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Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

Title:DEC Rdb against the World
Moderator:HERON::GODFRIND
Created:Fri Jun 12 1987
Last Modified:Thu Feb 23 1995
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1348
Total number of notes:5438

1288.0. "Rdb Marketing Status ?" by MSDOA::SECRIST (Let me show you the future.) Fri Aug 27 1993 21:48

	Is no one actually responsible for marketing Rdb ?  Do product
	managers for individual products have the authority to advertise ?
	What possible logical reason could there be for having no
	marketing ?  Does anyone else in the company have product
	marketing other than the Alpha AXP PC ?  Can any knowledgeable
	conclusions be made from this decision ?  

	Regards,
	rcs

T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
1288.1Bob Jolls has the walletIJSAPL::OLTHOFYes, the name is HenNy, not HenryMon Aug 30 1993 10:399
    Looking at the latest organizational chart, Bob Jolls VP is responsible
    for product marketing (from the Strecker organization). Any decision
    to market or not to market, to do adds or not, have to pass his bureau.
    
    Of course, this must be aligned with the engineering vision that
    Strecker has. If that's Alpha, you cannot expect to see marketing
    dollars for Rdb as that funding would only upset Oracle, Sybase, ..
    
    Henny
1288.2Digital and MarketingNOVA::BERENSONDatabase Architecture, Standards, and StrategyMon Aug 30 1993 16:0835
Well, Product managers have *never* had the authority to take out
advertising for their products.  Advertising, and other marketing
"programs" have always (or at least for many years) been controlled
separately from the budgets for people in product management and
marketing groups.  Even when money is available to engineering groups,
things like reprints, trade show presence, etc. usually come before big $
advertising.  Advertising has another attribute which is that the
corporation is always seeking to control it at some very centralized
level.

Digital is in flux on how it is going to do product marketing.  The trend
is away from individual product marketing to larger marketing programs.
Getting our marketing content into those programs, and keeping it from
being buried by all the other content, is what our product marketing
people are now trying to do.

This isn't unique to database, or to software.  I was talking to an AXP
engineer a couple of weeks ago who comented on how difficult it was
getting the content for the particular Alpha system he worked on into the
corporate Alpha marketing program.  That is, the program is pushing
"ALPHA" but there is no marketing of the "DEC 12345 AXP" system.

If you have comments on Digital's current approach to marketing, I would
indeed suggest that you give it to Bob Jolls and Ed Lucente.

If you have comments specifically on the marketing of our production
systems products (DB, TP, System/Network Management), I'd suggest
giving them to Rose Ann Giordano.

I'd particularly suggest you bring up sales losses that occured because
our marketing situation did not give the customer confidence in the
products.  Just saying "we should market our products" is not going to
have much impact.

Hal
1288.3UNIX supportMEMIT::SILVERBERG_MMark Silverberg MLO1-5/B98Thu Sep 02 1993 14:063
    We position Rdb in our Commercial UNIX capability 
    Mark
    
1288.4HmmmMSDOA::SECRISTLet me show you the future.Wed Sep 08 1993 19:569
	; We position Rdb in our Commercial UNIX capability 

  That's good news -- especially once it ships under OSF/1.  Do you
  just say it's program announced or what ?

  Regards,
  rcs

1288.5This is a giant leap, inform Gareth TaubeIJSAPL::OLTHOFWhat I need right now is visionThu Sep 09 1993 16:227
    Re .3
    
    I say that this small step can be a giant leap to Digital. Now lets
    take that just one inch further, announce DEC Rdb on somebodyelses
    Unix.
    
    Great courage, great work!