Conference 7.286::digital

    Consumers Reports prides itself on buying the things it tests.  They
    buy them to ensure that the product they test is typical of the product
    that the consumer can buy.
    
    This is probably a case of not knowing that we sell computers to
    consumers.  The problem is too little market mind share.

    I'm rather astonished they didn't test our printers, since they are
    widely available and do have a decent "mindshare".  But we can't
    influence Consumer Reports.
    
    				Steve

    re: .2
    
    Why?  None of the computer rags likes them, why should they bother to
    test them?
    
    Bob - who didn't even consider a Digital printer for his recent
    purchase

Steve:

> I'm rather astonished they didn't test our printers, since they are
> widely available and do have a decent "mindshare". ...
    
  Be grateful.

                                   Atlant

    Consumer reports prides itself on buying as anyone else would - using
    everyday shoppers with exact specification sheets, buying at retail. 
    They never accepttrial/demo products from manufacturers.
    
    Our laptops are essentially unavailable at retail at all (see this
    week's Business Week article on our lack of PC retail presence) - and our
    printers where sold retail tend to be the inkjets, occasionally a
    laser. Since the printer article was focused on portable printers, I
    have only seen ours at retail in one outlet.
    
    Unfortunately, the Consumer Reports article reflects the 1-2% market share
    reality for DIGITAL for these products.
    these products from DIGITAL.
    
    

     re .3
    
    I am a VERY happy owner of our Inkjet 500 series product.  It was easy
    to configure, easy to use, flexible.  A great value, IMHO.
    

    .6 I guess we know where .3 loyalities are don't we? 

I have seen a number of good magazine reviews of Digital printers, and some
bad ones.  A lot of them are out there because we've managed to get stores
and mail-order firms to include them in bundles.

				Steve

Chip:

> -< hp? >-
> 
> .6 I guess we know where .3 loyalities are don't we? 

  That was really a cheap shot.

  While I'm not the author of .3, I don't think you can presume
  loyalty based on what printers any of us buy or recommend.

  Speaking for myself now, I've stated before, here and in other
  places, that my house is based on Apple Macintosh computers and
  H/P printers. It pains me greatly that this is the case, but
  I buy the computers because I want to use them, not because
  I want to add to the gross revenues of the Maynard Computer
  Company.

  And there's not a shred of doubt in my mind that the Apple
  and Hewlett-Packard products return value for the dollars
  that I've spent on them.

  There's no way I could say the same thing about products that
  we've sold. Firstly, our systems don't run the MacOS, and in
  my household, that was a requirement. (It's not worth arguing
  with me over that -- it's a religious issue.) Secondly, Digital's
  printers don't support the Macintosh environment very well. And
  finally, our inkjet printers seem to be mediocre performers with
  a fairly dismal reputation for after-sales support.

  This pains me too. I have had a long association with the part
  of our company that builds Printers and Terminals; I count many
  of those folks as friends of mine; I actually work for the (lar-
  ger) group now. But telling ourselves "pretty lies" in the name
  of "company loyalty" is a completely bogus idea. That's the sort
  of thinking that got us into the various messes were in:

    o "Customer satisfaction has never been higher"
    o "Alpha's will span laptop to datacenter"
    o "'Digital' has more positive connotations than 'DEC'"
    o "We'll be in the top five in PC shipments in '95"


  I'm loyal to this company. And I'm too loyal to lie for it,
  or even "shade the truth". Right now, a customer will be far
  more satisfied with an H/P printer than with a Digital inkjet,
  PARTICULARLY if the customer uses Macintosh computers.

  Sorry.
                                   Atlant

    Every other name brand Laptop you can think of was in there.. Even IBM..
    
    It was pretty obvious that Digital was missing.. 
    
    Looks like a marketing problem.  
    
    This magazine is like the bible to some people and dictates what
    products they'll buy in the future.  We missed the boat bigtime on
    this one..

    
    re: .9
    
    	Way to go, Atlant...
    
    	Look folks, telling the truth is *NOT* a crime; regardless of what
    middle management in this company practices. The truth is we have
    missed every move in the computer marketplace since 1976, and are
    missing the consumer market today. The Business Week articles
    (back-to-back, BTW) in last weeks mag were HP getting into the consumer
    business in a big, big way (250,000 units ready to ship between now and
    December 95) and DEC/Digital screwing up its PC division through short-
    sighted decision-making, poor execution, and failure to follow thru on
    early successes (does anyone see a pattern here? Hello, SLT, or
    whatever you are calling yourselves these days).
    
    	We have an employee population that is angry, burnt-out, and
    generally stressed to the max. We have a middle management cadre
    that is completely internally focused, and believes that everything
    that goes wrong is the field's fault. We have a senior management
    group that lacks the courage to trim the excessive management layers
    and listen to the people closest to the customer first.
    
    	We have leadership products that are floundering; we have a
    declining market share; we have almost no revenue growth to speak of;
    profits are an anybody's quess quarter-by-quarter; and organizational
    turf battles and internicine warfare are daily occurances.
    
    	I suggest our corporate leadership get focused on people, products,
    and promotion real quick, and real hard. Everything else will take care
    of itself...
    
    	I, for one, am real tired of continually battling "the system"
    just to get one lousy order inputted, shipped, paid for, and supported
    every damn day.
    
    			the Greyhawk

    FWIW, these magazine reviews send out a request for systems to do
    reviews, usually 4-5 months in advance of publication.  If we don't
    get asked to submit a system, we obviously aren't going to appear
    in the article.  These magazine reviews have a limited number of
    machines they can review, and in the case of Consumer Reports,
    are probably geared toward products that are more generally available
    in the retail market.  I do the magazine system "prep" for our
    commercial products, which are basically 100% reseller oriented.
    Hence you won't see a Celebris GL review in Consumer Reports,
    but will in rags the general public has never heard of like Government
    Computer News, Computer Reseller News, etc.  .02kb

    
    	Re: -1
    
    	Pass this thought on to the PCBU management de jour.
    
    	Consumers are now buying 3 out of every 4 Personal Computers built.
    As a matter of fact, PC shipments in the last quarter (mar-june 95)
    surpassed VCRs and TVs combined.
    
    	The retail market is PCs today.
    
    
    			the Greyhawk

    Well, if you read the Business Week article, you'll note that it
    ended with the suggestion that Pesatori push high margin Intel
    servers.  There's easy profits to be made there; the retail market,
    while popular, is cuthroat.  Unfortunately, there's a little
    ego problem in this company called "Alpha" (and accompanying
    sales models) that makes being successful in the hi margin
    Intel market problematic.  Kratz 

Re: .12

Consumer Reports does NOT solicit manufacturers for products, nor do they
let manufacturers loan them products for testing.  They decide on their own
which products to test and they have their buyers purchase them from
retail sources.  In the case of notebook PCs, I would have been astonished to
see us included since we have zero retail presence there.  For printers, our
presence is higher and I would have expected at least one model to be
tested.

				Steve

��  <<< Note 4042.13 by LACV01::CORSON "Higher, and a bit more to the right" >>>
��                 -< Even Business Week has got the message... >-

��    
��    	Re: -1
��    
��    	Pass this thought on to the PCBU management de jour.
��    
��    	Consumers are now buying 3 out of every 4 Personal Computers built.

    So, what's happening to the last 1-out-of-4?   Government
    stockpiling to prevent dependence on foreign PCs?

    Good point Steve... Consumer Reports in the exception to the way
    most reviewers acquire systems.  Which, by the way, is fine with
    us... you would be suprised how stripped some of these systems
    come back from the magazines.  Do you call up and ask where the
    missing pieces went, or do you keep quiet? ;-)

    
    Re: 4042.11 
    
    Greyhawk, 
    
    perhaps you should drop a copy of this note into Bob's DVN note.
     
    jc

    
    
    It's been two years already ( see note 2725 ) when I last brought this
    issue up.
    
     On the LJ500 series printers. I bought a LJ550 through EPP $299. It
    couldn't handle a heavier paper stock we needed it to handle. Returned
    it. Picked up a HP540 at COMPUSA for $199. + $25 for color cartridge.
    Yea.. I blew the other $75.00 bucks there on software for the kids.
    
     Didn't see any of our PC's on the floor, they were there 6 or so
    months earlier. Anyone know what happened ?
             

    Re .7:
    
    Loyalty?  To the company that's laid off most of its employees?  I'll
    promise to buy Digital products for the next ten years when Digital
    promises to buy my engineering services for the next ten years.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

His sentiments and feelings are really justified, you know.  I think it's 
hard to drop something like this in Bob's DVN notes file, I for one can't
because it's such a 'religious topic' for me I'll go completely ballistic
and fanatical...

Look at the August addition of PC Magazine... JUST LOOK AT IT!!!!

540 pages long...not ONE single print ad...not ONE!!!!!!

Our Laptop is reviewed and our Multia, pretty favorably actually...NOT ONE
HiNote ad!! No multia ad...

Open it up....Huge Microsoft Office ad...turn the page, big CA ad...
just start turning pages, another MS ad, a NEC laptop ad, OH!! what do you
know!!!  Our Multia is getting reviewed in the 'First Looks' section...
(you guessed it, no Multia ad), Gateway ad, HP ad, Cannon printer ad, 
Compaq ad, NEC Monitor ad, Acer ad, TI ad, 'nother Compaq ad, Apple ad,
uh oh...an IBM ad, etc, etc, etc...

My question is this....WHERE THE H*LL ARE WE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10...

*sigh*

-Stephen

    re .16
    
>       So, what's happening to the last 1-out-of-4?   Government
>       stockpiling to prevent dependence on foreign PCs?
    
    They're being bought by commercial enterprises, i.e., businesses;
    for every PC bought by a business, 3 are bought by individual
    consumers.
    
    len.
    

    
    
    The kid's learnin.....

    The comments about Digital's (lack of) mindshare / market share, at
    least in what CR considers the "consumer" space, are very true, and are
    the main contributing factor to our absence, I'm sure.
    
    But .1 had an interesting phrase:
    
    >	Consumer Reports prides itself ...
    
    Indeed it does.  They decide what they're going to do, and if it would
    inconvenience them slightly to include your product, you lose.  They
    also are very prone to the "our way is the only way" syndrome, and
    routinely blast features that many of us find exceptionally good
    because they're not the way the CR guy likes to do it.
    
    Their (supposed) independence is a good thing, and I like to factor
    their opinions in with others I read & hear.  But sometimes they get
    awfully high-and-mighty over the most trivial things, and close their
    minds to a given product as a result.  Sometimes they'd rather be
    independent than right.
    
    As someone else in this string said, maybe we should consider ourselves
    lucky they left us out.
    
    -Mark

    re: .22, et al.
    
>    re .16
>    
>>       So, what's happening to the last 1-out-of-4?   Government
>>       stockpiling to prevent dependence on foreign PCs?
>    
>    They're being bought by commercial enterprises, i.e., businesses;
>    for every PC bought by a business, 3 are bought by individual
>    consumers.
    
    Any idea what the relative margins are for these sales?  With the
    cutthroat nature of retail, maybe the profit from the 1/4 sold to
    businesses is about the same as the profit from the 3/4 sold over the
    counter.
    
    Or maybe not.
    
    -Mark

    I am buying a PC now.  Much as I wanted to buy a machine from Digital,
    in the end the price was high (I'm buying a p5-90 with 16M of memory
    and a 1.2g hard drive and CD-ROM for about $1800 without a monitor
    (tower). For a p5-75 configured similarly, Digital wanted almost $2100 
    in a desktop)
    
    So I'm buying the PCI ethernet card from Digital.  It was the only
    piece that was actually cheaper through employee purchase than
    on the street.
    
    Also, as someone noted in an earlier note we seem to have stopped
    advertising several months ago.  Perhaps that's why the PC division
    didn't make its numbers?
    
    Matt
    

Our advertising division still have the wrong mindset. It is not good 
enough to blitz for 3 months and then assume the ball will coast 
happily on its own. They would be better off with lower key but 
continuous advertising [who mentioned subliminal ?].

In the UK we are still advertising - its lousy stuff but its there.

Alan

    RE: LOYALTY .7
    I BOUGHT A digital equipment corporation SYSTEM TWO YEARS AGO.
    ITS GREAT, GOOD PRICE FOR COMPARING APPLES TO APPLES (no pun).  AT THE
    SAME TIME I ASKED TO BUY A RESONABLE INK JET OR LASER PRINTER FROM 
    d.e.c.(PROPER USAGE), BUT I WAS TOLD WE HAVE NO SUCH PRINTER. 
    
    I BOUGHT A HP.  GREAT PRICE.  COLORS DON'T MATCH ALL THE TIME. (MY
    MONITOR?)
    
    BOY THE COST FOR THE CARTRAGES ARE HEAFTY, BUT GEE, SOMEONE ONCE
    TOLD ME THAT HP MAKES $50 MIL OFF THIS STUFF....
    
    ARE THEY DOING SOMETHING RIGHT???
    
         

    
    
      FWIW, DEC is still advertising here in the U.S.  In the
    past week I've seen ads on some of the nightly business
    shows and (I think) the cable learning channel.
    
    
    						-al
    

    
    re: advertising
    
    The Systems Business Unit is conducting an extensive print advertising
    campaign in U.S. and internationally.
    
    Corporate advertising is on hiatus right now - we are developing the
    new campaign as I write this.  Details will follow as decisions are
    made. 
    
    Bill  

    RE .30
    
    Same Bat time, same Bat channel....
    
    Greyhawk, sounds like we need a couple of days of R&R on the Beach eh?
    
    Perhaps Enrico and Bob should stare at this notes conference too along
    with the 4031.*  I'm sure Bob wouldn't mind, but Enrico, well that
    could be an entirely different story since we have never ever seen his
    fingerprints in here before.
    
    It's off to my account with unlaced army boots and a 45 automatic to do
    battle on Mount Hewlett Packard.....
    
    Mav

>     Corporate advertising is on hiatus right now - we are developing the

??? Maybe you could sell training to some of the auto companies and dealers. I'd 
be delighted to see their advertising go on hiatus for a while :^)

re .25

>>  Any idea what the relative margins are for these sales?  With the
>>  cutthroat nature of retail, maybe the profit from the 1/4 sold to
>>  businesses is about the same as the profit from the 3/4 sold over the
>>  counter.
>>    
>>  Or maybe not.


i do not know about the 1/4 or the 3/4 share, and i have no idea of the 
relative profit for the 2 markets, but that does not matter.
if we make $.01 per consumer system, we should pursue it.
the volume reduces the fixed cost per system so next accounting period
the profit will be larger.  the accounting rules are not too useful 
in fast changing markets. there, marginal revenue and profit are more
useful than average revenue and profit.

the other effect is the learning curve.  as you make more of a thing you
get better at it, in many ways. it takes less labor per unit. you find 
lower cost components that are still good enough. you improve the
assembly line, the packaging, and so on. if you can learn fast enough, 
you can reduce costs fast enough to sell at a loss for a while.

this is the main reason to be first to market and why it is important to
be #1 or #2 in each market.  you can learn faster and make more profit
at the same selling price than the competition.

of course, some companies refuse to learn... 

    
    slightly off track (but not too much....)
    
    In the UK, a major league Soccer team's supporters sing the following
    song (when playing against junk opposition..)
    
    " .. you're so bad it's unbelievable.."  [repeat, about 10 times,,,]
    
    I'm afraid we count as Junk opposition in the PC space.
    
    
    Please can we sort this ?  This is not rocket science. Honest !!!
    
    
    Rgds,
    
    AW
    

    
    	AW -
    
    	It's about living to be first, always running scared, looking
    constantly over your shoulder, and having a passion to succeed. 
    
    	Easy to say; very, very difficult to put into practice...
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

>>       So, what's happening to the last 1-out-of-4?   Government
>>       stockpiling to prevent dependence on foreign PCs?
>    
>    They're being bought by commercial enterprises, i.e., businesses;
>    for every PC bought by a business, 3 are bought by individual
>    consumers.
    
>    Any idea what the relative margins are for these sales?  With the
>    cutthroat nature of retail, maybe the profit from the 1/4 sold to
>    businesses is about the same as the profit from the 3/4 sold over the
>    counter.
    
>    Or maybe not.

It's sometimes called "the price of entry".  Do you think Ford, GM,
or Chrysler could make a profit and stay in business only selling
to businesses?

If you aren't willing to compete in the volume market, the market AS A WHOLE
(including your target niches) is much less likely to give you business,
regardless of context.  (The effect gets extremely magnified when ISVs are
factored in, which doesn't affect our Intel line, since we get to feed off
of the whole x86 market, but does most definitely apply to Alpha.  The lack
of volume presence does affect all of our products, not just Alpha, and
not just the products that might have been the volume leaders.)

It's absolutely amazing (to me) to see over and over and over how we think
we are somehow "immune" to market forces, and how we think we can "hide"
in profitable niches forever.  Have you ever noticed how there are companies
that are successful over the long term, but that those AREN'T the companies
that have tried to sit in some sort of profitable niche, but instead are
always looking for the challenge?  Consider:

    - The buggy manufacturers died (failed to recognize they were
      part of a much larger market)

    - The New England minicomputer vendors died (failed to recognize
      they were part of a much larger market)

    - The minisuper vendors died (failed to recognize they were
      part of a much larger market)

...

vs companies line:

    - 3M

    - Microsoft

    - HP

...

Yes, it's extremely hard to "shift gears" into a forward-looking mindset,
but resting on your laurels (read: in your niches...) makes you a good
candidate for early retirement...

re.27:

>In the UK we are still advertising - its lousy stuff but its there.

All the advertising in the UK comes down from Corporate, so you are in the 
right place to be more explicit about what you don't like about it.

Dave.

OK - The adverts are far too crowded. You look at the whole page advert 
(yes, a whole broadsheet page) and think - "what a mess". If you persevere, 
then you get a nice message - but it needs cleaning up a LOT.

Go on, try looking at what you designed as a normal user - not a designer.

Alan

    re: .6
    
    I'm afraid that I've never read a review of printers that had us as
    anything other than an also-ran.  For example, in the latest printer
    review in PC World (I think), we were among the also-ran's mainly
    because our entry was a pain when it came to maintenance and had some
    color banding problems.
    
    re: .7
    
    Yep, my loyalties are for making the best I can do with limited
    resources - my hard earned money.  That's why my PC has been built up
    from scratch and has no Digital components in it.  I narrowed it down
    to the Canon BJC-600e and the Epson Stylus <mumble>.  I went with the
    Canon because it was $25 less than the Epson and had a slightly lower
    cost-per-page.
    
    Bob

>    	Consumers are now buying 3 out of every 4 Personal Computers built.

This reflects a shift in how people buy PCs, not simply what they are
used for.  A large fraction of PCs baught by "consumers" are used for
business.

You can no longer even reach much of the business market without selling
through "consumer" channels.  Which only strengthens the original point.

- Peter

    Wow !  All of this over a CONSUMER reports article ?
    
    Has anyone ever looked at a copy of INDUSTRIAL reports magazine ? 
    No ??
    That's because there isn't one ! 
    
    Consumer reports is a magazine that started in the INDUSTRIAL ERA and
    is focused on CONSUMER products. Was a PDP11/70, VAX11/780 or ALPHA
    ever mentioned ?  We, as a company, have never really had a consumer focus
    and even if we did, we would have to really reorganize in order to sustain
    the competitive margin structure. In addition, imagine if we REALLY had to
    listen to the voice of the customer ? Think about it, we're talking a
    completely different business structure here - even beyond the PCBU.
    Consider what is important to you as a consumer and then contrast that
    in your role as a BUSINESS buyer - which way would you go ?    
    
    As someone said in here, HP was in BW recently and is in the process of 
    constructing a CONSUMER division focused on CONSUMER sales of PCs and
    PC products. Apparently, they get it, the PC is really a CONSUMER 
    product and can be marketed effectively to Consumers, SME and some 
    divisions of larger corporations. Our most successful marketplace has 
    been the mid-range business (INDUSTRIAL) environment.  The technological
    advantage that the VAX architecture represented fulfilled Kens vision
    and we once again have the TECHNOLOGICAL advantage but do not have the
    MARKETING, SALES, and ADVERTISING orientation to capture immediate
    mindshare.  Go back and re-read note 3744 and the discussion there. We
    are a TECHOLOGY LEADER and culturally, that is very difficult to
    change.  We need to become disciplined as a market leader in what is
    quickly becoming a Supermarket of technology products.  HP has shelf
    space in several areas already - that is reflected in last months
    Computer Reseller News survey of reseller satisfaction.  Gerstner gets
    it, and has steadfastly refuted attempts to move away from an industry
    alignment.  We need to pick our "aisles" so to speak and decide where
    our products can be most appropriately placed and advertise, market,
    sell and supply the hell out of that space.  We have Industry Beating 
    (Thanks Harry C.) products TODAY but with several organizations still
    trying to figure out how to pay against Q4 and even worse how to pay
    for Q1 and FY96 we are stuck in the gate and the crowd is thinning. We
    have many employees who have not seen raises for two, three and in some
    cases 4 years - and no raise in sight. And, a corporate structure that
    makes it easier for a manager to bring in an individual from the
    outside at a higher rate of pay !  Little thought is given to the 
    contribution, learning experience, and value that an individual has made 
    to the turnaround effort while the company was hurting. If we are to
    become a market leader in anything we must pay attention to the needs
    of the lowest tier worker and in return expect that very same courtesy
    to be paid to our customers !       
    
    DQ   

Part of the problem is that we don't have easy access to the products
we sell.  People keep asking me `so what's an Alpha system like', and
I keep saying, `I don't know, I don't have one'.  It's a bit embarrassing.

Chris.

re.38:

>OK - The adverts are far too crowded. You look at the whole page advert 
>(yes, a whole broadsheet page) and think - "what a mess". If you persevere, 
>then you get a nice message - but it needs cleaning up a LOT.
>
>Go on, try looking at what you designed as a normal user - not a designer.

Are you refering to one particular ad or to the �DDB Needham 'style' of ad?

(�Big block letters close together for heading, tiny font script for copy
wrapped around title, pictures, and graphics)?

Dave.

    Speaking of advertising, I haven't seen a Digital ad on TV for quite 
    awhile.  However, last night my sharp-eyed children spotted a "digital
    PC"  banner on the sidelines at a soccer match we were watching.  This 
    was a live spanish-language broadcast out of Argentina I believe.  Way
    to  go.  It's nice to know that at least somewhere the Digital logo is
    making an appearance before the public.

    As for our PC sales, the last time I was in the CompUSA (Woburn, MA)
    the only non-printer Digital presence I saw was a forlorn monitor in
    the systems area.  One hopes that this will change with the release of
    the Windows 95 machines. 
    

    
    Should have grabbed that monitor, Rob; it's probably the only one left in
    the country ;-)
    
    	the Greyhawk

re .43 - its a whole series of ads - the ones I remember are for 
PATHWORKS, TeamLinks and an Alpha box.

Has lots of lines on the page - very crowded - very hard to read. 
First impression is to turn the page VERY quickly

Alan

    Saturday evening as I was channel surfing, HSN [Home Shopping Network]
    was advertising an Intel Pentium, 100 MHZ, 8mg, speaker phones,
    faxmodem, 2 separate speakers, soundblaster, and such.  The Pentium 
    came with Windows 95 and lots more Microsoft software.  Price was 
    $2,399.95.   What made me sit up and take notice was on the front of 
    the monitor was the digital logo.  Correct color, but it looked like this:
    
    		Digital Equip.
    
    Looked to me as if they added the Equip. after the fact.  As a 16 year
    employee, I might have instantly recognized the logo and color had
    there only been a logo; then again, I might not have and could have 
    continued surfing.  Made me feel proud to sit there and listen to them
    brag about one of our products on TV.  :-)
    
    Charlene
    

    
    
    
    While channel surfing Saturday, I saw the pitch for the Digital PC
    twice - once around 6:30 PM, the other time around 11:00 PM. The HSN
    was pushing Windows 95, Norton Utilities and other computer related
    products during a high tech segment (not sure if it was a half or
    full hour). A Digital printer was also featured in the line up. 
    Quite a bit of time was devoted to pushing the PC. I watched a 
    five minute "recap" of the PC pitch which was incredible - very hyped
    up. The host stated how Digital invests a billion dollars a year
    into research and development to make technological improvements
    to products like the PC and now major corporations invest in quality
    PC products like those made by Digital etc., etc. I don't think the 
    host really knew what he was talking about, with respect to technology,
    in general, but he was very convincing nonetheless.
    
    Whoever set this up deserves a pat on the back...
    
    
    Bob
     

	my wife Kate was part of the team that made the trek to Tampa for
	this weekend's HSN activites, a joint venture between Microsoft,
	the PCBU, and the low-end printer folks from C&P...unfortunately
	Kate (a product marketing manager for inkjets) got edged
	out at the last minute and did not get the 15 minutes of fame
	promised her by Andy Warhol :-( the *good* news is that in the
	two segments on Saturday, HSN completely sold-out PCBU's alotment
	of systems for this project (500 I think), thus rendering the one
	scheduled Sunday segment moot...

	Kate told me some stories about what goes on behind the scenes
	at HSN; pretty funny stuff ;-) but I don't care *what* tactics
	they use as long as the can have that kind of success...my hat's
	off to all those responsible for the effort....

	_kelley

    
    re .49
    
    The very fact that the allotment of PCs were sold out in one day
    and that there were none for the next day is a commentary about
    the overly conservative forecasting by PCBU. Do you think if it
    was Compaq, HP or Dell etc., they would have run out of stock and
    lost an opportunity to 'educate' millions more viewers on Sunday?

> The very fact that the allotment of PCs were sold out in one day
> and that there were none for the next day is a commentary about
> the overly conservative forecasting by PCBU. Do you think if it
> was Compaq, HP or Dell etc., they would have run out of stock and
> lost an opportunity to 'educate' millions more viewers on Sunday?

  That great slogan, "Crunch all you want-- We'll make more",
  comes to mind.
                                   Atlant

	re: .50

	uggg...talk about your half empty glass...

	fwiw, Digital's PC was promiently displayed on Sunday and the
	"host" of Sunday's segment repleatedly refered to the fact that
	they had "sold out" of the item on Saturday..."the opportunity to
	'educate'" was not lost and neither was the shirt of those
	responsible for manufacturing the systems....fyi: it is my
	understanding that HSN will not take shipment of product until
	*after* it has been ordered by the customers; the manufacturer must
	then drop-ship the order in bulk THE NEXT DAY to HSN......

	IMHO this was a first-class first effort.....

	_kelley

    Re: .52
    
    Always being very, very conservative in estimating sales means
    that no units are left over, but loses the opportunity to
    increase volume, leading to lower prices, leading to more
    volume, and also irritates potential and current customers.
    
    Are there plans to repeat this effort?
             

	Being overly optimistic can result in your walking papers
	as one ex-VP of DEC (and his chief finance person too I think)
	just found out. I'm VERY glad we sold 500. Next time, shoot for
	1500 or more.

						mike

    re: .24
    
    Consumer reports often reviews product "post-publication" where they
    were not available or some other snafu took place. The problem is the
    product now gets 3 or 4 inches of column to itself where it might have
    otherwise had 30 or 40 inches spread over 20 products. If your offering
    doesn't stack up well it will be LOUD AND CLEAR. This seems to me to
    be very reasonable. Granted they can be a little "opinionated" [or
    maybe sn***y] in their editorializing, but then again that's what an
    editorial is all about. I find their product reviews to be genuine and
    normally unbiased.
    
    Rob Wall
    
    [I was surprised that in their peanut butter report to see (by its
    absence that Kraft is apparently not a US national brand.]
    
    r - a Canadian Consumer.