Conference 7.286::digital

    SAP decommits to our OpenVMS customers less then six months ago
    because they wanted only to service the "UNIX" market and maintain
    a single source.
    
    Every single argument for the AS/400 could apply to OpenVMS and we 
    had an Installed base of SAP they backed away from.
    
    It makes me furious to think that we are deploying our business on 
    software from this type of company.
    
    SAP appears to have the bull by the horns in this marketplace today,
    but I've seen world class applications come and go in this business,
    with their attitude, these folks won't be missed when they're gone.
    
    Now the OpenVMS customers have a real migration path -- Right to 
    an Open, Standards compliant, robust, and business worthy AS/400:-((
    
    
    
    JMHO,
    
    John Wisniewski
    

Dare I ask: what is the volume of AS400 vs VMS?  (At one point, I believe
I heard it was true that the AS400 business was larger than Digital -
I don't know if it was true then or not, or if it still is if it was.)

If it is in fact significantly larger than VMS opportunities (and also if
it is growing faster), is this yet another case of venting at ISVs when
it's really a problem of our own making (i.e. failure to build volume
to make our platforms desirable to ISVs by providing them a better ROI.)

I'm concerned at the way we continually seem to be "pointing the finger"
at ISVs when in a number of cases they are simply operating according
to business *logic*.  This serves only to:

    1. Fail to identify and fix the real problems (making our platforms
       attractive so ISVs WANT to sell there)

    2. Further alienate ISVs

Basically, are we blaming external entities for our own execution?  (We may
not be in every case, including this one in particular, but there seems to be
a rather large hole in solving, as one person put it "the ISV problem".)

We gripe about other systems being first for ports, ISVs pushing competitive
platforms in a number of instances, etc.  While there will always be some
bias, the key is to get the bias to work for you, rather than against you.
So long as Digital isn't first or second in terms of unit volume that ISVs
can ship on (and doesn't appear intent on becoming first or second in a number
of different ways), why would ISVs making rational decisions put Digital
platforms first or second on their list?

    re:-1
    
    	Absolutely. And as much as I like the guy, John is off-base here.
    
    	SAP is doing exactly what any prudent businessperson would do. Port
    your software to volume, where growth is evident, competition is weak,
    and prices (margins) are high and discounting is controllable.
    
    	The fact of the matter is OpenVMS(tm) is not growing, we do not
    know how to market it, our strategy is still very confusing to both
    prospects *and* customers (the O/S flavor of the day approach), and
    we have not settled down to a workable corporate focus (when is the
    last time someone asked you about DEC "middleware"?) that explains
    the reason for our being.
    
    	I know I keep harping on it ain't rocket science, but I'm beginning
    to believe for those "in positions to know" that it is...
    
    		the Greyhawk

    SAP has been telling customers in confidence for well over a year that
    R/3 on OpenVMS was moribund and officially announced the sunsetting
    about a year ago. In that time they delivered, late mind you but
    delivered, 4 new releases to existing customers to keep them current
    while we (Digital and SAP) migrated them to UNIX.
    
    SAP has had an AS400 port in their plans since as long as I can
    remember but they always said "not working on it at the present time
    because of performance concerns" when they dropped the boutique
    operating systems last year (MPE went too btw) the AS400 vapour was
    also for the chop.
    
    There is one, and only one thing behind the revival of a port to AS400 and 
    that is that there is one very large customer willing to pay in advance 
    for it. IBM themselves, Lou wrote a cheque for 38 Million clams and says 
    "Oh, by the way I'd like to use AS/400 systems if you wouldn't mind" and 
    guess what folks, money talks. It will be late, slow and undersupported
    and the AS400 bigots will lap it up.
    
    Much more interesting and close to our hearts is a certian company in
    Redmond, WA that has recently signed on as a SAP customer and also has
    money to talk with, stay tuned this one's still to play out but one
    thing's for sure it ain't gonna hurt us.   
                                        

    It just really bothers me that we are deploying SAP internally, touting
    it externally and to the sales force and the the few "Real" SAP
    opportunities I've seen, Digital is always used as a lever by the 
    the customer to get HP or IBM to lower their prices.
    
    I'm real tired of seeing the words "Partner" applied to other companies
    that are working with us only on opportunities that we bring to them,
    and never the other way around.
    
    I only speak to my own experiance regarding SAP.  I've heard all the
    hype and their leveraging a 10:1 hardware to software spin off, the 
    penetration into the fortune 500 at every level etc... The SAP 
    relationship may be different in another part of the world, other 
    software vendors may take the "Hardware Neutral" approach too, but 
    it seems like the big six, ISVs and everyone else thinks of Digital
    last on the list (if at all).
    
    Every battle is uphill, every bit of mindshare is bought and paid for
    with the time and blood of a DEC employee, every sale is a hard won
    victory.
    
    We give our Software Partners hardware, software, provide expertise... 
    What are we missing from a business stand point?  I've had it explained 
    to me that many software companies expect the HW vendor to pay outright 
    for the bodies nessisary to support their installed base or do an
    inital port to the HW platform.  
    
    Surely we have tried to fund the top 1-2 applications in a software 
    market for our platforms, (and not just as an "Also Done" Unix port) 
    with support and joint marketing synergy planned for.  Why don't we 
    see the benefit and market pull that HP, IBM, and SUN have in courting 
    the software vendors.  Are we doing something different then them?
    
    I'm just tired of all the relationships with software houses that we
    seem to become "Best Buddies" with them but the relationship never
    seems to pan out into real sales or market presense, and after all 
    the lip service is paid, it doesn't help Digital's market position 
    or sales teams. 
    
    Partners implies a commitment on both sides....
    
    JMHO
    
    John Wisniewski
    
    Anyone doing "EASY" business with SAP on our platforms.. My appologies,
    I just don't see it in my accounts...

>    We give our Software Partners hardware, software, provide expertise... 
>    What are we missing from a business stand point?

Volume.  If has to deal with something with 1/10 or 1/100 the unit volume
and all of the hassles, it is frequently a losing proposition REGARDLESS
of whether the vendor pays for the port.  They're in business (frequently)
to try to get a franchise.  Someone with a low-volume platform is nothing
but a distraction from that effort in general.

Did you read the previous note in this conference about activity-based
accounting (and how Compaq applied it)?  One of the things that they
found was how low-volume platforms were effectively being subsidized
by the higher volume ones.  Software is similar in nature, but greatly
magnified even compared to high volume hardware.

To me, our ISVs appear to be making the logical business choices for them
to make in many cases, given that we don't have volume (e.g. vs Sun),
and don't appear to be going after it.  (From a Unix perspective, look
at the NT "dream machines".  Sun ISVs know that they'll get the lowest
end hardware available from Sun, even though it hasn't quite reached
the PC arena yet.  Ones that might chose Digital Unix will probably
feel rather burned...)

> -< It's not just SAP many of our SW friends don't like us... >-
>    Partners implies a commitment on both sides....

True partnerships are about two-way support.  In the case of ISVs, we
are asking something from them (ports), but aren't providing what they
need for a good ROI (potential for volume markets) in return.  Why,
exactly *should* they like us?

*We're* the ones trying to launch a new platform (relative to the other
Unix and x86 Windows platforms), and it is extremely unrealistic
to expect ISVs, or anyone else, to just "give" things to Digital.

    SAP is not, yet anyway, exactly interested in volume in the same sense
    Kent means. When you can charge >$15,000 per seat and have customers
    who pay multimillion dollars price tags for essentially one copy of the
    software what matters is an entirely different kettle of fish and it
    has as much to do with engineering and field commitment as with volume. 
    
    I'm tempted to tell John he has nobody to blame but himself if he has
    problems with SAP but it's not that simple. Why ? Well, SAP, Oracle, Baan,
    Peoplesoft and so on, the large project, big ticket software vendors
    don't have corporate policies that officially favour one vendor or
    another, those biases are largely a function of local culture and if
    you're seeing a bias in your accounts then you are the only person who
    can get in there and fix it. Two years ago we were in the same boat in
    Canada, number 3 in a three horse race and stuggling to hold onto that, 
    today we're number two and making HP sweat bullets as we pull account 
    after account out from under them and there is much more competition. How 
    did we get there? tireless effort on one guy's part to make sure that 
    every SAP lead we dug up got into the right hands at SAP with 
    reciprocation, making sure that every big win we had worldwide was 
    communicated to the right people at SAP locally, locating speakers for SAP 
    marketing events and internal pizza'n'pop days, oh, yah, and doing the 
    same things with the local practise partners in the Big 6. These are all 
    decentralized organizations where the local office has a lot of autonomy, 
    corporate ain't gonna fix these problems and neither will whinging about 
    it in ::DIGITAL. 
    
    Now that I've got that off my chest it's not entirely on the back of
    the local sales team, these things are big, project oriented opportunites 
    but with a few notable exceptions (Canada, Southeast) the local SI orgs 
    have not bellied up to the bar with resources. There is one beleaugered
    group that is supposed to be a second line support team in ALF but
    their stretched so thin it's laughable, the situation is improving in
    some areas (Northeast) but there are still really only four or five full
    time, senior, experienced field consultants in the Americas that can
    make the difference between winning and losing and guess what, we're
    booked. 
    
    You're a SAP account manager and you know that HP and or IBM has local
    talent and Digital is still trying to fly the same six people around
    the @^$%# continent who are you going to favour? 
       

    Then of course there is the legendary difficulty of doing business with
    DEC. ISVs have to jump through hoops to get even simple answers from
    us, forget getting ready co-operation or pro-active support from DEC.
    
    We still treat many ISVs like the old days of arrogance when we were
    king of the hill and they had to do it our way if they wanted to play
    with our VAX.
    
    About 7 or 8 years ago they started to discover thay didnt have to play
    with our VAX. 

    
    
    but to balance this string out, SAP and Digital are also
    collaborating quite well in upstream activities, particularly
    in Digital Unix. 
    
    for details, I encourage you to contact Toni Steiner, our
    GBM (Global Bus. Mgr) for SAP.
    
    as much as we all value our installed base, a previous noter
    did ask a very pertinent question, and that is, just how much
    (of the whole SAP business pie) is generated by OpenVMS?

    Our department is also collaborating quite well w/ SAP.  For
    information on how SAP and DEC/EDI are integrated, contact Don Harrison
    @ SCA.

    Some additional tidbits ...
    
    -  SAP is in the process of attempting to broaden its base.  Up to now,
       the target has been NT, but INTEL only.  I will omit the long
       discusion on why we don't have an ALPHA-based NT solution; the 
       short answer is it was SAP's decision.  BUT A SIGNIFICANT PART OF
       THE ISSUE WAS AVOIDING A DILUTION IN MARGINS that might accompany
       an NT-based solution (almost all prices I have seen for NT versions
       of UNIX S/W have been lower than the equivalent UNIX license fee).
    
    -  A large portion of SAP's base is in Europe, where the AS/400
       sold well (and continues to do so??).
    
    -  IBM is an Alliance Partner (application) as well as a Platform
       Partner (platform infrastructure).  Is it possible that SAP would
       feel more comfortable with a proprietary solution for the platform
       if the company that sold that platform would be a major factor in
       driving business for it from the application level?
    
    -  SAP is in the process of attempting to enable some distribution of
       the application via something called "Application Linking &
       Embedding (ALE)" (Norm - no flames please; I hope I got this right).
       I theory, this would allow a customer to use an existing AS/400
       at a plant as a local SAP engine, linked via ALE to an RS/6000 SP
       central system at HQ.
    
    So let's add it all up:  SAP has agreed to port to the AS/400, a
    platform that will provide additional revenue but not necessarily the
    margin dilution that will eventually be the impact of NT.  This will
    make many potential and current customers happy, especially if ALE will
    allow them to link their existing plant system infrastructure based on
    AS/400's to a central UNIX-based R/3 instance (of course, IBM will want
    to sell them an upgrade to the more powerful AS/400, in order to 
    have enough power to get the job done ;^> ).  This will, however, be 
    a limited effort, in that the main driver of this strategy will be IBM
    itself, and SAP will most likely not push the other Alliance Partners
    to target the AS/400 (unless, of course, IBM is hugely successful
    here).  It may also have most if its impact in Europe, where the AS/400
    has a strong base.
    
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    As to VMS ...
    
    If the above is correct, there were several problems with the VMS
    approach:
    
    -  We were pushing VMS as a high-availability back-end; I would not 
       expect this in the AS/400 case. I still expect IBM to push 
       RS/6000-SP *and* AS/400's.       
    
    -  The timing for the AS/400's is different; this appears to be a
       R/3 version 3.x strategy, while VMS was involved in the earlier
       versions of R/3.  For example, ALE - and thus distribution in SAP
       R/3 - will be enabled in Version 3.x only.
    
    -  IBM can now use the AS/400 as part of an "end-to-end" strategy,
       where they can act as a single vendor for delivering R/3
       either on AS/400's or AIX, or both.  We do not have the resources
       or management commitment to do this, and we are specifically
       positioning ourselves NOT to do this (both IBM and HP have 
       aggrevated the other Alliance Partners by attempting to "horn in"
       on their turf).  Given VMS' market and direction, why would SAP
       give us the same deal as IBM??
    
    
    MY OPINION
    ----------
    We have the ability to essentially do the same thing with NT-on-Alpha
    as IBM may attempt to do with the AS/400.  Right now, we have NT 3.51
    and MS SQL-Server available on Alpha; what will it take to enable this
    as a certified SAP platform Solution??  WE ARE IN THE BEST POSITION ON
    RISC-BASED NT/UNIX SOLUTIONS FOR SAP, given our Microsoft alliance, as 
    well as our position in the NT-RISC market.  This is ours to lose, or
    win, but not on VMS - the answer must be UNIX/UNIX today, UNIX/UNIX or 
    UNIX/NT in the near-term, and UNIX/UNIX, UNIX/NT, and NT/NT for the
    long-term (DB server tier/ Appl server tier).
    
    Could VMS have had a stronger role in the SAP story?  If we had gone
    with a VMS back-end (cluster of course) coupled to a UNIX or NT application
    server tier earlier, then we might have had a real winner.  Perhaps VMS
    with the NT "wrapper" could still be used as the DB server back-end for
    an NT/NT solution , but given the way things have gone with VMS, I
    wouldn't want to push it. :-)
    
    Charles 

    re .3

>    	The fact of the matter is OpenVMS(tm) is not growing, ...

    At Oracle Corporation, OpenVMS product sales grew more than 70% last
    year, while the company as a whole grew about 50%. Oracle's product
    line management for OpenVMS (Niall Wall, [email protected]) stated
    last week at the Oracle user group meeting that OpenVMS is "a
    profitable and growing business." They position OpenVMS as their 
    high-quality, bullet-proof enterprise database/applications server. 
    They position Digital UNIX as Oracle's premiere Oracle UNIX offering
    and as their new technologies platform (64-bit option). 

    Send him mail for the rest of the facts.

    Lisa

    re -.1
    
    Thank you for pointing out OpenVMS's growth and with our largest 
    and most profitable software partner - Oracle!
    
    John W.

  Of course, some of their reported growth on OpenVMS systems might
  just be the result of them having bought from us Rdb and the exist-
  ing and new customer base?

                                   Atlant

    You've got to read the statement within its context. My take on what
    they're saying is that Oracle sales into OpenVMS accounts have
    increased. That doesn't mean that OpenVMS sales have increaased, just
    that Oracle is making inroads with existing OpenVMS customers, thus
    OpenVMS versions of Oracle software sales are up.
    
    Harry
    

Here's the statement folks seem to be talking about, as taken from Lisa (EPS::)
Roderick's trip report from International Oracle User Week: (it said
"Permission to forward *internally* is granted.") 

	- OpenVMS is Oracle's largest installed base, and their revenue on
	  OpenVMS continues to grow at a greater rate (70% or so) than
	  Oracle's overall growth (50% or so). We should review our
	  performance characterization efforts to consider verifying our
	  modelled Applications performance projections on OpenVMS Alpha.

Some other interesting tidbits:

"As previously mentioned, the gripe of the week was Oracle's constant delay in
porting products to OpenVMS (both Alpha and VAX). The current lag between
OpenVMS Alpha and UNIX porting is six months.  Oracle product line management
is deciding whether or not to skip Release 7.2 and go directly to Release 7.3.
Most of the customers I talked with said that moving right to 7.3 would be
acceptable *only if* it means that the OpenVMS product line will be closer to
the ports to UNIX.  Oracle also announced it intends to port the 64-bit option
to OpenVMS Alpha and is working with Digital OpenVMS engineering on this."
...
"Niall Wall (Oracle DEC SBU for OpenVMS product line management) presented
Oracle's statement of direction for their products on Digital platforms.
Notably, OpenVMS Alpha is their production platform, Digital UNIX is new
technology platform, and Windows NT and Windows 95 are the development
platforms.  Oracle clearly stated that Windows NT is not a production platform,
and it apparently would be an exception in this strategy if Oracle decides to
port its Applications suite to NT as a production database server.  They
currently have no plans for such a port."

              <<< KENT::PUBLIC:[NOTES$LIBRARY]TURBOLASER.NOTE;1 >>>
                                -< TurboLaser >-
================================================================================
Note 356.0                Digital-Oracle DNR Commentary               No replies
DONZ::SOUDER "Don Souder dtn 348-4933"              121 lines   2-OCT-1995 11:06
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More "Oracle relationship" ammo from this weeks (25-Sep-1995) Digital News &
Review.  Sorry for the formatting - it's OCRed...

--------------------------------------------------
DIGITAL NEWS & REVIEW TALKS WITH INDUSTKY EXPERTS


Digital and Oracle: two partners in synch


By Hal Glatzer,
Contributing DN&R Writer


Oracle Corp. of Redwood Shores, Calif., officially has a "strategic"
partnership with Digital. But consider- ing how much of Oracle's business is
generated by that relationship, "mission critical" might be a better term for
it. 
 "In any quarter, the Digital Business Unit always is among our four top
sources of revenue," says the unit's vice president, Bob Pariseau. For the
fourth quarter of fiscal year 1995, which ended May 31, it was the
second-largest rev- enue generator for the company. License revenues for Open
VMS envi- ronments showed a growth rate of 78 percent over the fourth quarter
of 1994; and those for Digital Unix were up 131 percent.' We like to say that
Oracle has a 'tradition' of a 50-percent growth rate," Pariseau notes, "so you
can see that our Digital business is going very, very nicely." 
 Oracle's first product came out on Digital hardware, and its largest installed
base today runs on Digital platforms. "All our key technologies, particularly
in the high end, came out first on Digital," he says, "including the first
relational database to take advantage of clusters, and the first to use
symmetric multiprocessing." 
 Oracle version 7 is shipping now. Rdb version 7 will ship at the beginning of
January, according to Pariseau. "And we're all working diligently on Oracle 8,"
he adds.  Oracle also is taking full advantage of Digital's 64-bit archi-
tecture option. "We did a technology demonstration using a five-way
join--making one table out of five--to check its potential for enhancing
performance in data warehousing," Pariseau explains. "We used Digital's
highest-end box: the 8400 Alpha Server, known as the TurboLaser. The five-way
join with the 64-bit option ran 278 times faster than the same join without
it." 
 Right now, in a project that will stretch into next year, Oracle is migrating
all of its internal financial environment applications onto TurboLasers. "Our
data center is excep- tionally pleased with the hardware," Pariseau
reports.'~There is no more critical application than our financial environment.
So the fact that we're moving from a mixture of hardware and are standardizing
all of the database-function platforms worldwide for financial and office mail
applications, shows how much we respect the Digital platform." 
  He credits much of the success of Oracle's Digital Business Unit to
overlapping relation- ships that the two companies have with key resellers,
VARs, and independent software vendors. This has proven to be very important
for crafting customer solutions in the area of data warehous- ing, which
frequently requires integra- tion with third-party data-extraction or
statistical-analysis tools. Pariseau expects that the next big development to
come from Digital will be memory channel clustering. That's a high-performance
interconnection tech- nology that links "nodes" (groups of CPUs) into
"clusters"-collections of symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) nodes that work as if
they were a single computer. Mission-critical applications especially will be
well served by such clusters, as they keep a system up and running if a node
fails. Clusters also add scalability, which extracts greater per- formance out
of a system. 
"In its OpenVMS line, Digital is wide- ly known for having the world's best
clustering technology," he says. "Memory channel clustering will perhaps bring
faster interconnection to the Digital Unix products. With 64-bit architectures,
memory channel clus- ters, and the very high quality of Digital Unix and Alpha
hardware, we expect that TurboLasers running Digital Unix will become a key
platform for Oracle's mission-critical-appli- cation customers in manufacturing
and finance. They're the best-tuned-up to take advantage of the Oracle
database." 
 "Open VMS," he adds, "is an operating system with truly world-class
credentials as a high-performance mission-criti- cal environment. Its customers
are loyal. With our acquisition of Rdb last year, we pretty much own this
market now. And it's proving to be a very good business for us." 
 Where Digital Unix is strong, in smaller commercial envi- ronments, Pariseau
also expects continued growth: "Keep your eye on data warehousing, and on high
user-capacity sit- uations where people need to put many users on a particular
application. 
 "In short," he concludes, "the hardware and the operating- system technologies
that Digital offers are in such close accord with the key technologies that
Oracle is developing that it becomes an obvious fit for enterprise customers.
They recognize this early in the process. Vendors who can provide quality
performance, service, and support are the ones who will succeed. And Digital is
such a company. Its offerings syn- chronize well with ours." 


digital news & review
SEPTEMBER 25, 1995

    Here are more details regarding OpenVMS growth with Oracle. Taken from
    Oracle's latest product line update:

  	Oracle7 OpenVMS Q1FY96 New License Revenue Increases 38%! 
 
        Oracle's OpenVMS new license revenue, excluding Rdb, increased 38%
        in  Q1FY96 (Jun-Aug) over the same period in FY95.  Factoring in
        the Rdb  OpenVMS new license revenue for the quarter, the growth
        rate was a  tremendous 105% over Q1FY95.  Following the purchase of
        Rdb in  December of 1994, Oracle has experienced significant growth
        in OpenVMS  new license revenue -- a trend that is likely to
        continue as new  customers quickly realize that no information
        management provider is  more committed to the OpenVMS marketplace
        than Oracle. 
 
    Lisa

So, does that mean that Oracle are selling tons more NEW rdb licenses 
than Oracle licenses ?

Alan

    It doesn't say that they're selling more copies, it says that the
    revenue from sales is up. Wasn't there some conversation in here a
    while back about the price going up dramatically after we sold it off
    to Oracle? They could actually be selling fewer licenses, for more
    money, and still claim an "increase in revenue"!
    
    Harry
    

    Their new license prices as well as yearly Maintance prices are 
    dramatically higher. Plus more than a few customers missed the 
    maintance cut over dispite Sales and MCS efforts to inform them.
    Thus Oracle is nailing them for out of maintance charges to get
    back under a maintance agreement, or so I am told.
    
    	Phil