Conference 7.286::digital

4123.0. "DECie Diary 9/13/95 Windows World" by DPDMAI::WISNIEWSKI (ADEPT of the Virtual Space.) Thu Sep 14 1995 19:08

DECIE DIARY  September 13th 1995  Wednesday



Mission: Move DEC stuff out the Door...

Location: Windows World Dallas 

Resources: * Invitation to participate in a Windows World NT Tutorial 
           
           * 300 one year old ECN4235-69 CDroms of Digital's Roadmap for 
             Windows NT

           * 200 copies of WNT Alpha Solutions Guide
 
           * 100 copies of Current Alpha Systems for WNT handout

           * 100 Field Service Coupons for $$ off PC servicing

           * 1 DEC Hinote Ultra Multi-media -- A Technical Support Grunt's
             best and closest friend.


DECIE DIARY  September 13th 1995  Wednesday


I had prepared for the mission Monday, going over logistics and the 
presentations with an EX-DECie now Microsoft Technical support 
Consultant.  

Things had grown considerably friendlier these past few weeks in the field
between DEC and Microsoft, with Digital inviting Microsoft to speak at their 
sales kickoff in Dallas and Digital being invited to address a meeting of 
Microsoft's technical support team too.

The Microsoft grunt was surprised to find that Digital had no tradeshow 
presence at this show asked me and my "Sarge" if I could participate at
the Sales Kickoff -- The "Sarge" said "go for it..."

I tried to call in some air-cover from marketing but the usual suspects 
had changed jobs, entered treatment for battle fatique, or were unavailable 
(at least according to their voice mail) until after the current fiscal year.
The marketing voice mail reminded me that there was no money for marketing in 
Digital anyways and I quickly realized I was on my own as the only Digital 
presence at a 50,000 attendee show.

I talked to some Sales Support grunts, found a couple boxes of books about
WNT buried under some boxes of "Internal Digital Proceedures" manuals, was 
dropping my favorite laser printer off at field service when I saw a pack 
of FS coupons (and asked for 'em) and found the mother load of Digital WNT -- 

-The Digital Road Map CD with WEBserver, Mosaic, WIN32 tools (that would now 
  run under WIN95 too!) and just oozing with Alpha and Intel Tools!   
   - from the ex-WNT field Marketing guy!  

It felt GOOD to have stuff to hand out...

So Monday me and the Microsoft guy met at the Digital ACT, eh, Demo Center, 
found a room and talked about the plan.

Simple.. Just get 80-150 people into a room to talk about WNT, tell them
about it's portability and CPU independence, demo the install and talk 
about Netware, TCP/IP and Backoffice interoperablity for three hours.

I asked what kind of literature from Digital to bring... Anything you 
want was the reply...  Life was good...


I parked in the $4/day lot right by the wrong entrance so I would be close
to the front of the Dallas Combat Zone, eh, Convention Center.

After walking into the building with my overloaded cart, three boxes of 
DECstuff(tm), DEC Hinote, IOmega ZIP drive (100Mbyte removable floppy),
and my current library of overheads, notes, customer updates, and extra
floppies.  

I was loaded for bear.


The "Information Booth"pointed me up the escalators, down the hall and way 
back to the west.  I wondered if I had brought enough food and supplies for 
the trek west when at the top of the stairs I saw signs pointing back down
escalators to the seminar rooms.

I found the room and my Microsoft counterpart was busy up front setting 
up his systems and checking the sound.  I layed out the DEC/WNT briefing 
material in the back to be picked up by whoever came in.

Thinking only of getting about two cups of "Hot Java" in my veins before
this three hour death march I waved to the Microsoft guy.  Great minds
think alike and he and I went to the speaker's lounge -- Coffee, little
cakes, Ice water, tables, slide projectors.. everything anyone who's ever 
spoken in front of a group before would want except for a bottle of hooche, 
or PCs to play with -- but speakers have always had to bring their own 
poison to speaking engagements, crowds usually root for you until they
smell fear or your foot going into your mouth....

We sat quietly eating little cakes and drinking (coffee) fortifying ourself 
for the WNT siege to come.  

9:55 we went back to the room.  There were already die hard pocket protector
types there in the front rows, engineering notebooks ready, with two #2 
pencils (both sharpened "Just in Case") and a milling throng around the 
hand-out table.

The Microsoft guy started about 10:02 by calling the room to order and 
introducing himself and me.  Then the first 45 minutes began.

WNT, Windows on Windows, VDM, Posix, Workstations Vs Servers, hardware
abstraction layer (HAL), and Novell Interoperablity.

It seemed a blur to me and then I was cued.

I broke the transition with a Tim Allen Reference to Hardware Performance,
that I don't get excited about V8 Lawn Tractors but you may hear me grunting
in approval of WNT on the fastest CPU in the industry - Alpha.  

The crowd loved it and I got serious, speaking to the many chips that today
support WNT, Intel, AMD, Cyrix, MIPs, Power PC, and Alpha.  I surveyed the
crowd, most were Intel Users, just beginning to explore WNT but there were
4-5 Alpha users, 1-2 Power PC users.

I talked about SMP, and it's limits and the need for faster single stream
CPUs to truly increase WNT performance.

I spoke about most the current chips(Like the Power PC) as all being 32-Bit 
Implementations being able to address only up to 4Gigabytes of Processor 
memory today and said that Only the MIPs and Alpha chips are true 64-Bit 
chips.

Then I showed the chip-chart.   The one that Compares Alpha to all of our
competitors, P5, P6, HP PA-risc, Power PC, MIPs... You've seen it if you've
been at a Digital Presentation.  The one where the Alpha curve rises, and 
rises and the other chips sort of hover about 300Mhz...

I spoke that Today Digital builds and delivers a 300Mhz 1 BIP (Billion 
Instruction per Second) chip and WNT runs the fastest on Alpha chips 
today and would be the fastest WNT well into the next century.

The crowd was stunned, no questions, no comments, just stunned and scribbling
notes. 

I handed back the mike to my Microsoft counterpart and he declared a 
15 minute bio-break.  

During the Break the Product Manager for Power PC (IBM) came up to my 
Microsoft buddy and complained bitterly that Microsoft was slamming the 
Power PC and praising the Alpha.  One IBM employee had left because of the 
slight.

He pulled me aside and told me about the confrontation.  When the next 
session started up, He apologized to the crowd if he had appearing biased 
to one chip set or the other.  His statement was "Microsoft supports all 
of their hardware partners and reiterated the WNT portablity message.

I've never been to a trial where the judge has directed the jury to 
disregard the bloody knife as evidence because of some technicality,
but the apology had much the same impact.

It didn't hurt that one of the Alpha customers in the back of the room 
was still joking outloud that SQL Server runs like a scalded cat compared 
to a dual pentium.

Back on track I was reintroduced to talk about installing WNT, it's 
perils and pitfalls, then I handed the stage back to my Microsoft 
comrade.  He wrapped up with talks about integration with TCP/IP, 
Novell, SNA, and Remote Access Support for Dial-in PCs...

At the End the Crowd came up and asked questions, were enthusiastic
to me and the Microsoft Consultant.  The IBM folks just slinked off...

All of the handouts and literature disappeared!  We left to go to our cars
with my cart and a half empty box of DECstuff(tm) including my PC and drives
in the box!

Later at Lunch (at a place just like any of the many fine padded watering 
holes that populate downtown areas of anycity) the Microsoft consultant 
joked with me about IBM feeling Slighted.  "If they had faster chips, nothing
would have been said about your presentation at all" he said.

"They Don't need faster chips" I sighed "They have marketing budgets and can 
afford to officially attend shows like Windows World."  

All in All though it wasn't a bad day...

I touched 150, IBM touched 50,000, but I got to tweak some "Blue" nose and 
get sixty some business cards in the process.  

Now my only problem is who in Digital would want the names of sixty WNT 
prospects... 

I guess I'll just give the names to a distributor...

John Wisniewski



    

    
    Ouch.
    
    Forward your memo to Bob. The truth hurts. Keep the in your face
    attitude, no one cannot tell you your not trying.
    
    -Mike Z.

    
    
    	C'mon John, you know better than that.
    
    	Give Mr. Lemmon the cards, and tell him they are all ABU prospects
    for Alpha/WNT and his budget for Q3 is in there. We'll get 'em, believe
    me...
    
    
    		the Greyhawk
    
    
    	PS - That was a *great* report from the front, and from a VMS
             guy,too ;-)

John,

What a great report.  Its wonderful to know that there are still 
people like yourself who are prepared to fight and have fun 
doing it.

Keep at it.

Randall

Thanks for the report. But I have one question:

>It didn't hurt that one of the Alpha customers in the back of the room 
>was still joking outloud that SQL Server runs like a scalded cat compared 
>to a dual pentium.

....isn't this a good thing? I would think that a scalded cat will run 
pretty quickly? 

    
    .0 better still, PLEASE send your report to the WNT PM&D
     upper management (VTX has a list of suspects) such as:
    
     - Lucia Quinn
     - Ed Muth
     - Harvey Storms etc
    

    Great report!  Thank you for posting it.  Many of us have the same
    feelings - once we tell the world, the world gets excited.  And it just
    keeps getting better, look for some great announcements towards the end
    of this month.
    
    Ken B.

    re .2
    
    Ok, ok.. so we'll keep the cards;-) and do some follow up...
    
    A grunt's got a right to be confused until the reorg stands still
    for a couple of days;-)
    
    Good Hunting
    
    John W.
    

    re .4
    
    In context the joke was that Alpha was good because it ran as fast
    as a scalded cat. --- Yes this was a good thing to compare Alpha's 
    performance against PowerPC.
    
    Of course it was not a good thing for the cat in question...:-)
    
    Best of luck,
    
    John W.
    

    Thank you folks for the kind words about my trip report-- 
    
    Everytime I feel like taking second shift off, I get inspired by
    folks like you and reach for another cup of coffee;-)
    
    All my best,
    
    John Wisniewski
    

    's'OK John, we'll still letcha take THIRD shift off.  As long as you
    keep spending part of second shift in showing the rest of us how much
    fun you're having (& good you're doing) in FIRST shift...
    
    What kinda coffee should we send ya, so you keep being full of beans??
    
    :-)
    

    Re .0
    
    John,
    	How does a Bear go loaded for Bear? }8-)}
    
    Good report, and keep on tweaking,
    
    Bill
    

    When I was reading this, (a little after the fact I know) I was waiting
    for the shoe to drop and something bad to happen.  Glad it didn't; good
    report!
    Doug