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I'll try to make a long answer short. If it does not answer all
your questions, feel free to give me a call (dtn 328-3041)
The investment protection plan is simple. The new "box" (cab.)
is the LASER platform. It includes a new fan design (one big ass fan)
for cooling and a new power supply. The outside of the cab has also
been redesigned. It seems papers were getting sucked into the cab
because of the fan. The Cab is slightly larger then todays 6000
series cabs.
The new backplane can handle either RUBY, the ALPHA 64 bit RISC CPU.
Or NEON, a 32 bit CISC VAX CPU. This allows the customer to migrate
when "THEY" are ready. In PIDs and sales training seminars I've
given, there has been a little confusion and a little "push back"
because our customers will have to get a whole new cabinet.
Unfortunately, with the ease of upgrading processors in the 6000
family, we've spoiled both our sales force and our customers. Ask
someone whose had to upgrade in the IBM world, or the HP world for
that matter. In most cases you can't even use the existing disk or
tape drives.
Anyway, once a customer has a LASER cab. they can start off with
NEON. At this time the VUP rating of the NEON is not being discussed,
but it will be more then the 32 VUPs of the 6000-610. There will also
be additional 32 bit CISC VAX processors in the future. Once ALPHA
has all the bells and whistles of todays VMS (like volume shadowing),
and the customer needs 180 SPEC performance, all they have to do is
a board change, like todays 6000 family, and recompile their S/W.
What we're offering our customers is a choice. This, of course,
is at the high end. At the 4000 level, it will be a box change just
like it always has been (microVAX to 3800, 3800 to 4000) I don't
know if the NEON processor will be available for this system, but
I could find out.
I'm sure we will have some type of trade-in/trade-up program for
the current boxes, we always do.
As far as were you should be getting this information. Someone
in your sales support organization should be ALPHA trained.
I guess in closing the best thing to do is sell what's available
today with the knowledge there will be upgrade programs in place, and
the customer will have a choice of when THEY want to migrate to the
new 64 bit RISC technology.
Phil...
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| The Investment Protection Plan is a major can of worms. It could mean
virtually anything to anybody.
Certainly the Neon -> Alpha in-cab upgrade is one aspect. But the "real"
question is the "protection" we give to customers who either have already
invested in VAXen or our Mips products, or are considering near term purchases.
Simply put, customers are asking why they should buy a new VAX now when Alpha
is "around the corner". And if they HAVE to buy now, what can they expect as
a return on their investment if they upgrade to Alpha later.
The March 2 issue of Digital Review has an article quoting Bill Demmer. The
implication of the article is that DEC will loan a VAX to a customer who orders
an Alpha system. Now I don't believe for one minute that this is the case, but
not having a concrete, cohesive strategy in place is causing us headaches in the
field. My customer has cancelled all VAX4000 upgrades until we get our act
together.
By the way, the financial aspect of the Investment Protection Plan is an Ops
issue, not sales support.
Bob
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| >> In PIDs and sales training seminars I've
>> given, there has been a little confusion and a little "push back"
>> because our customers will have to get a whole new cabinet.
Yeah, my customer pushed back a little when we told him he'd have to replace
the two VAX 9420's he just installed in October with new "cabs" if he wants
to get to Alpha. Don't forget, he got his $5 million worth of VAXen AFTER
we decided to kill the ECL product line. And now we'll give him the privledge
of giving us MORE money to move to CMOS, just so he can get more memory and
processing power.
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