Conference 7.286::digital

    I'd like to see us donate old stuff to charity, but consider:
    
    Is the other company's brand name on the box when they donate
    it.  I.e. when it runs like hell, or worse, breaks, does it
    make them look bad?  Probably not, because they didn't make the
    box. They just bought it, used it, expensed it and junked it. 
    
    If digital makes the box, and donates it, it still says digital.
    If it breakes it's a "POS computer".  Our internal systems are
    screwed up enough, we'd probably be tricked into going to repairing
    the thing, or replacing it.
    
    What I'd do, is rip every reference to digital off the box and
    then donate it.   Seriously, if you're a school kid and you worked on
    a donted TRS-80... 
    
    Regards,
    MadMike

    I kinda like the concept of having the "digital" still there, and
    having the serial numbers (which should be on the front, and easily
    deciphered) in a real live VALID database (unlike SMART) that sez -
    "Donated to <mumble> <date>.
    
    I recently donated an LP29 to local college, that I bought from a scrap
    dealer (it still worked, I used to maintain it) - and the college
    placed it on contract. They won - (got a better printer than the LP37 -
    for free), I won (took a decent sized deduction from my taxes) and Digital
    won (more maintenance dollars).
    
    .mike. 

Here in France, Digital pays a fairly heavy tax ("taxe professionalle") on
all its equipment as long as it's owned; it's based on the purchase price,
so the tax on even a PC325 is bad.

In Valbonne we'd like to get rid of our obscenely large inventory of
obsolete equipment (getting current equipment for current use is another
question, and a very emotional one, which I won't go into here).  Of course
much of this obsolete equipment is still usable for someone, so many of us
would like to donate some to schools and charitable organizations.

But we can't.  In order to meet legal requirements, we must have it
destroyed, and be prepared to certify that it was destroyed.

Lose-lose.

___Pete

    We have policies for everything....
    
    Go to Corporate VTX Infobase:
    
    step	choose
    
    1		16	Policies and Procedures
    2		1	Repository of Corporate level policies
    3		2	Contents of policy repository
    4		2	Corporate Accounting and Reporting Policies
    5		1	Business Controls section
    6		13	CF302-22 => CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS POLICY
    
    don't forget also to look at CP002-03 => CORPORATE CONTRIBUTIONS
    After step 3 above do:
    
    4		3	Corporate Policies
    5		4	CP002-03 => CORPORATE CONTRIBUTIONS POLCIY
    
    Have fun,
    HI
    

    One of the charitable organizations I support is the American Indian
    College Fund, a non profit organization that raises funds and resources
    for 27 member Native American Colleges. Most of these schools are in
    dire conditions with many fighting on a daily basis to hold or become
    accredited. With Indian reservations some of the worst pockets of
    poverty in the country, you can imagine what their fund raising efforts
    are like. 
    
    Furthermore, in an effort to balance the federal budget, proposed cuts
    naturally singled out the BLM and specifically, funds earmarked for the
    reservations. (Hard to break a 400 year old habit of oppressing the
    Indians.....) 
    
    Most of these schools have minimal to poor to almost no libraries. 
    
    So as I am learning about all of this and thinking about the tons of
    obsolete PCs and other equipment we have, I get real excited about the
    prospect of Digital helping these colleges by getting them on-line and
    using PCs to expand their library and research resources. 
    
    How naive I am........
    
    I wrote a several page proposal and submitted it to corporate
    contributions and asked what we could do. I offered to do the work,
    serve on a comittee, head up a project, whatever it would take. I got
    an answer, which was a start at least, but it was a no-option, no-
    recourse, slam dunk into the circular file. 
    
    I'll tell you, as an employee of our moral, ethical, community oriented, 
    socially involved company, I was very disappointed, and even a little
    bit disgusted. 
    
    There's something about destroying perfectly good resources that could
    mean so much to others that seems to me to be biblically (is that a word?)
    sinful.   
    
    I went through the proper channels but I don't know if there were any
    other "humans" on the other end - only automatrons. And the legal
    liability BS around the logo and our "responsibilities" is a total
    crock. Years ago we gave away old stuff left and right; this is no
    legal matter. Remember, Digital has killed the matching grant program
    and many other charitable efforts as a cost cutting measure - (Oh yeh,
    we did still pay out six digit bonuses to failures who got fired.....)
    
    I understand cost containment and had no beef about the Matching
    cancellation - but I did expect it to get reinstated at some point. And
    disposal of old equipment, as was pointed out in the original note is a
    tax write off - a win/win!!!! 
    
    This is not your father's oldsmobile. I just don't think Digital
    gives a s___ any more. Our leaders have more important things to do -
    save the company, make BIG bucks for themselves, and write ludicrous
    contracts of employment for other company's failures - (Ed, Enrico....).
    
    So, I continue to make my paltry tiny $$$ contribuitions to the AICF in
    hopes they will be able to pick up a text book or two........
    
       
    
    
    

    This note may not directly apply, but I could not help giving out
    my thoughts.
    
    As we continue to CAPsize (woops Rightsize is correct word), it
    would seem to me that Digital should offer to sell an exiting
    TFSO'd indvidual the unit off his/her desk at a HUGE discount.
    
    This individual could take a long some good memories as well as
    a product that they are very familiar with when going on to
    the next life.
    
    The company would then not have to worry about inventoring and
    depreciating the equipment as well as possible logistic and 
    crushing expenses.

    RE: .6
    
    Actually what you describe does exist (sort of).
    
    The TFSO'd employee has the option to purchase up to 2 pieces of
    equipment that meets certain conditions, such as zero book value, less
    than 486, etc. I recall that there is an administrative fee that varies
    depending on the model.
    
    I saw the list from someone that got tapped recently. 
    
    hth,
    
    kjg

  Having TFSO'd employees take their old equipment with them only makes a small
dent in the huge volume of old but still-working equipment we send to the scrap
heap.
  Over the last two years, I helped send tens of thousands of dollars worth
(internal cost when purchased) of usable but surplus equipment to the scrap 
heap (PDC). I felt bad about doing so, but there was no alternative: we couldn't
find any takers for it in-house, we were prohibited from donating it to out-
siders, and we didn't have any space to store it.
  The PDC prides itself on the fact that it recycles most of the materials from
the equipment it receives. But that misses the point. Most of the value in
computer equipment is in the manufacturing, not in the materials. So is most
of the energy investment. 

    The paper trail of memos that resulted from trying to arrange for the
    donation of a COMPAQ LTE !286! laptop to a seminary that "standardized"
    on these units boggles the mind.
    
    They have a fleet of docking stations to accept minimaly configured
    units (as were use by PCSA "road warriors" in days past").
    
    This is "written off" at 0$, but I still can't get anyone to sanction
    parting with it.
    
    Thus it occupies valuable cc's in my home office..
    
    fjp

    About 1 or 2 months ago, I was also looking to acquire some equipment
    to "donate" to my old high school.  
    
    I was planning on holding some "training" classes to get the kids off 
    the streets, and at the same time develop their skills in the IT field 
    (i.e. HTML, Networks, word processing, graphics, etc.) - possibly start
    their young lives in the right track - in the IT industry.  I graduated 
    from Brockton High School in '91.  Unfortunately, the school system 
    their has other things to worry about besides their computer equipment...
    
    Anyways, I contacted someone in the corporate donations department. 
    They told me that, at the time, there was nothing they could do.  The
    only way Digital could donate old equipment was if it was on Dial and
    the value was $0.  Otherwise, unless the High School was planning on
    making a New Computer Equipment Purchase - Digital could give a
    discount (discount off what? already overpriced PCs?).  The other reason 
    they said they tended to shy away from donating equipment was "who's 
    going to maintain the equipment?"  They said, "they'll come back to 
    Digital and ask us to maintain them (for free?)."
    
    I used to work in Desktop Support for CCS.  I had the opportunity to
    walk around several buildings....and I often saw cubes and cubes of
    offices filled with unused "Idle" equipment.  I thought, "what a waste!" 
    Why can't we donate these equipment?  From the previous notes, it looks
    like there would be some benefit to Digital....????
    
    Does anybody have any suggestions on where I can go from here?  Thanks
    much in advance!!!
    
    /t2

Re .-1, "they'll come back to Digital and ask us to maintain them (for
free?)."

Why should that bother anyone?  I bought a new Digital PC using my own
money, I have a worldwide warranty (it's right here on paper), and it's
still impossible to find anyone to maintain it near where I live.

All we ask is equal treatment. :-)

___Pete

    Pathetic isn't it.I, like most,was ready to help out the local school
    and give my time to train etc etc but came across the same
    difficulties.But it's worse - I have been asked to run a one day
    session in a local college to show the Internet - so could we roll in
    three or four machines for the day and connect them up.Try borrowing
    kit?It makes giving it away look easy.
    Know what I'll do?I will lend them MY own crappy old 386 machines(I
    have two) and take along my portable for the demo.
    Pathetic

    Wasn't there a man in Stoneham-area who would take older computers
    and "re-vamp" them and donate them to schools?  I remember reading
    a newspaper article, but I forget the man's name and where he lives.
    Does anybody know of a person like that?

> I have been asked to run a one day session in a local college to show the
> Internet ...

I bring them in to the Valbonne site on Saturday mornings.  Heaven knows
there's no other obvious way to get access to the kit.

___Pete

> I bring them in to the Valbonne site on Saturday mornings.  Heaven knows
> there's no other obvious way to get access to the kit.

  Try getting a bunch of visitors into a U.S. Digital facility on a Saturday. 
Much harder than getting equipment out of the building for a few days.

    
    	Don't you have unmanned key-carded entrances over there, Bob?
    
    	8^)
    

>> I bring them in to the Valbonne site on Saturday mornings.  Heaven knows
>> there's no other obvious way to get access to the kit.

>Try getting a bunch of visitors into a U.S. Digital facility on a Saturday.
>Much harder than getting equipment out of the building for a few days.

I notify Security ahead of time so they can check the names, prepare
badges, and be ready to open the secure gates.  So far they've been very
cooperative.  In fact they asked me if I'd be willing to do one of my
Saturday sessions for *them*.

___Pete

    Few days ago I looked at one web page and found out that Multia's are
    being sold at an auction - Starting bid - $25. I heard we have 40,000
    of them in stock ( thanks to the agrresive inventory management by
    Larry Cabrinaty ( remember him ? ).  
    
    This company could have captured the mind sets of schools of
    Massachusetts, if only they have donated 10 multia's to each school in
    the state, on the condition that they should buy the monitor and
    maintenance agreemnt from digital.
    
    But we have better things to do, like hiring a VP to decide to crush
    these Multias or sell it in an auction for $25.
      
    Jay                                    
    

    Be careful with that $25 price.  That's a come-on.  Often the final
    bids at onsale.com wind up being higher than the price you can pay in
    someone's 800-number catalog operation (there's a sucker in every
    crowd).
    
    In the case of the Alpha-based Multias (actually, the Universal Desktop
    Box which apparently we decided not to sell, and does NOT include any
    SW license since it was intended for things like the Linux market) go
    for >$700, and do not include monitor or keyboard.  Still a bargain,
    but a far cry from $25.  At least it builds up the Alpha user base 8^).

I don't believe we ever had 40,000 Multias of any variety in inventory.  I think
the most we ever had at one time as about a third that number.

Paul

    
    We created a product called GiGi.  It looked like a Commodore 64.  The 
    Product lines forecasted 28,000 sold in the first year.  We sold about 300.
    Nobody knew a VAX was needed to make it run. (It was basicly a VRT-less
    VT125).  We started shutting down production at FVS +3 months.  Still made
    about 10K.
    
    
    A year later, in June, we gave away 5 GiGi's and an LA34 to every 
    University on Earth.
    
    I got a call in July demanding that we restart the line because "they
    we're moving like crazy!".  We didn't restart it.
    

	Wow. Memories. My first program (Modula 2) in college was written 
using a GiGi terminal. You just stirred up some memmories....

	C'Ya,
	Wayne

    Wanna see how fast/high Bob P. and Ed C. can jump?  Call somebody
    in the press and point to see the Alphas being auctioned off and
    claim Digital is abandoning Alpha... "look, here's proof".
    I bet it takes a lot less time than it took to find out about broken
    bonus promises.
     ;-)           

    >>>>Wanna see how fast/high Bob P. and Ed C. can jump?  Call somebody
        in the press and point to see the Alphas being auctioned off and
        claim Digital is abandoning Alpha...
    
    No thanks Kratz, you can spare me that one. I hope someone is
    troubleshooting  this pr problem, and I find you have some valid points
    when you criticise our marketing strategy, but Alpha is what we bet the
    farm on, so we might as well look after its image as best we can, don't
    you think?

    re .20
    
    Well ! Information I heard was that we had 40,000 in inventory. Even if
    you go by your account we had nearly 14,000. I doubt we sold more than
    few hundreds here and there.. I think the starting price is $25. In the
    auction the price may be at $700 ( without monitor !)-- But I wonder how 
    many people will even pay this price for Multia, considering the fact 
    that one can buy a Pentium PC ( without monitor ) for the same price !!
    
    By the way does any one care to guess as to how much inventory of Full
    motion video kits (Remember the Kiosk at Lechmere ? ) were  dumped in to 
    scrap market ? By the way this is another one of the projects in which 
    a digital executive ( who is no longer with the company ) wasted millions !
    
                                               

    Just a data point among the invective in this thread....
    
    You will currently have to bid $731 or better to secure one of 
    these auction clearance units (up from $705 yesterday).  The $25 
    figure is the minimal opening bid and is irrelevant to this discussion.
    
    If I lived in the US, I'd power-bid for one in a flash just to have a
    reliable, fast and compact file and network server.
    
    /Chris.

    I think one point that is being missed is that the market place will
    drive the price of an object.  If we indeed have ~14,000 or whatever
    number of Multias languishing in warehouses for a list price of $4000+,
    and the popular price people are willing to pay is around $900-$1000,
    the real value to a customer is hitting you in the middle of your
    forehead, if you (the corporation) would bother to notice.  Would you
    pay $80,000 for a loaded Ford Taurus just because Ford say's that's
    it's value?  Or will the market and competition force it down to
    $20,000 (where it probably is still too high)?
    
    .02
    Bryan