review.  I've let my free subscription run out.
    They make a lot of technical boners.  I find it hard to
    believe that any real UNIX geek will take their reviews
    seriously.
    
    Interestingly enough, the former Sun rag (Sun World?) (now
    known as Advanced Systems, if I recall correctly) is much
    better technically and gives Dec decent coverage.

    see Datamation May 1--nice article on 8400 and may 1 Information Week
    on Digital's turnaround
    
    the roll has started lets just not stop it
    
    rick
    

    
    re .36
    
    It looks like you did not see the Firewall (security) ads that
    were run a month ago (called Riding Shotgun On the Information
    Highway) nor the TV Ads on Internet security. If you did miss the
    print ad, you can order the reprint from LOS (part EC-Y4868-97)
    
    RV
    

    My son, who is definitely NOT computer literate, told me last week that
    he'd seen, and was impressed by its "hipness", a DEC ad on TV in San
    Antonio...
    
    The fact that he even noticed impresses me!
    
    tony

    Something struck me last night while reading the latest LAN TIMES..
    there was a front page article titled "Digital Switch Strategy Promises
    vLAN Simplicity".. I just ignored it, because when I hear "Digital
    Switch" I think "guts of the telecom infrastructure" which I care very
    little about. It wasnt until I scanned across the continuation of the
    article (which said "DEC somethingorother, from front page") that I
    realized this was about something from Digital Equipment Corp. and NOT
    about "digital switches" .. 
    
    Now, you can't blame the headline writer, because adding "Equipment
    Corp." wouldn't come close to fitting. 
    
    I wonder how much mindshare we lose because our identity gets lost in
    headlines such as these.. and the less we appear in headlines the less
    we are thought about when it comes time to buy?
    
    ...tom

    Re: .46
    
    Front page of Byte:  "Our Unhappy Digital Video Experience."
    

    re -2
    		I did exactly the same thing with that LAN Times issue.
    
    Marc Anderseen (sp), Mosaic co-creator gave us a nice endorsement
    in an interview in Network World (I think).  He said we no longer
    need super-computer centers like NCSA because engineers can have
    Alphas on their desk instead...

RE: .48

	Marc's a good guy. I had the pleasure of hanging out with him
	for a day at Comdex in our booth. When an interviewer asked
	him why he wrote Mosaic, I piped up with "To meet women" to
	which he and the interviewer laughed and Marc answered with
	"Yea, that's it.."

	He really liked our Internet AlphaServer.

						mike
						

I CRINGED when I saw that! Luckily, they were taling about digital video 
boards in general.

	C'Ya,
	Wayne

    That's the price we pay for having an generic (in this industry)
    adjective as a company name/brand.
    
    Laurie.

        I also think we have a long way to go to get the message out.
    As for PC's, when my neighbors start comparing our PCs (on price) with
    say Dell's - based on his/her observations in these magazines and other
    channels we would be winning. At last we have great products. It's time
    that we find creative ways of exciting the public at large with our
    brand name on an ongoing basis.

    Also, the U.S. press seems to have far more on Digital than in Europe;
    I guess that's all to do with budgets..  
                                 

re. -1 

>   Also, the U.S. press seems to have far more on Digital than in Europe;
>   I guess that's all to do with budgets..  
 
Yes, you are right. I should have said that in .0 may be.

I saw yestereday the May release of PC Expert a very positive review of the 
Celebris 590. And the first review of the HiNote Ultra in the French PC 
press. Good news at least!

JCM

                                

    This is somewhat related - I've noticed that a few companies are
    starting to include URL's in their advertisements (check the DELL 
    add on the back cover of this months Byte).  I looked at a few
    recent DEC adds and it seems we aren't.  Please tell me that
    somebody in marketing is working on this! 

    From the US side, we have machines going out all the time and we 
    have the schedule of all the major magazines. We just send commercial
    machines out to Windows Mag and Computer's Buyer's Guide and
    Computer Shopper....
    
    We also worked with Nick Stam on the plug and play artcle in the latest
    Win 95 PC MAG...
    
    JRogich
    

    PC WEEK (May 15, 1995) just portrayed the HiNote Ultra as a major
    loser!  ("DEC's HiNote strikes a dissonant chord" by Jim Louderback, p.
    118)
    
    The author also says that he is to become Editor-in-Chief of Windows
    Sources magazine.  Not good.
    
    -- Russ