Conference 7.286::digital

    Bob, I think everyone who works for this company would like to know
    once and for all that there's some remote possibility we might have
    some job security.  As long as "right"sizing goes on, that will not
    happen.  If you're sincerely interested in affecting morale, in the
    upward direction, that is, please address this issue and tell us in
    straight words what we can really expect and why we should even try
    to feel good about our own futures with Digital.
    
    -dick

    
    My burning question is revenue-growth oriented, and comes in two parts.
    
    First, what are we doing to maximize sales growth *thru* our existing
    sales force?
    
    And second, why are sales compensation plans based on revenue instead
    of margin?
    
    Of course the corollary is when are we going to become a SYSTEMS house
    as opposed to a product farm? (see, Tex, I didn't say zoo)
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

I'm getting mixed messages from different groups within the Corp.
about salary increases.  Some groups say that they were not given
the o.k. to start distributing raises yet.  While other groups
I know started handing out raises as soon as the freeze was lifted,
back in Dec. '94.  What is the straight scoop?   And what kind of
format are manager using for distributing the raises?

Regards,
Gator Bedard

    I'd like to hear about our company wide strategy for Quality.  It is
    well known what quality means for companies like Motorola, Xerox, Fedex
    and many others.  But I am at a lose, to be able to articulate the
    Digital strategy and direction on quality.  Whether it be a plan for
    Malcolm Baldridge or ISO, or a following of Deming, Peters, Crosby; it
    would be valuable to know and understand our direction.  This would
    include a DIGITAL Vision for our future and the continuing emphasis of
    our Core Values.  Quality and the employees who produce and support it,
    will be the key differentiation for successful companies in the
    future.  The sheer magnitude and possibilities, of a 60K+ workforce,
    teaming around quality for the benefit of our existing and future
    customers, will bring about massive success.  Please let us know the 
    the rallying cry, future, and glue to bond us.
    
    And thank you for asking and listening...Bill S.
    

Hi Bob,

	Glad to see you back in here.

	I think even more than Job Security (which IS a serious subject),
	are the issues facing the field, brought out in other notes by
	folks like Ken Moreau, Greyhawk and Tex. I'll leave it to them
	to reply as they can better address the issues than I can. (I'm
	just an enginerd :))

	Another issue for those still here is one of compensation. I know
	that it's important to me. I started out at DEC when I was 19
	years old delivering SPR's all over the GMA. I've been here 15 years 
	in Oct. I've worked hard ("I are an engineer" now :)) and rode with 
	DEC/Digital thru the ups and downs. I can't and don't complain
	TOO much because I do make an ok salary, but damn, it's hard
	to see others that have left and are getting really nice raises
	and bonus'. Alot of the Oracle RDB folks got some nice bonus
	recently. I don't want to leave just to make the almighty buck,
	but wow, it's tempting sometimes!

	And this subject works its way into the great loss of some really good
	people who ARE leaving. Talent is flowing out of this company
	at a huge rate. Can we (Digital) afford the braindrain anymore?


	Well, that's my Soapbox. Oh, and let me say that I think you
	should hold one of your Q&A sessions up here in Spitbrook. :)

						mike
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p.s. 	I believe you read the business plan for our group recently. Hope you
	liked what you saw. 

    Bob,
    
    How about de-mystifying the recently announced "Software Business
    Unit".
    
    This was brought to our attention in an unofficial manner this week
    (i.e. through a memo extract posted in this notesfile) and I have yet
    to see any statement on it from an official source.  We understand that
    spectacular events of this week may have somewhat eclipsed the Software
    Business Unit announcement but I think it is important for you to give
    us some concrete statements on this issue because ;
    
    	a) it announces us as having a serious sub-CSD structure (business
    	VP etc.) and a goal to get serious in the multi-OS software
    	market.  
    
    	b) it specifically mentions plans to get serious about Office
    	software and groupware - and this is an issue that I know you are
    	aware of and know that you have personally responded to my 
    	field colleagues' memos of frustration in the recent past.
    
    	c) both point a) and b) above are somewhat incongruous with
    	the Digital/Microsoft announcement this week.  i.e. where do
    	you see the hardware/software divide?  Will we compete head-on 
    	with product in the office/groupware space?
    
    Thanks for the chance at airing questions in this way,
    
    Chris Lovell
    MCSD, Valbonne
    
    P.S. Congrats to you (and all of us) on the Q4 and FY95 finish and FY96
    start. I know that I speak for a lot of us when I say that we feel
    things are starting to move well.

    
    
    One of the big questions for those of us in MCS is:
    
    At which point on our road to recovery are we going to start putting
    money back into things like training, equipment, marketing, and
    employees?
    
    Thanks!
    
    Cathy Pitt
    Unix Networks Support,
    Colorado Springs

    The SAVE plan:
    
      Would it be possible to add a self-directed option to the SAVE plan? 
      My previous employer, Adobe, has such an arrangement with Charles
      Schwab.  Their employees can choose between the usual 401K funds or
      a Schwab account which is almost like a regular Schwab account in
      terms of control over the choice of stocks and mutual funds.  Since
      this generates revenue for Schwab, I wouldn't be surprised if Schwab
      pays Adobe for including them as a possibility, so this would seem to
      be beneficial for both employees and Dec.
    
    Benefits:
    
      The pick-your-own-doctor type of medical insurance is very
      expensive compared to, for example, Adobe's.  Adobe basically
      covered a single person's medical insurance premiums for this
      type of plan completely (I assume married folk did comparably as
      well);  Dec's costs me $3500 a year.
    
                                         

    Bob,
    I used to do benchmarking work for Alpha NT and now do Intel desktop
    performance work.  Using SYSmarkNT, a recently released application-
    based NT benchmark, a modern Pentium design (Dell 133, 64MbEDO, 512k
    burst; about $5600) currently beats every shipping AlphaStation model,
    no matter how much money (Mhz, memory, cache) is thrown at the Alpha
    box (see RICKS::DECHIPS 414.*).  EV5-based Alphas will retake the lead,
    but won't be available until fall and will be priced on the order of
    $30k.  Bottom line: Alpha's current price-performance, let alone raw
    performance, is not good when compared to Pentium. 
    
    About two years ago to the date, you sent a memo to Ed Caldwell telling
    him to "get agresssive" on Alpha pricing.  It apparently went in one
    ear and out the other.  Now that EV45 is getting beat by Pentium,
    EV5 must be moved into the mainstream.  What needs to be done for
    Caldwell to truly "get aggressive" on EV5 pricing?
    
    Agreements with Microsoft are interesting, but unless Alpha enjoys
    a substantial performance or price/performance advantage, it will
    be hard to attain the goals of these agreements.
    Regards,                               
    Kratz

   I'll second (third?) the need for some response on improving the work
environment (compensation, training, job security, fun, etc).  Highly skilled
and productive people have been leaving this company on their own initiative
at an alarming rate for some time now.

   The question:  What specifically are you/Digital going to do to attract and
                  retain qualified people?

   Several DVN's ago you were asked a similar question, and your answer focused
on all the positive aspects of staying with Digital.  Clearly the population 
around me isn't buying this, people are still leaving AND we're having trouble 
hiring replacements from outside (Workstation Business Unit).  
    
   Nice to see you asking this question in here !   Thanks.
    
                                                     ...Ken Weiss

    
    	 Bob,
    
    	 One of the problems that I see as a remote engineer is with the
    	way alot of these national service contracts are written. If you
    	read the agreement you will find that we have committed to send 
    	only engineers with proper training on their service calls. The
    	problem is if I had to get all of the training to satisfy each
    	one of these agreements I would spend the whole year in school.
    	The other problem is that I'm not spending any time in school,
    	due mostly to the work load.
    
    	Possible Solution: Get some formal training where it's most needed,
    	but also make more available on a format that can be done at home
    	or when you do find spare time.
    
    	 What's being done to get Digital PC products in more retail stores
    	then we have now. For instance in the town in which I live Digital
    	PC's are available at SAM's and that's it. If a friend ask where he
    	can buy a Digital PC and they don't have a membership to SAM's I 
    	don't have another place to direct him. One suggestion that was
    	given to me recently by someone that had just bought a PC, was that
    	we should have brochures available in the store. He found this very
    	helpful when he was tring to compare the different PC's. By the way
    	he didn't buy the Digital PC, he bought the one that had the
    	brochure.
    
    	 I would like to Thank You for asking !!
    
    		Thanks,
    		 Mike

I'm sure many people would be interested in anything you can
tell us about the software strategy that will be unveiled to
the analysts in September.  Even if you can only tell us
the schedule of when we can expect to hear details, that
will help.  Software engineers and account representatives
are anxious to know more about this before we (and our
customers) read it in the news rags.    

Congrats on leading us to achieve a profitable year, and 
for the new Microsoft alliance.  It's nice to read positive
stories about Digital in the press again! 

		Beth Benoit

    Greetings Bob,
    
    I'd like to know what progress we are making in our continuous
    improvement to ship our products on or before the date we committ to
    them with our customers.  Case in point, I had 3 systems scheduled  for
    shipment in July to my customer who is a large VAR of ours.  We only
    shipped 1 and the other two are now scheduled for August.  This costs
    us and our Business Partner money due to having to reschedule install
    teams and their application specialists who install their software on
    the end-users systems.  This kind of unpredictability causes us to 
    look bad and we don't collect the money on time when we could sure 
    use all that we are due.
    
    Secondly, I'd also like to hear about your plans to continue the
    revitalization effort, including salary planning, employee retention,
    and what we can do to help us all be successful and have a fun FY96.
    
    Regards,
    Bill James
    Sales Executive SBU

    	Bob,
    
    	 My question would be: 
    
    	 Does a plan exist to adequately address the high attrition rate
    	of employees, particularly attrition caused by a lack of competitive 
    	salaries? If so, what is that plan?
    
    	 As an example for such a situation, my organization had 32 technical
    	people at the start of CY95. In the past 7 months, 6 of those people
    	have left the company primarily due to non-competitive salaries (all
    	of these people received increases in excess of 20% at their new 
    	places of employment). 
    
    	 Our internal customers are fortunate enough to be receiving some
    	type of bonus compensation while their support groups do not - most
    	of us have gone over 20-24 months without a salary increase and  
    	of the few people who have received salary increases, several have 
    	left the company, out of disgust at amount of the increase, shortly 
    	after receiving their increase.
    
    	 The frustration in my question stems from an overall attrition 
    	rate of more than 40% from this group within the past 7 months. In
    	addition to that, a large number of the remaining people are simply 
    	looking for the right opportunity (external in most cases) before 
    	making their move.
    
    	Glenn
    
    	
    	p.s.  Thanks for asking the question!	

    We sell some of the greatest equipment around, and I'm pretty damn
    proud to install it at client sites.  Unfortunately, that's where I
    often see it for the first time...at client sites.  It seems that there
    should be a program to purge out some of the trash we're using and get
    some workable tools.  Not toys.  Tools.
    
    It's a double-edged sword...we can't afford to purchase the Alphas we
    need and we've lost the systems support to maintain the trash we have. 
    Thus, we spend billable time trying to keep the computer equivalent of
    '74 Vegas running...after 150,000 miles.
    
    On the other hand, if we buy all the new equipment, we severely affect
    the bottom line and our chances of continued employment in today's
    cost-cutting era at Digital.
    
    The same theory, I'm afraid, applies to training.  I sometimes view us
    as rabbits, frozen in the headlights, afraid to run and praying we'll
    pass between the wheels.
    
    Secondly, it appears that corporate communications is mainly kept up
    through this notesfile.  It's taken me a long time to find out:
    
    * how to get access past the firewall.  This is a *big* one.  We've
    been using dial-up modems and Kermit for ages now when we could have
    merely TelNeted and FTPed over the existing gateway connections.
    
    * how to transfer savesets via the net through e-mail (I think we've
    got the last of the bugs worked out, Andre...thanks)
    
    * what the dtn is to call 800 numbers from outside the country.
    
    * tons more
    
    On the other hand, I've answered loads of questions and helped people in
    other departments like myself that don't have access to the questions,
    let alone the answers, and are spending on the magnitude of weeks doing
    what I can do in an hour or two.  This has *got* to be affecting our
    bottom line!  If it wasn't for all the notesfiles available to us, I'm
    clueless as to how we could do our jobs.
    
    That's Tex's dos centavos.  Congratulations and thanks for your part in
    making this a profitable year.  Tickled me pink, I can tell you.  Guess
    that's why Bill Gates named "Bob" in your honor, 'eh?  Now, if you can
    only teach him to say "D*I*G*I*T*A*L*"... :^]
    
    								Tex

Hey now Bob,

Can you share your thoughts on the possible business model options we have for
the "Joint Venture" between Digital Semiconductor and the to-be-named equity
investor?

How will we separate the engineering costs of developing Alpha products, from
the engineering costs of developing our low-cost PCI/Video/Network products,
from the engineering costs of our "partner's" products, from the costs of
running the FABs for all of the above?

What incentives will you give us to keep our (currently exorbitant)
engineering costs down?

...and will there be a big fanfare for the joint venture announcement?


Thanks a "lot" :-)

- jeff

Bob,

Two sales oriented issues:

1.  I am compensated whether my customer buys direct or indirect.  My Area VP has a direct measurement and
our SGA expense budget is a direct result of the direct-only business.  How can we use all the channels effectively
when metrics are driving the channel decision?


2.  I just quoted an 8400 for Staples, Inc.  The discount is 17% on all the SBU items.  But, more than one-half
of the order is storage products and we give 0% discount.  As a result, Staples has invited the competition (EMC)
to bid.  The Storage BU suggests that we tell the customer to split the order and give the Storage to a Storage
VAR.  We believe that the order goes to whomever incurs the cost; so, if I sell it I want to take it direct, but I
need to be competitive.  

Tony Tucker
Sales (ABU)

Bob-

First, THANKS FOR ASKING!

Second, I'd like to add to what Tony Tucker said, which touches upon a real
problem we are facing.

I manage several end-user accounts in the Americas (Schering-Plough, Mars, 
Colgate) and many times our clients, who are working on large projects, wish 
to do business directly with Digital. We are providing strategic guidance, 
access to key ISVs/partners, conceptual integration with the existing IS 
infrastructure, etc, etc, etc.

Inevitably, tho, our clients (who are generally NOT stupid) reconize that a 
significant (frequently greater than 50% of the asset cost) part of the 
solution are products which we either don't discount (storage) or don't sell 
(???...would YOU like to explain this) like PCs. Aren't PCs kinda 
"mainstream" these days?

If we truly wish to engage some number of clients directly within the ABU, 
does the Corporation ever plan to allow us to "take our gloves off" and 
compete, because we can not do so in this environment.

What are ABU Sales Executives supposed to do if our client is considering 
DEC, IBM, HP for a project to consist of 100 Pentium servers, 1 TB of 
storage, and several mega(RISC)-servers across 25 sites. We would be in much 
better shape if ABU representatives could offer a complete solution at 
competitive prices (not incidentally, at better gross margin to Digital, 
despite what some measurement systems might indicate). We are NOT 
incented/measured the right way to win this business.

While I, and my peers, shield our clients from this nonsense, it takes away 
from our efforts at defeating IBM, HP, Sun, et al.

I'd like you to tell me how we are going to change this.

Again, thanks for participating, for helping turn this battleship around, and 
for solicting input.

Best regards 

SteveS

Before I start, I would like to echo the thoughts previously expressed: 
thanks for leading us to a profitable year, and for continuing to use Notes 
to communicate with the troops.  I really appreciate the time to think 
about and properly form my question(s) that Notes allows, and you probably
appreciate the time it allows you to get the answer to these questions.

My question concerns the Business Process Re-engineering that Digital needs
to do to become even more profitable in the future.  Over a year ago there
was some discussion of the Customer Value Chain (CVC), and the tools in
it such as the Knowledge Aquifer, and how these would fundamentally change
the way Digital did business.  And we in the Field enthusiastically agreed
that fundamental change was necessary.  (For the details of this discussion,
please check out notes 3216 and 3225.  Be warned, it got bloody in there).

One of the participants in the CVC effort, Mike London, shared some details
of the work being done, and stated that the Knowledge Aquifer would be in
field test in October of 94, and in our hands shortly later.

It is now almost a year later, we in the field have heard nothing about 
the CVC or the Knowledge Aquifer, we are 6 weeks into a new fiscal year 
and many of the Sales Reps I support don't have budgets yet, and Mike
London no longer appears in Elf, leading me to believe he is no longer
with Digital.

Can you explain the state of the Business Process Re-engineering effort at
Digital, how it relates to the excellent deployment of the notebook PCs, and
give some idea when we in the field will see more of it's results?

Thank you.

-- Ken Moreau

    Bob,
    
    I also appreciate your utilizing this mechanism for getting feedback
    and questions.  I have a couple of statements:
    
    1.  The TFSO was hard on all of us.  Many people were forced out,
    retrained and reskilled. But they are not truly being considered for
    openings.  Mercenaries, who deserted us in our hour of need are
    welcomed back with significant raises.  Skilled engineers, Hardware and
    Software, are not. Customer Satisfaction has suffered dramatically, as
    evidenced by the MCS SQR Program.  Only one field district accomplished
    the customer satisfaction goal established a year ago.  
    
    2.  I believe we still must address our utilization of our people.  Too
    many of employment decisions seem to be based on putting people where
    they will do the least harm, rather than where they can do the most
    good. I do believe we need new blood, but I feel that the new blood
    that we have brought in are just as frustrated as the "old blood" which
    have been virtually ignored. Obviously, with you seeking input, the
    problem must be in middle management.
    
    3.  With regards to training, we have been spending as much as ever. 
    Far too much of it has been wasted on point products raher than
    architectures and concepts.  Training is no longer a problem of
    affordability in a dollars sense; but it is from a manpower point of
    view.  There are no longer enough engineers in the field to respond to
    our customers, take required vacations, and train.  The current
    aggressive training schedules pull up to 10-15% of our workforce out of
    action on any given day.
    
    4.  There are many people within this company who are languishing on
    the vine.  There are many people with years of experience and academic
    credentials who are kept in the background, unable to contribute to
    their fullest extent. Many of us desire a "command" of our own.  I
    would love to be able to apply my skills.  I have two graduate degrees,
    including a MBA.  I would like to see Digital take advantage of that.
    
    5.  Bob, our Rewards and Recognition is faulty.  I am not
    talking about not being enough, but rather being inconsistent and
    miss-applied.  In MCS, I have seen engineers collect 5 figure
    incentives for providing leads that have closed.  These very leads have
    been on accounts where there are assigned account teams with virtually
    "casts of thousands" supposedly supporting the customer.  This
    incentive produces behaviors that have engineers neglecting their
    primary responsibilities, in search of the incentive.  This in turn
    forces remaining engineers to carry their workload.
    
    The "major" awards for organizations like Circle of Excellence or
    DECExcellence are severely underfunded by comparison.  Our district
    distributed over 140K in leads incentives last fiscal year.  98% were
    for product, rather than services.  I believe it would be viable to
    staff and pay all of MCS to sell.  The Margin would more than pay for
    itself.  Most would rather see a organization profit sharing process
    rather than excessive individual recognition.  Let salary bear the
    brunt of just doing the job.
    
    6.  Finally, we must concentrate on our service deliverables to our
    distributed accounts.  Service Menu is intended to standardize our
    offerings.  But we lack a consistent level of service around the globe.
    It is impossible to live up to the expectations.  This is not an
    excuse.  A recent example, has a distributed account contract going
    into effect prior to any field notification.  Then the account team
    sends one set of manuals and video tapes, telling the district to copy
    and distribute to service units.  There is no customer list, just be
    ready for any call coming in at any minute, for any location.  We must
    get rid of anyone who still believes that we must get revenue at any
    expense.  
    
    Thanks, for asking and listening.  I would be more than happy to help
    in addressing any of these situations.
    
    Sincerely,
    
    Joe Pflanz      

    Bob:
    
    After you and your staff read and analyze all of this excellent 
    feedback from what are primarily frontline people,
    
    1)  Will you find it matching what people in between you and I
        have been telling you about the state of the field, and,
    
    2)  How will you reconcile the difference if they don't match?
    
    Thank you,
    
    Dan
    Sales Support

    Bob;
    
    First of all I want to say how much I appreciate your using this forum
    for communication to the field, the only better thing that I could
    think of is for you to occasionaly do a live DVN for Q and A with the
    field.
    
    My question for your next DVN is about our goal to be a player in the
    Workstation market.
    
    I have been a workstation sales specialist for the past 2 years after
    being a general account rep for 6 years.  Two years ago we found that
    we needed to focus on workstation sales and over the past two years
    have worked hard to push pull and beg our customers and partners to
    consider and purchase our stations.  We have just finished our best
    quarter in the west ever in terms of quantity of units sold (over 800 in
    Q4). Yet, going into FY 96 the workstation units have been disbanded
    again.  I know that we have new territory assignments, but their will
    only be 21 ABU workstation specialists left after reassignment, and no
    workstation sales manager focus.  All of this when SGI is adding 300
    commercial sales reps for workstations, and our marketshare of 5th
    place is sliding.
    
    My real question is what are you going to do to promote volume
    workstation deals?  Will you create a seperate PBU like the PCBU so the
    workstation can compete cost wise?  Will you name a senior VP for
    Workstation sales?
    
    Having participated in the Leadership forums and being able to dialog
    with you directly, I feel honored to have you consider our input for
    your topics.
    
    In closing I would only second the nature of most of the preceeding
    notes that we are now entering week 6 of the FY96 and I still have no
    assignment, no formal comp plan and no budget, but I did recieve a 10%
    cut in weekly salary when payroll moved the former workstation reps
    from 80/20 to 70/30.
    
    Thanks again for asking.
    
    Scott Williams
    Workstation Warrior FY 94, FY 95
    ? FY 96
    

    
    Boy, 
    
    	This is great stuff. Makes me proud to be a DECie...
    
    	So, to add another two cents. We got big time leadership problems
    in sales (meaning ability to execute; to plan *for* people-as opposed
    to using people; and metrics driving behavior is still regarded as
    "not true"); we have Engineering folks (our real *heart and soul*)
    feeling left out, left back, and generally taken for granted; everyone
    seems to have a beef with  Manufacturing from their inability to
    complete quality initiatives to regarding shipment dates as a
    timeframe. That leaves Administration/Marketing/and Staff Services
    unaccounted for. Let's get in here guys and give the man his asked for
    earful...
    
    	BTW, Bob, nice to see you utilizing world's greatest communication
    tool. Sit back and enjoy, this is where the *real* Digital lives:-)
    
    		the Greyhawk

Bob:

  It looks like you've already got more than enough for the next
  *YEAR's* worth of DVNs, but I'll add my suggestions anyway:

    o Mindshare -- "Digital" is still not a well-known brandname.
      (I think you got an excellent demonstration of this the
      other morning.) For the reasons that we've well-covered
      in another note here, I believe "Digital" never will be
      succesful as a brandname. Will you reconsider the "DEC"
      versus "Digital" decision and announce a campaign that
      emphasizes the unity of *BOTH* names?

    o Mindshare -- We've run some hard-hitting, aggressive
      ads, both in print and broadcast media. But our broadcast
      ads seem to have stopped, at least in the US, and even
      when they were running, they often ran only in marginal
      venues. Will we ever begin a *SUSTAINED* broadcast campaign,
      so that our name is in the public eye as frequently as Apple,
      IBM, or H/P?

    o Mindshare -- We now have Bill Gates's apparent commitment to
      ship his tools *COMPILED AND OPTIMIZED FOR ALPHA* on the same
      disks, at the same time as the tools compiled and optimized
      for Intel. What will we do to publicize this?

    o Mindshare -- Alpha is the world's fastest microprocessor, and
      has been for several "rounds" of the fight now. What are we
      doing to make people more aware of Alpha, so that it becomes
      the world's most sought-after microprocessor rather than just
      an interesting "also-ran"?

                                   Atlant

    Re .22:
    
    Steve, the extract from Tessellation Times resulted from a press
    advisory sent last Wednesday by Digital Semiconductor to publications 
    covering graphics and imaging.  This is one of the areas that will be
    receiving increased attention in the future from HLO.
     

    re: .28
    
    I deleted .22.  Reason is that the main point of it is being addressed.
    I got home to find an issue of CGW waiting for me with one of the best
    2-page Digital ads I've seen to date!  It clearly shows Alpha to be the
    performance leader for 3D graphics.  I am glad to see this kind of 
    representation and look forward to much more!  Makes me proud to work
    at Digital.
    
    I'm also glad to hear of the source for the Tessellation Times.  Since
    I deleted .22, I'll include the quote again in this note:
    
    The excerpt below is extracted from Tessellation Times #524 of Friday,
    August 4.  This is an short newsletter that is sent by e-mail and is
    something of a supplement to 3D Artist magazine:
    
    "Digital Equipment Corp. is trumpeting the performance of their Alpha
    processors in running animation and imaging applications under Windows
    NT.  With growing demand for faster image processing, software vendors 
    are recognizing the value of compiling for Alpha NT.  DEC points to 
    current Alpha heavy hitters, many familiar to our readers  (NewTek, Hash, 
    In:sync, Realsoft, Visual Software and others), claiming performance 
    factors two to six times greater than competitors' machines in
    running the same software.  Digital will be demonstrating some of 
    these applications on the Alpha at Siggraph Booth #2079."
    
    I'll include my second point from .22 as well since I think it may
    still be relevant:
    
    Like many users, I typically upgrade my PC by doing a motherboard
    swap on occasion.  I usually have a wide selection of motherboards
    available to me that I can order through my local vendor, through mail 
    order and over the internet.  I started with a Digital PC (320SX) and 
    have upgraded the board a few times.  I'm now up to a P90 on an Intel 
    motherboard.  I'd LIKE to eventually upgrade to an Alpha board.  But, 
    I've *never* seen an Alpha board available to me to order through any 
    of the usual channels.  I understand there are maybe three vendors I 
    can contact about an Alpha motherboard, but I don't have the list I got 
    off Notes handy and would have to look it up again.  If it's this hard 
    for me, it's got to be nearly impossible for folks outside Digital.
    
    If things continue as they are now, I'll eventually be running Windows 
    on a P6 board even though I'd rather upgrade to an Alpha board.  I'd 
    like Digital to do something to make Alpha PC boards much more readily 
    available to the installed base of PC users who want to upgrade through 
    motherboard swaps.
    
    Thanks for letting me have some say!  :)
    
    Steve
                           

    
    Hi Bob, Thank you for giving me an opportunity to pose a question.
    
    Something that caught my eye in a Vogon News article the other day that 
    kind of took the wind out of the sails on the profit front (see below)
    
    "Analysts praised the profit performance but stressed that Maynard-based 
    Digital has yet to prove it can stimulate adequate revenue growth.  "The 
    cost-control story is over," said George Elling, an analyst with Merrill 
    Lynch & Co.  "Digital has eventually got to deliver on the revenue story.
    "  He called Digital's revenue "anemic" in the face of peer companies and 
    in the face of a booming computer market.  "It's hard to get excited about
    downed revenues when Hewlett-Packard is growing at 20 percent, Sun at 25 
    percent and Silicon Graphics at over 40 percent," he said.  Vincent 
    Mullarkey."
    

    How do you see Digital achieving revenue growth like our 'peer companies'. 
    
    As in note .22 I also feel that Digital is not advertising/marteting our 
    exceptionally good products very well. Even when we do advertise we don't 
    do things like give our WEB page address. A good example of the power of 
    the internet, Guinness (in the UK) started showing their WEB address on 
    a TV advert recently, in a couple of days everyone in the office with a PC 
    had a copy of the free screen saver which shows the TV ad - now that's 
    how to market. 
    
    I hate to say it but, our marketing is still not working.  Some great
    companies have gone under because they couldn't market.
    
    Thanks and Regards,
    
    Ciaran.
    
    
    

Dear Mr. Palmer,

Thanks for looking inside the Notesfile for some unfiltered ideas and 
comments as you plan the Sept. DVN for all employees.  You have already
heard from a wide variety of organizations and functions...each have some
unique and pointed issues; many have the same (income, security, pride, fun).

I'd be pleased if you just give a personal view of the recent fiscal year,
and help us begin to rally around the "Vital Few" goals we all must achieve
for FY 96 to prove to the competition, customers, analysts, and employees
that Digital is back, and Digital means business!  You usually are able
to crystalize and communicate your thougths; you do represent Digital well,
and DVN favors your style and personality.

Just get us focused, get is engaged, and point us (all) in the direction
you and your team need us headed....with enough information and leadership
to sustain the journey.  Finally, if you know there's going to be fewer of
us this time next year, tell us.  If you know we're going to be losing
(or gaining!) in the benefits and fixed income side, tell us.  If there are
groups/functions that are going to be radically changed, tell us.  Tell us
in your own words what you think we should expect to anticipate if FY96 is
going to be a major milestone in Digital's history.

Thanks for the chance to offer all our ideas as you plan the vital Q1 DVN.

Regards,

Bob Powell

    Bob, thanks for taking the time to drill down into the field world. I
    believe you've already gotten a taste of the level of real concern and
    dedication of the troops that live out here. I'll try to not repeat
    what's been said, although I certainly second most of it.
    
    I believe we also need to focus on a couple of more things:
    
    1. Almost all our internal systems are still broken and even more
    attention needs to be focused on getting them fixed or replaced. That
    would have an immediate 20-30% productivity improvement impact, because
    I believe that amount of time is currently being wasted trying to work 
    around the broken systems or to fix the mistakes that they cause.
    
    2. We need to get a fairly straightforward strategy, one that can be
    explained in 2-3 overheads and stick to it for a few years. We have
    demonstrated an instability in our strategies in the key areas of
    software and our SI services that has led to us being considered an
    unreliable partner and vendor by major customers and partners. We need
    to lock down our organizational strucuture, our commitment to whatever
    software we're going to keep and decide what we want to do as an SI
    organization and stop changing directions and commitments every 
    6-12 months. 
    
    3. We need to seriously look at the negative impacts of the
    stovepiping of the company into very independent business 
    and fix things. What looks so good from a P&L point of view at the top
    has created some unbelievable day-to-day problems down here in the
    trenches and in the eyes of our customers. 
    
    Congratulations on the results to-date. I know it hasn't been pleasent
    for you either, but most of us out here have been with you all along.
    We just wanted to get it over with faster, so we could get on with the
    healing and rebuilding process. 
    
    -OFWAMI- 

    Bob,
    
    I have two questions:
    
    1) Is there any mechanism for senior management to get direct feedback
    from the front line people without management filters?  I loved the 
    Fortune article about Sam Walton's barnstorming his (and competitors)
    stores to stay up on what was REALLY going on.
    
    2) Has anyone actually followed up on the management actions that were
    supposed to have followed the corporate employee survey?  I get the
    feeling (field perspective) that there were few if any management teams
    that actually carried out planned follow up actions to address the
    issues raised in the survey.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Peter Dillard

    Mr. Palmer,
    
    Thank you for asking!
    
    As another sale professional that attended the Sales Leadership Forum
    that raised critical (and old) issues facing the field, I was
    dissapointed to see no follow up or implementation.  When I tried to 
    spread the "good news" as I was asked, I was met with skepticism,
    apathy, disbelief, and anger.  Some told me they would not attend my
    summary presentation because they didn't believe management was going
    to address our issues.
    
    It's been 100 days since the second Leadership Forum, and I have to
    agree with some of these sentiments.  I now have a greater appreciation
    for the challenges you face.  When no action is taken or no
    follow-up is given, it gives us the impression that management is
    perhaps listening, but not responding.  Throughout the 2 1/2 days of
    the Forum, the message we were given was, "Trust us.  Be patient.  We 
    know the issues.  We will address them."
    
    Yet I too do not have a quota assigment.  I know of no actions taken
    from our suggestions, which were made with the passion and spirit of
    healing the company, improving morale, and reducing attrition.  I have 
    not seen the new compensation plan, and those that have have told me how 
    disappointed they are.  One fellow rep told me "that's it, I've given this
    company enough chances" and challenged me on my reasons for staying.
    
    My questions:
    
    1.  Why is there an apparent disconnect between your vision as CEO and
    implementation in the field?   (I distinctly and warmly remember the
    standing ovations we gave you at your first Circle of Excellence - 11 
    weeks (?) on the job - when you spoke of pay-for-performance and effective
    sales tools and fixing the internal systems and elevating the stature 
    of sales within this enterprise.)  If there is a disconnect, what can 
    be done about it?
    
    2.  Why are issues brought to the attention of management (through
    Employee Surveys, Leadership Forums, voluntary departures, and notes 
    conferences) not apparently acted upon?
    
    3.  Is there a communcation problem in this company?  (including from
    my level to yours)  Or are we just not "getting it?"

	Bob,
	I am a customer service engineer and as such I am usually
	called into a customer site only when a Digital product has failed.
	I feel that we are placing too much emphasis on meeting
	certain "goals" while customer satisfaction continues to
	decline. This decline started about five years ago and I
	see no end in sight. We used to say to our customers to
	select us because of the "Digital Difference". Well this
	"Digital Difference" has now turned to "Digital Indifference"
	in the eyes of some of our customers.

	I believe Digital still has the resources to once again be
	number one in customer satisfaction and we have the employees
	who want to keep us there. One of the things stopping them is
	some of our "internal systems" which are supposed to help us
	usually create barriers instead. 

	What I would like to see is a Q&A session between the field
	people and yourself,or your staff, so that you could be made
	aware of the problems out here.

    Bob,
    
    First - Thanks for even asking those of us gathered around the "virtual
    water cooler" for input.  In a world where it is unlikely I will ever    
    be able to talk to you face-to-face, I do like being able to interact
    in a way impossible 18 years ago when I first started working  (for 
    for a company this size).
    
    The issues for me are:
    
    	Compensation In a Post-Meltdown Organization
    	--------------------------------------------
    	I have worked for enough companies during a "rightsizing" operation
    	that I often know what to expect next.  Reading through the
    	preceding I  think one of the biggest challenges for you is to
    	understand how to compensate people in the different roles they
    	will now have.  In particular, after a company has melted most of
    	its pyramid (or matrix in our case), retaining senior technical
    	people becomes more difficult, because there are no longer many
    	promotions ("vacancy only" strategy), but salaries for people 
    	who stay in the same salary level remain stagnant.  This leads 
    	to the loss of many of those whose skills are now essential
    	to delivering services in support of clients utilizing recently
    	purchased products.
    
    	Providing a PC-Based Infrastructure for Internal Use
    	----------------------------------------------------
    	I have yet to see evidence out here in my field area (Western
    	Canada) of a comprehensive plan for providing the infrastructure
    	needed to enable us to be more effective and efficient, at least
    	for computing requirements.  I have found this to be a serious
    	impediment to winning business, because I am constantly attempting
    	to work around the lack of an infrastructure suited to my/our
    	needs: my needs as someone working in the New Work Environment,
    	and our needs for those of us teaming across large distances 
    	to better leverage work done elsewhere.
    
    	Bob - I am part of the team that won the SAP platform deals for
    	TransAlta Utilities and Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. recently.  
    	We could not have done it without the help of the Nashua and
    	Atlanta folks, as well as CSS, MCS, SBU technical folks, and the
    	online Systems & Options catalog.  The point is it was difficult
    	for us to succeed because we had to find the information and then
    	get our own copies, etc.  IT WILL BE EVEN MORE DIFFICULT for any
    	one else to use what we created, because the structure to do
    	so just doesn't seem to exist.
    
    	I know that many will tell you we have all kinds of repositories
    	and public directories for proposals, presentations, service
    	descriptions, methodologies, etc., but access to all this 
    	information is still driven in the MIS way, which for Digital
    	is VAX-centric.  I have been working with PC's for 13 years,
    	and came to Digital as part of the IOL desktop outsource (a 2000
    	seat Novell/UNIX client-server network), so I believe I understand
    	that part of the problem is Digital knows how to build excellent
    	PC systems, but not how to UTILIZE THEM IN LARGE NUMBERS to 
    	enable PC-based computing.  Digital is learning, but WE JUST
    	DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO LEARN ALL THE PC INTEGRATION LESSONS OVER
    	AGAIN; neither our customers nor our competition will stand still
    	for us to catch up.
    
    	The sad part here is that I believe OMS/MCS has the resources 
    	to do it right for us internally, because they have had to do it
    	for our customers (here in Calgary I would  name IOL, TransAlta,
    	and CitiBank as prime examples).  For some reason, however, we
    	don't seem to see the value in getting our own house in order.
    	I believe this will become a very serious issue as our internal
    	SAP implementation proceeds, because successful use of SAP R/3
    	is HIGHLY DEPENDENT on a properly managed end-user infrastructure.
    
    	Leveraging 64-Bit Maturity in the UNIX Space
    	--------------------------------------------
    	Just about every client now knows that HP, IBM, SUN, SGI, etc. will	
    	shortly be following us into 64-bit UNIX space.  I believe we will
    	no longer be able to just show superior price-performance, but will
    	need to emphasize the robustness of our solution as well.  Thus far
    	I have not seen this much in our advertising, but I hope this will
    	change.  I feel that the more we can show we have both superior
    	price-performance AND superior operating characteristics (clusters,
    	DECsafe ASE, Advanced File System, DCE, ObjectBroker, etc.) that
    	are robust and reliable, the better we will be able to stay ahead
    	of the competition, who are just now moving into many of these areas.
    
    	Use of the Internet for DVN-type Distribution
    	---------------------------------------------
    	I fully understand that a full-motion satellite video linkup is
    	just not practical for every Digital office, but I wonder if
    	the alternatives have been overlooked.  The Internet now offers
    	several potential capabilities for broadcast distribution of
    	events like DVN's (such as Sales & Technical training, virtual
    	meetings, etc.).  The two I am familiar with are:
    
    	- Audio Transmission / I believe we could now configure 
    	  multimedia workstations to receive the audio-only feed from the
    	  DVN's.  While this may not be as good as the video, I would
    	  still feel I could participate like anyone at a video reception
    	  site.  As for bandwidth - there have been some recent
    	  developments in this area that might make this less of an issue.
    	   
    	- Media Server / I expect it is actually impractical for every one
    	  of us 60K-odd employees to be in the "live" audience, due to 
    	  time-zone differences, shifts, customer requirements, training,
    	  etc.  Why can't we use some of the video-on-demand technology
    	  we have developed for others to serve the DVN's (in compressed
    	  format) to users world-wide, at a time of their choosing?  This
    	  would be more effective than sending out tapes, as well as 
    	  more timely.  And could the same server be used for training
    	  videos, customer marketing presentations, and other video
    	  content?
    
    	Whatever is done, please have a look at making the DVN more widely
    	distributed without having to actually mail VHS tapes everywhere.
    	There is also the potential that an all-Internet DVN would be
    	cheaper than using the current transmission method as well.
    
    
    Thanks for reading the above, and I will look forward to reviewing the
    DVN, even if I only get to read the transcripts from Livewire.
    
    Regards ... Charles Wardlaw / Mid-West Canada ABU
    	

    Hello Bob,
    
    I like the "use what you sell" principle.
    
    As an MCS specialist supporting Office products I would like
    to know which Office environment is used by the digital's board.
    Is it still the good old ALL-IN-1 ? Teamlinks ?
    
    And for the future ? Digital's new Office Server or Microsoft's
    Exchange. 
    
    Thanks,
    
    Jan

    Bob,
    
    	I'd like to second the questions regarding the employees total 
    compensation package.  From what I can see, Digital's salaries have not 
    been keeping up with inflation, many of the corporate benefits (GEEP, 
    matching gift, non-job related education assistance, Dental plan,
    rewards and recognition,...) have either been cancelled or significantly 
    reduced in benefit over the past years.  The 401K matching has been the
    only bright spot lately.  However the rumors are that it will be the 
    first step in buying out our pension plan and may be a mixed blessing.
    
    	Give me a reason to believe that Digital values my skills and will 
    be around long enough to treat me fairly.  
    
    					Dan Field
    
    PS. I think if you look into it, you will find a great deal of recent 
    	employee attrition is at least partially a result of these issues.

    
    
    Hi Bob, thank you for the opportunity to pose a question.  I would like
    to echo Dick Binder's sentiment with regards to the downsizing.  It's
    hard to look forward while having to look over your shoulder and while
    it's easy to say "don't worry about it", it's hard in practice when you
    have (in my case) 3 small children depending on you for support.    
    
    
    Secondly, we need to get our sales focus to new customers.  It seems as
    though we are still so installed base driven.  We need to expand our
    view outside installed base.
    
    
    Regards,
    
    Mike 

       Bob --

       Could you please describe how you see your respective
       responsibilities and obligations to shareholders and to
       employees?  Sometimes, the best interests of those two groups can
       appear to be in conflict (on a simplistic level, for example,
       when increased benefits and compensation could result in reduced
       net earnings) -- philosophically, how do you resolve those
       conflicts?

       Thanks for soliciting our questions,

       --Don Topaz

    Thanks Bob, for asking.
    
    Now that we have costs more under control,
    
    Now that we seem to have Vision from the top as to where we are going,
    
    Now that we have Revenue Growth,
    
    	When are we going to be a $20,000,000,000 company?
    
    (I first intereviewed with DEC (Digital now) when we were about to
     cross the $1,000,000,000 line).
    
    
    
    Bill Parke
    

    Bob,

    Good to see you still on the road and running!  ;*)  Old Hudson
    Road is a bit tough with its traffic though.  Oh, you like a 
    challenge??  Hope you had a good run Sunday morning.

    I would like to challenge you and your benefits program team to
    re-think Digital's position on same-sex medical benefits.  We,
    Digital, used to be the leader in creating a safe environment for
    ALL employees.  This does need to be re-stated and further progress
    needs to be made in addressing the needs of ALL our employees.  We,
    in Digital, have to compete on all levels in the marketplace as a
    workforce.  Making our workforce stronger is an end goal of an on-
    going diversity program.

    justme....jacqui

    p.s.  There are rumours that a new breakfast place will be opening
    	  soon in Hudson, like September.  Hopefully, it will be as 
    	  good as the Cafe Rhubarb and the Coach House Inn.
    

    
    Thanks for asking Bob
    
    Though I work for MCS, my concern is geared towards Sales and revenue
    growth. 
    
    First off, we are growing only modestly 4 to 5% a year, while our 
    competition, like HP, IBM etc.. are growing at 15 to 20% a year. What
    are we doing as a company to correct this trend?
    
    My other point is, why are direct sales reps not credited for PC sales?
    This is absolutely stupid, in my opinion!! How are we to be a top 5
    PC vendor, if our own sales force doesn't get credit for pushing our
    *own* PC's??? We need to get off this metric's way of thinking, and
    start to just sell, period. Perhaps, that is why Mr. Auer is no longer
    with Digital.
    
    Thanks for asking Bob, and congratulations for an excellent past fiscal
    year.
    
    Mark

    Bob...
    I just returned today from the longest vacation of my life (5 weeks in
    Vermont in my log cabin) so, I'm feeling pretty good right now.  I was
    VERY pleased to see the year-end and Q4 results.  Congratulations to
    you, your staff and to all of Digital.
    
    Many of my concerns are voiced in previous replies to your base-note,
    and I don't want to re-state them.  
    
    I believe the single biggest issue facing Digital is one of
    credibility.  I am frustrated by the apparent lack of it.  Can you
    please take some time to tell us what your plans are (and what we, in
    the trenches, can positivly do) that will address this problem?
    
    Thanks for asking.
    
    Tony

       Bob,
       
       This month I'll be 20 years with the company and I've lived 
    through the good and difficult times, working in four different 
    countries.  Over those years Digital has changed from an extended 
    family atmosphere to a leaner, profit driven corporation.  This was 
    necessary and the market is slowly recognising that Digital is again 
    an innovative, competitive supplier that can add value to customers' 
    business environments.
       
       Although big improvements have been made, many parts in Digital 
    are still (or again) focused on internal processes and willing to 
    invest in such perpetuating practices, mainly driven by middle 
    management layers that were in place during the late 80s and that 
    have by-en-large survived the recent shake-outs.
       
       An obvious remedy to speed-up the goal to further reduce costs and 
    waste in the corporation and to regain market share, would be to 
    break-up Digital into a holding company, owning a/any number of 
    'independent' companies.  These companies would become, under market 
    pressure, truly lean and mean.  After divisionalising Digital and 
    abandoning matrix management, this could be a logical next phase.  
    Are you considering such a step ?
       
       Thank you and kind regards,
       
       Stef Duin,
       ISC, Valbonne.

    Bob,
    
    I add my thanks for a successful FY and look forward to many more.
    
    My major concerns are in respect of our internal systems/applications
    with which we continue to attempt to carry out quality business with
    our customers.
    
    My direct involvement with internal business applications was minimal
    until I was recently tasked with involvement in the Program/Project
    Management of SMART/SPACE migration here in the UK.
    
    The stories which I once considered to be "sour grapes", or the
    inevitable result of the "not invented here" attitude have now become
    harsh reality and clearly demonstrate how inappropriate, counter
    productive and difficult these applications now are. 
    
    I'm certain I recall that you were going to address these issues, and
    believe that MCS is suffering considerably by having to use business
    applications which were/are designed for the Digital Products and
    Services of "yesteryear".
    
    Dennis Crocker - Desktop Services Project Manager  

First, I'd like to echo previous remarks about compensation. Now that
a career at Digital is pretty much dead many more are consiously doing
all they can to improve their market value and then get out, often with
a nice lift and even a career. I am frankly scared by the number of
people I encounter who have already made up their minds to leave Digital in 
the coming 6-12 months. These are good people. People you'd want to have
around.

Second, I'd like to raise serious concerns about our software strategy.
More specifically, about our ability to sort out the mess. We've heard
and seen over and over how things are going to be sorted out. But the
reality is that pretty much all of our software is only allowed to exist
if it leverages Digital hardware. That is nuts in a time when our 
proprietary gear has an insignificant part of the market. It still feels
like we (software engineering) is a subdivision of hardware engineering.
And, contrary to what you may think, I would welcome a decision to just
focus on hardware and keep things like OS, compilers, and other things
that would help others (not Digital) to port their software to our stuff.
Keep as in seriously fund. At least that would be a credible decision.
What we are doing now is not credible. We're basically in the business
of not pissing people off.

Third, I am wondering about our Alpha pricing and our (non)entry into the
RISC PC arena. Now that we've entered an even broader agreement with MS it
would make a lot of sense to sell Alpha-PCs in direct competition with
high end Intel based NT workstations. But prices do have to come down
a lot. We're now seeing P100+ systems with lots of stuff on them for
below 3K. Think about it. We may barely be able to justify 60%+ in price
for our recent sub 5K box even if it had been Intel compatible ...

Thanks for listening. And keep up the dialogue, Bob.

>Per

    
    I will second the suggestions of .27 
    
    			Thanks for asking us!!
    
    			Ed
    
    

    	Perhaps, as others have mentioned, a clarification of the software
    strategy would help, but I'd like to better understand what the overall
    business model for this company is now and will be 5 years from now.
    I'd like to understand the goals as far as revenue growth, revenue per
    employee metrics (and therefore what the employee population/company
    size is expected to be), and breakdown of the various businesses we
    intend to partake in. For instance, do we expect 40% of our revenue 5
    years from now to come from software, xxx% from chips, etc.? I think
    that understanding from a high level the direction which company
    leaders think we're going would make people in the trenches feel more
    comfortable.
    	All we hear are the negatives. Our chip business doesn't produce
    nearly the volumes necessary to be successful. Our software strategy is
    in disarray. Alpha systems are outsold by PowerPC systems by orders
    of magnitude.
    	So where are we going in the next few years? Are we expected to
    grow in revenue? By how much? What's the goal for company size,
    assuming things go according to plan? What businesses will we be in and
    what do we expect the breadkdown to be for revenue, profit, etc.? I
    think a lot of other issues and questions fall out once these are
    better understood.

	Hello Bob,

		and congratulations to ALL digits for a positive fiscal 95!!!
	I would like to add my voice to those asking for some explanation of
	how Digital is going to grow Alpha systems sales and extend our product
	offerings into the lower priced market segment.

	Thanks for listening Bob!

	Regards,

		-Dave-

	PS - I have just purchased my third computer in as many years and I 
             regret to say that NONE of them were from Digital. I have always 
             taken a lot of abuse from fellow employees for being a "traitor" 
             by not buying a Digital computer. Bob, I strongly recommend that
             each member of the SLT take a few days of their time to personally
	     order identically equipped high end PCs from Digital and our major
	     competitors. Each individual should install and use each computer
             for a couple of days. If your worried about the money then return 
             the computers for a refund before the close of Q1. It is my guess
	     that the SLT will find this exercise much more illuminating than 
             the parade of reports and analyst's summaries that probably cross 
             their desks right now.

    
    
    
    Dear Mr Palmer,
    
    
    I feel all good things will come with Revenue Growth.
    How will we fix this problem? I believe right now we are
    slashing faster than the decline in revenue.
    
    					Dennis.
    
    

    Re: .51 Dec pcs, ordering, installing and using
    
    I think your experience may be somewhat out of date.  I bought a
    Dec XL pc for myself and a Venturis for my mother.  They were both
    a snap to get up, and have been very reliable, even with my 7 year
    old nephew using my mother's.  The 1-800-PCBYDEC folks were very
    helpful.  There are various nice quality touches in the recent pcs,
    like easy-opening cases, an extremely snazzy raised digital logo,
    etc.
    

  Hi,

   Well, I hate to be a bearer of just a little bit of pessimism, but!

   The following is very general...

   It seems the past couple of years have been extremely good for the
   high tech industries.  During this time frame, we have improved
   *relative to ourselves*.

   My concern is one of honestly evaluating our performance on the
   basis of normalizing to an average year.  My guess is we'd still
   be losing money.  

   What can we expect for performance when the next recession comes
   along?

   Given other companies have boomed while we have barely made money,
   have we perhaps lost market share?

   Well, you know the jist of my concern.  Where are we really if we
   give some acknowledgment to the fact that we have been in a high
   tech boom and (as such) if we normalized to whatever an average
   year is like?

   An aside...

   The comment about the Pentium system at 5.6 k outperforming an alpha
   at 30 k REALLY scares me!!!  Whats going on?

							Tony

I would just like to second .16, .30 and .48

IMVHO, these are the core issues facing Digital in the coming Fiscal Year
and beyond.

-Stephen (very recent new hire)

    I'd like to voice my thanks to you for helping to turn Digital around,
    and for your current Note soliciting inputs from all of us. Perhaps the
    Notes Conference vehicle will catch on with other senior managers....
    
    Many Noters have already responded to the main issues of Morale,
    Sales Growth, Margins, Competition, and Employee Attrition. I'd simply
    add that these are all concerns that I share.
    
    I would like to make you an offer....As evidenced by the number of 
    responses and the geographic dispersion of contributors to your offer, 
    Notes Conferencing has demonstrated itself to be a highly productive tool.
    
    Would you entertain using the same vehicle for soliciting and
    communicating with our Business Partners? Ie, Digital's Partner
    Network (separate and distinct from EASYnet) hosts 50+ technical and
    business Notes Conferences for our Business Partners, and is currently
    used by 11,000 partners located around the globe.
    
       I suspect you would witness the same level of enthusiasm and
       unbridled communication (albeit with perhaps more demanding
       consequences). Pulsing our partners (more than via an annual survey),
       who will soon be leveraging or be directly responsible for a
       majority of our Company's sales, should benefit both Digital and
       our Partners. The value of timely and responsive communications
       cannot be overstated.
    
     Thanks again for asking, listening, and communicating! 

    
    
    	Mr. Palmer...
    
    	I, for one, am thrilled that you asked.  And, since you asked...
    
    	1.  Please tell us what the Microsoft alliance announced last week
    	    really means - other than the obvious closer working
    	    relationships and common software on a variety of platforms.
    
    	    I mean, is this the beginning of more than just a beautiful
    	    friendship?
    
    	2.  What do you, or anyone, have to do to get Mr. Gates to call
    	    us Digital?  I lost count of the number of times he called us
            DEC!  Or, are we beginning to be comfortable with both?
                                              
    	3.  What is the current status of the fix to our administrative
            systems nightmare?  What with the focus on Client-server, and
    	    windows, and networking, and us making the world's fastest
    	    chips, we ought to have this problem solved by now.
    
    	Thank you for the high level of communication to all levels of
    	the company.  In this environment, more IS better.
    
    	And, thanks for asking for our input.
    
    	Regards,
    
    	Diane Ciuffetti Geis
    	MCS Program Manager
                                              

Bob, if we are serious in promoting the Alpha chip as a high-speed
alternative to high-end Intel systems, we need a coordinated effort
throughout the corporation to

  1. Lower the price of entry Alpha systems
  2. Continue to tune software to run fast (as possible) on the Alpha
  3. Make a strong marketing campaign for ALPHA - I suggest "Alpha On Board"
     vs. the "Intel Inside". The Dyno-label ads were great - let's continue
     that success.
  4. Identify those "killer apps" for Alpha (multi-media, video,
     fractals, etc.)
  5. Continue to Find/Trade/Abduct a MAJOR partner for the Alpha

We should also be exploring the possibility of building Intel-Alpha hybrid
chips that support some core Intel execution.

Other than that keep up the good work. Though I am perplexed as to why
Bill didn't give you a T-shirt or other MicroKnickKnack out in San Fran. ;v)

/George Darcy

    Simple question:
    
    In light of our return to profitability, will the company resume
    matching of employees' charitable contributions?
    
    If not, why not?
    
    If so, when?
    
    Thanks.
    
    Sid

I have a real concern about Digital's future with Alpha technology.  
On the RISC (and "post" RISC) side, we are facing a credibility issue 
versus IBM/Motorola/Apple and HP/Intel.  

While HP/Intel are not going to produce their chip for the next 
3-4 years, they still have a very good STORY to share with customers 
and industry analysts.  They are very good at selling futures and
instilling doubt about their competition's ability to sustain current
investments in technology.  Since they have been successful so far, 
the analysts seem to have bought into their message.  We can create
fear, uncertainty and doubt about this alliance but we should be
looking at this alliance as if it will happen.  What steps are we
taking today to ensure Alpha doesn't become "extinct?"

On the Intel side, we are facing a closing window to build VOLUME
for Alpha technology.  Intel (Pentium and P6) is creeping up into
the departmental (2100) server space at extremely low prices.  We
have Intel and Alpha but where is the synergy between the PCBU and
the CSD?  Our competition (HP and COMPAQ among others) have 4-way
SMP Intel servers running NT that offer performance comparable to 
our AlphaServer 2100.  We only offer 2-way SMP on our Intel servers.
Are there plans to keep our Intel products competitive (even if it 
means cannibalizing our Alpha products)?

More importantly, what is Digital's strategy with respect to entering
alliances with other hardware vendors?  Is it being investigated?
What are you (Mr Palmer) communicating to the industry analysts with
respect to the future of Alpha technology?  Are we trying to come
up with more innovative solutions to our Alpha VOLUME issues (i.e,
teaming with non-hardware vendors)?

Thanks for the opportunity to ask the hard questions!

Julie Porter
HP Competitive Analyst

(Invest in an unannounced, unstructured day exploring a field office.)

1) Information Infrastructure

	a)1980's: Digital's information infrastructure was superior to
	any other vendor's or customer's;
	b)The corporation shared information and was connected in a way
	outsiders found to be incredible;
	c)Digital's own tools were utilized in providing that advantage;
	d)Positive employee experience of using our (then) advanced tools
	translated directly into credible (read:"profitable") customer
	interactions;
	e)1990's: DESPITE 'LEADING THE WAY' WITH NETWORKING AND CLIENT/
	SERVER APPLICATIONS IN THE '80S, OUR INTERNAL SYSTEMS HAVE NOT
	KEPT PACE WITH EITHER TECHNOLOGY, CHANGES IN CORPORATE DIRECTION,
	OR THOSE IN THE MARKETPLACE.

2) Technical Excellence

	a)Given, in the VAX era;
	b)Posited in the ALPHA era; the marketplace is skeptical!
	c)THIS IS NOT AN OPTION; it MUST be integral to each and every
	endeavor undertaken individually, and collectively.
	d)C, above, applies EMPHATICALLY to 1, above.
	
3) Belief, Dedication, Commitment

	13 yrs. at Digital have revealed a striking commonality among
	fellow employees: "Belief, Dedication, Commitment"

	a) We believed strongly in Digital's ethics, and in the
	excellent quality of its products;
	b) We dedicated ourselves to representing Digital in the best
	possible light, on and off the job; (for many, there was no 'life
	after DEC' - admittedly, not an altogether good thing.)
	c) We were committed to our jobs at Digital, as we believed
	Digital was committed to our careers.

The past four years have shaken many convictions, shattered many illusions. 
Some beliefs remain to be re-strenghtened:

	1) Are we TRULY excellent in our product offerings?
	2) Are we TRULY committed to excellence in our product offerings?
	3) Are we TRULY committed to excellence in CUSTOMER 'SUPERFACTION'?
	4) Does management, senior & middle, see the inexorable dependence
	of CUSTOMER 'SUPERFACTION' upon the quality of employee tools, i.e.
	easy access to useful information?
	5) Will we prioritize investment in our infrastructure?
	6) Are we committed to fostering employee loyalty, again?
	7) If so, how?
	8) If not, how will Digital prosper?

And finally, a bit of Americana, circa Ben Franklin's era:

	"He who has a thing to sell
	and goes and whispers in a well,
	is not so apt to get the dollars
	as he who climbs a tree, and hollers!"

				- Anonymous.


If we believe, we can achieve!

Pellis.

    Bob,
    When you became President and CEO of Digital back in the fall of 1992,
    you stated that we needed to focus on our core competencies, some of
    which were silicon, software, and networking if I remember correctly.
    Given the changes in the company since 1992 and all of the questions
    regarding revenue growth, what would you consider our key core
    competencies to be to achieve our revenue goals?  And one more while
    I have your ear...will the current business model support those goals?
    
    Dave Hedison

    
    Channel Confusion - 1 Digital = 7 Companies       
    
    How are we going to address the fact that Network Hardware and Network
    Software are going after the same VARs. 
    
    The distributors like Merisel are able to play one group off against
    another and Digital ends up paying twice.
    
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This message is from the President of Mikon System, one of Digital's
    LANvars.
    
        
    ======================================================================
    
    Per your request, I'm sending you this recap of an important point
    that we discussed last week:
    
    One of the challenges facing MIKON as a Digital Business Partner
    is, since Digital's reorganization last July, and the creation
    of the independent business units, that it has become more complex
    for us to do business with Digital.
    
    Part of this complexity stems from the fact that each business unit
    has its 'own way of doing business' with Digital's VAR's, and it
    has become almost like working with multiple, completely different,
    vendors (except in the area of purchasing product - which we do thru
    Digital's Distributors/Master Resellers).  We can't keep track of all
    the different programs that each group is doing. Information/Education
    that we receive from each group is good with some, bad or non-existent
    with others.
    
    In summary, as a Digital Business Partner, doing work in/with
    most of Digital's Business Groups products & services, it shouldn't
    be 7 times more complex to do business with Digital. (7 representing
    the number of business units).  We don't portray to our customers
    these differences, and feel that we represent a single entity
    'Digital'.
    The last thing we want to have to do is confuse our customers more
    than necessary, nor do we want to spend the time educating them on
    Digital's business decisions.
    
    Thanks for listening....
    
    Mike Griffiths
    President - MIKON Computer Systems
    A DIGITAL Business Partner
    (or should we state our relationship with EACH business group?)
    
    

    The Gartner group evaluated Linkworks and said that it was two years
    ahead of it's time but they felt that Digital did not have the
    marketing ability to make it successful.
    
    Are we getting ready to sell Linkworks off. With IBM buying Lotus do we
    have a plan to replace VAXnotes as an internal tool.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Steve

 Now that we are back on the road to profitability, I
would like to know what plans are in place to help grow
the complete Digital business portfolio.  To me, it appears
that each business unit within Digital has its own plan. The
sum of the individual parts should be greater than the whole.
I would like to be convinced that this is indeed the case.

Working in the ABU, it is my responsibility to present all of 
Digital's offerings, services and products, in the best possible
possible light.  I need information on our capabilities quickly and
in an easily digestible form.  Turf wars about INTEL or ALPHA
technologies, Lotus Notes vs TeamLinks vs Exchange are 
irrelevant to me.  If I have an offering, whether product or service,
which  generates revenue at an acceptible profit, I'll promote it.
The customer does not differentiate between Digital PC and
Digital non-PC, why should we ? (A case in point, when did 
you last see a product presentation from the PCBU in the VTX
Integrated Repositor, IR?)  

My customer does not buy Digital technology anymore.  They 
buy capabilities from ORACLE, SAP, Microsoft and the like.
How can we position ourselves to deliver these as complete 
services and/or solutions ? What are we doing to ensure that 
Digital is uppermost in the application providers' minds so that 
they too will actively promote our products and services ?  The 
recent ORACLE VLM and Microsoft Alliance announcements 
have generated terrific interest within my customer base.  Is 
there plan to deliver more of the same ?

Randall

    Alpha is the fastest...
    
       - but sometimes we forget just how much of an advantage we have,
         especially if we've been listening too much to competitors selling
         futures.  Please remind us of our technical leadership with a few 
         well-chosen comparisons of today's Alpha to today's competition.
    
       - if one uses it wisely.  Please underline your support for efforts 
         that help our ISVs and customers use it well (e.g. Software Partner 
         Engineering, DECUS, technical white papers, internet participation).
    
       - but not always the easiest.  Please express your support for making 
         Alpha performance easier to access (so that, over time, we may need 
         less of the efforts in the previous paragraph).
    
       - but not always the best on price/performance.  Many engineers hope
         we'll drop prices to build volumes; the business people appear to
         resist this and to be driven by this quarter's profit.  If the 
         business people have it right (and I suspect they might), please help 
         us understand what the strategy is for the places where we do not 
         win on price/performance.  Drop the products?  Keep them as 
         placeholders in an "overall" product line, but invest as little as 
         possible?  Sell them into niche markets?  Or rapidly invest in
         cost-reduction and obtain price/performance leadership *everywhere*?
    
       - but we still have 190 Mhz first-generation DEC 4000 Model 710
         systems as our "Internet Test Drive" offerings.  Please announce
         an improvement.
    
    Alpha is the fastest.  Its technical excellence is the major reason
    that I am proud to be working for Digital.  And, I hope the company
    leadership will help us follow-through in all the areas needed for
    Alpha to meet its potential.
    
    Thanks for listening
        /john

    
    	Mr. Palmer,
    
                Thank you for asking.
    
    		In addition to curbing the outflow of some of Digital's
                very finest talent, what is Digital doing about making
                itself the place to be for the best talents that the
                industry has to offer?  
    
        Regards,
        Bob Dragon

    I would like to know for what reason we cannot accept that our
    employees, our customers, Bill Gates and our own products refer 
    to us as DEC (DECpresent, DECgraph, DECwrite, the DECstation on
    my desk).
    
    Federal Express has repainted their trucks with FED EX on the sides
    because that's what their customers call them.  It seems they are
    saying:
    
    "We don't care what they call us, as long as they call US".  
    
    We seem to be saying:
    
    "Don't call us if you can't say it right".
    
    Is it just stubbornness on our part or is there a problem with agreeing
    with our customers that we are DEC to the world?  

    re 4031.63...  Right on!
    
    Sunkist's IS Manager in California told me, and I quote:
    
    "In my opinion, Digital has some of the best products on the market,
    and I continue to buy them in *spite* of Digital.  At some point they
    may make it *completely* impossible, but for now I'm winning."
    
    					Tommy Cooper
    					IS Manager
    					Sunkist
    					Ontario, California
    
    Now, that ain't exactly a glowing recommendation, although I appreciate
    his loyalty.  I'm sure there are tons of people out there who are *not*
    as loyal that don't feel like fighting the battle to buy from us.
    
    								Tex

        For all the progress we've made in recent years, we still appear to be
    the hardest company in our industry to do business with:

    1. We need to streamline our business processes and provide working
    systems to support them. Buying from Digital should be the path of
    least resistance, not a major challenge.

    2. We need to stabilize our organizations and strategies. Our constant
    shifts of emphasis, changes of organization and shifting personnel
    have confused the customers and left more than a few convinced that we
    have no idea what we're doing.

    3. From a field standpoint, we need to somehow rebuild our expertise
    base. It has become nearly impossible to find individuals with
    detailed technical knowledge in many areas. 

    Thanks for the chance to contribute.

    \dave

Bob,

Compensation is my pet topic.  i'm a Princ. Eng. leading a team of 21 or
so engineers developing system management software which now runs on
6 UNIX variations, WNT (intel/alpha) and OpenVMS (vax/alpha).  there's no
lack of resume-building experience in my group.  we'll lose the best
if digital does not keep up in the compensation dept.  

my entire team has been working for many, many months to meet aggressive
schedules in the aggressive PC software business.  you snooze, you lose is
our attitude.

couple of things I want to hear you comment on:

- Stock options for all.  I had the pleasure of being invited to one of
my VP's (Jean Proulx) staff meetings where Hector Contraris spoke about
corporate compensation.  my assessment is most stock incentives for FY96
are reserved to management, not to lowely engineers.  Hector's assumption
was engineers values $$$ more than stock incentives, which i strongly
disagree with.  I'd rather have options thrown at me than salary increases.
this is an area where Digital loses BIG TIME to other companies who
hire Digital employees.  everyone of my friends and collegues that have
left Digital have been presented with options as part of the offer.  it
is very tempting, and if you hit the right company (1 yr out from IPO), you'll
be loving those options. the whole idea of stock options is to give an
employee a reason to stay.  if i have attractive options on Digital stock,
it might be harder for me to leave knowing that i'd forfeit them if i left.
same theory that is used to retain key Sr. Mgmt is certainly applicable to us
at the bottom.

my big question is why we don't see options at my level?

- bonuses for a job well done.  i'm not talking about $500, $1000 bonuses,
i'm talikng about $2k-5k bonuses.  or, stock grants.  or more stock options.
engineers work long hours, sacrifice their personal time to do something
good for digital.  yet there is no reward for it.


thanks,
jc
227 3431

(BTW, if the compensation committee is interested in having a member from
the ranks join their team, i'd be more than willing to volunteer.  in fact,
i'd consider the opportunity a plus.)

    Thanks for asking.
    Please explain DEC software strategy.
    
    Thierry Ciot.

    Bob, thank you for soliciting our input. Lois and I are CSC (Customer
    Support Consultant) on the Dupont account in Delaware. What is the
    future of the CSC at Digital, does Digital fully understand and value
    the work of the CSC?  Bob, we have not seen an investment in the CSC's in
    terms of compensation, salary increases, training, etc. in quite some
    time.
    
    In lieu of the sales force reductions, CSC's have played a major and
    important role. In most cases CSC's are the first point of contact for
    customer inquiries, concerns, satisfaction issues, orders, quotes, and
    varied other tasks. CSC's also have a hand in the collection of
    accounts receivables and resolving root cause problems to avoid future
    collection issues and increase customer satisfaction.
    
    We recently attended the FY96 ABU kickoff held in New Jersey presented
    by Alan Parks, and we were delighted as a group to be recognized by
    Alan as key players in his organization.
    
    Bob, do you see the CSC role as a value added asset to the future
    Digital?
    
    Thank you again for asking for our input and concerns.
    
    Bob Mangini & Lois Bingnear
    

    Hi Bob,
    
    Thanks for the opportunity...
    
    On-time delivery to commit date continues to be a big problem in the
    manufacturing world.  Especially any storage works products out of
    Colorado.  The Colorado problem started back in about November of 1994,
    and has continued to worsen.  I (and probably all of my peers) cannot
    begin to count the numbers of orders that have slipped commit dates
    because of Colorado being unable to meet the lead times/commit dates.
    
    And, we are never notified up front of these issues, we only find out
    after dates are slipped.  An unbelievable amount of time and energy is
    spent by many Digital personnel working shipment issues - not just
    expedite requests, but just to try and meet original commit dates.
    
    Can you tell us what is being done to correct this situation,
    especially in the Colorado storage works space?
    
    Thank you,
    
    Tom Jagodka
    Customer Support Consultant
    Customer Operations

    Thanks for asking for input, that is appreciated more than you know.
    
    In Service Delivery, the main hot buttons are pretty much these...
    
    - Are we safe yet? Will layoff's continue/resume? Or can I plan to have
      a job for a while.
    
    - Are we ever going to hire full time employees again? Or are the
      customers going to continue to see new 'temps' instead of Digital
      employees.
    
    - We have heard (through the Notesfiles) that compensation (raises) are
      in the works again, Yes? No? Maybe? We've heard nothing official yet.
    
    - When are we going to see full time continuous advertising? On T.V.?
    
    - Are the Sales guys going to get a real compensation plan?
    
    There's more, but most has been mentioned already.
    
    Thanks for listening.
    
    Mike Foley
    MCS, Syracuse.

    A few years ago I was working on some standards with some folks from
    Sun. One day they needed to cancel a teleconference because Scott
    Neeley was giving a presentation to Sun employees. I was told the
    broadcast was being done over Sun's internal computer network using
    the MBONE video broadcast software, and employees were watching and
    listening to Neeley on their workstations.
    
    If we really do have the best networks and the fastest and best
    hardware for supporting video applications, we should demonstrate it to
    ourselves and our customers by broadcasting the DVN presentations on
    our computer network and watching it on our workstations. 
    
    There would be network bandwidth problems at some sites, but they might
    still be able to receive the sound. There would also be DECnet/Internet
    issues to resolve, as well as getting compatable video viewers on all
    our operating system platforms, but it could be done with a little
    effort.
    
    The next step would be to consider creating a digital DVN server where we
    could chose to view a DVN recording at our convenience some time later at
    our workstation.
    
    This is where the computer/communications world is heading. if we don't
    do it, someone else will.
    
    Richard Hart
    

    When is the administrative staff (the unsung heroes of this company) 
    going to be recognized for their contributions?
    
    Not everyone gets acknowledged on Secretary's Day (Thank you Halmark)
    and we certainly don't get ANY recognition from Corporate.  I feel that
    the organizations which I have supported have been very appreciative
    of my efforts.  Very few Administrative Assistants get that kind of
    support or have been able to go on a Digital Awards Recognition weekend
    (without having to work or organize the function).
    
    Let us not forget that EVERYONE contributes to the success of this
    company.
    
    My back hurts from all the pats on the back...now how about some
    cash for the wallet.
    
    

Re: .78

You mean you get pats on the back?  Many others get - nothing.  Not even a
word or two of appreciation from upper management.

This is one thing I would like Bob to address, and it relates to things others
have touched on.  How can we get Digital (not just supervisors and 
immediate managers) to show appreciation and recognition when an employee does
something extraordinary for the benefit of the corporation?  I'm not talking
about cash - not that that hurts - but something as inexpensive as a short 
personal note of thanks from a VP (or Bob himself).  The view from down here 
(where "success sharing" is unheard of) is that it doesn't matter WHAT we do - 
upper management considers us to be nameless, faceless, replaceable cogs in
the giant machine that is Digital.

Bob's three notes here are a start, but it's pretty much one-way so far.
How can we bring back the feeling of "family" we once had?  I can't believe
that we have to throw that away entirely in today's business climate.

					Steve

    Bob,
    
    I have two issues here, both somewhat similar.  
    
    The first issue has to do with why we limit the SBU sales people from
    selling a product line which last year generated $2.5B in revenue to
    our Business Partners direct- out Intel line.  In order to promote our
    product line I have to engage another selling partner, educate them
    about my VAR and help them to understand the nuiances of doing business
    with them all of which I receive no credit for against my metrics and
    goals.  After awhile you begin to realize you can not afford to do this
    kind of missionary work because it does not help you achieve your goals
    to the corporation.  Why do we limit our ability to market out products
    on a global fashion across all industries and markets?  McDonald's
    doesn't do that and they have one of the top 2 identifiable brands in
    the world.
    
    Secondly, my MCS specialist recently returned from training and of the
    five key initiatives they are being trained on to sell and promote (PC
    Utility, Software Utility, Helpdesk Services, Network Services, and
    Windows 95 consulting services) they can only sell andreceive credit
    for *ONE* of them-Helpdesk services.  Why?  We could take PC Utility
    into our Business Partners today and leverage it against an installed
    base numbering in the Billions of Dollars through our resellers.  I am
    told they are not "Channel Ready".  What does that mean and what will
    it take to have our truly unique and highly profitable service
    offerings available for sale through our partners across the globe?  
    
    As a suggestion, could we offer our BP's a finders fee for selling
    desktop services if they would handle the administrative aspects of the
    program like they already do with GoldKey for example?
    
    Just my $.02 worth.
    
    Thanks for your leadership and devotion to the job.  We are all behind
    you.
    
    Regards,
    Bill

    I DONT HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO READ ALL OF THESE REPLY,S,SO I MAY BE REPE
    ATING SOMETHING SOMEBODY ELSE SAID.I NEED TO KNOW DOES OUR COMMITMENT
    TO OUR CONTRACTUAL CUSTOMERS STILL MEAN ANYTHING TO US.I AM A TECH
    AND THE FEW OF US THAT ARE LEFT IN OUR OFFICE LIVE IN DESPAIR,BECAUSE 
    WE CANT COME CLOSE TO MEETING DIGITALS COMMITMENTS.I KNOW REVENUES ARE
    DECLINING IN THIS SPACE,BUT WE ARE STILL SIGNING DEALS AND RIGHT NOW
    WE CANT MEET WHAT WE HAVE.I TALK TO CUSTOMERS AND THEY CANT BELIEVE
    WHAT IS HAPPENING.WHAT CAN WE DO ?         THANKS

  I would like to reiterate what was said in .59. I think we should restore the
matching gift program.
  This may seem like a trivial thing, but it means a lot to Digital's image.
For example, many colleges, universities, and charitable organizations send
out lists of all companies that have matching gift programs. If Digital is on
the list, it gives us a boost.
  I am not in favor of the 50% match we had for a year or two before discontin-
uing the matching gift program. If Digital can't afford to match all employee
donations 100%, I suggest putting a dollar limit (such as $1000) on the amount 
that Digital will match per employee per year.
  Charitable organizations need donations now more than ever. And a 100%
matching gift program actually increases donations more than 100%, because 
people give more if they know the gifts will be matched.

    
    re 4031.82
    
    I disagree, Bob.  It's a new era.  IMHO, Digital's got zip
    responsibility to match my donations to any charitable organization. 
    What gives us a boost is making money, not giving it away.  In the old
    days, when we were making money hand over fist, we could play
    Santa...but the old days are gone (unfortunately, the hardware we were
    using isn't...I'm still typing on it).
    
    Right at this point, if it doesn't add to the bottom line and our
    continued employment, I'd say it's an unaffordable luxury.  And I'd be
    a little upset to know Digital sent the price of an Alpha workstation
    to any charity while I can't even install our new software on my 3100/30.
    
    								Tex

	Sorry, but my favourite charity right now is myself. I don't
	think it boosts the bottom line (profitability) to have
	the matching gifts program. When we are rolling in dough, THEN
	bring it back. Right now, business and employee betterment
	takes priority.

							mike

    Bob,
    
    Thank you for your efforts to date in turning the company around and
    for the opportunity to address you directly in this forum.
    
    I am an NPC in Western Canada.  My greatest frustration is in trying to
    deal with what seems to be a fractured "channels" strategy.  
    
    As part of NS, I am required by my metrics to directly sell Digital's
    network hardware in addition to my services.  This metrics-driven 
    behaviour quite often brings me into DIRECT competition with the NPBU's 
    resellers and the SBU's VARs and resellers.  The result is confusion for 
    the customer AND the resellers and a black eye for Digital when
    inconsistent messages are being sent.  
    
    Internally, NS is considered to be a VAR.  Externally, we are
    perceived by customers and resellers to be "DIGITAL" selling direct. 
    Among other things, this creates conflict centering on the promise
    Digital made to reseller about not competing with them.  To top it off,
    NS in Canada has to buy Digital network hardware from one of our
    resellers that has been retained by Digital to be our warehousing
    agent.
    
    What is Digital doing to address this situation?
    
    There are, no doubt, a number of means to solve this issue.  A suggested
    approach is to:
    
    - Remove or modify the product sales metric from the overall NS budget
    whereby NS defines the customer equipment needs, sources the product
    through an authorized Digital channel, and "passes-through" the pricing
    to the end-user customer.  
    
    - NS then receives cross-crediting for the "passed-through" products.
    
    With this approach, our valued resellers participate with NS providing
    a WIN-WIN-WIN solution for NS, the customer, and the reseller.  This
    would, in effect, turn the NPCs into Systems Engineers and allow us to
    work closely with the resellers while leaving us free to take on
    consulting engagements as well.
    
    Brian Pituley (with input from Rob Spicer, NPC, Calgary)
    NPC, Calgary
    
    PS:  I think trying to standardize on "Digital" is a mistake.  Perhaps,
    as mentioned previously in here, an effort needs to be made to make the
    "connection" between "DEC" and "Digital".  There are many people that
    don't realize the "relationship" between the two. :-)
    
    

    Bob,
    
    First, thanks for opportunity to ask a question directly to you.
    
    As a quick note of introduction, I am a Sales Rep selling to the ABU
    higher education accounts in the States of Washington and Oregon. 
    These accounts tend to be primarily Unix-based workstation purchasers
    (ours and the competition's).
    
    My question concerns the recent departure of Bernard Auer due to his
    inability to grow the PC business unit to an even higher level than
    what was achieved.
    
    If this was unacceptable performance, why are we allowing our market
    share for workstations and servers to remain at best constant?  While I
    do not exepct the grow rates of the PCBU to be matched by the
    workstation & server products (but one could only hope), can no growth
    be rewarded?  Shouldn't this be a major concern?
    
    I hope you will be able to address this.
    
    Regards,
    
    Art Mann
    
    
    

	Greetings Bob:

	My question: What can you do to make employees who work
	off-shift feel like part of the Digital-Family??

	Specifically, your DVN are not viewed by the Digital 
	population that works the night shift.

	For that matter, all of us who work third shift can not 
	participate in 'Valuing-Diversity' programs, or give blood 
	on shift, etc.


						Brian

    Bob,
    	As a contractor (former dec employee) I still follow the company's
    progress regularly. I applaud your success in turning things around. I
    would like you to find a way to demonstrate that the employees at
    Digital are some of the best and most dedicated in the industry. I find
    that the streets still think no worked hard, employees are overpaid ,
    and that other myth about people reading novels. I never saw any of
    this in my 12 years but somehow its in the airwaves.I'm not sure how
    you debunk these myths. I think all the employees deserve the
    respect in the marketplace and their communities for the effort they
    make each day toward the success of the company. I hope your DVN lifts
    everyone spirits and provides a clear vision for the future. 

    Hi Bob,
    
    Thanks for asking, I'm a Technology Consultant down under and have been
    with this company for over 15 years now. Like many others , I've seen this
    company go through ups and downs, boom and almost bust but despite all
    this I enjoy my work, I enjoy delighting my customers and I need
    Digital to enable me to do both better.
    
    I quite freely admit that the road to recovery is arduous, so I don't
    expect everything to be fixed immediately, what I do want to see is a
    commitment and a definitive set of strategies with proper milestones
    and reportability put in place to address the issues raised in this
    topic which are selected to be focused on.
    
    Some of the things that I think should be singled out for near term
    attention are :-
    
    1. get some stability into our organisational structure, the business
    model we now have may not be ideal, it may need tweaking a bit here and
    there to make it work better but please let things stabilise for a few
    years to enable the business units to gain strength, re-gain their
    focus and offer their employees commitment, goals and proper rewards.
    
    2. Provide compensation for TOTAL SOLUTION SALES, this includes
    all product, PC's, services, consulting etc. especially in ABU
    accounts, reward the sales force for everything they sell, in other
    words do not force them to de-focus on certain product lines where
    there is little or no compensation.
    
    3. We have an issue with VAR's intruding into ABU named accounts, this
    is an indication that we don't have the engagement and behaviour model 
    quite right, this needs attention.
    
    4. Improve our internal equipment level, I'm a technology consultant
    working with leading edge Defence R&D organisations yet the equipment I
    have at my disposal is an antiquated VAXstation and a worn out LN03. I
    have to scrape and scrounge any time I need to run an ALPHA benchmark,
    do a test install of a product etc etc.
       We need a program put in place to regularly, every year, cycle our
    own equipment out and replace it with current product. There is nothing
    worse, and coming from an MCS background originally I KNOW, than seeing
    a product for the first time on a customer site when it is broken.
    "hey mate, how do you open this one then??.." is an all to frequently
    heard expression.
    
    5. Lastly, on the compensation front, re-instate excellence awards for
    non-sales folks, we work our tails off too.
    
    Thanks for listening, hope this contribution gets some attention.
    
    Regards,
    Steve Manuel,
    Defence Systems Consultant
    Adelaide, Australia.

    Bob,
    
    I just want to tell you how terrific I think it is that you have done
    this, to think that our CEO&Chairman of the Board is asking his
    employees what they think makes me more proud than ever to be a Digital 
    employee. I would however like to offer one suggestion if I may. I will 
    assume that this DVN will be taped in front of a live audience. If this 
    is so why not invite at least some of the people who have responded 
    here as a way of saying thanks for their questions and suggestions?
    
    Thanks in advance for any consideration given to this suggestion. 
    
    regards,
    
    Barry Nestor
    

Bob,

Thank you for this opportunity.

My question is what are we doing w.r.t the threat paused by Intel  
to our hardware business given that :

o Year by year the technology gap shrinks. We used to be years ahead, now 
  maybe 6 months at best. With our current strategy time is on their side, 
  they can pour much more in R&D than we can.

o In 5 years or so when their chips would pack 100M+ transistors, there 
  ain't much hardware functionality left that they wouldn't supply.
  We do not have the luxury of targeting our low end CPUs against their 
  best. This is neither fair nor good for Alpha.

o There is also no room for a high end market, all indications point to 
  it shrinking and losing ground to low cost high volume products.


The Microsoft deal and plans to push NT are excellent moves. 
In 2 to 3 years all software developers will be using Win32, they would 
generate Alpha binaries and include them on their release CD..thus no 
overhead in either development or distribution.

As the others have said, thanks for asking.

My issue: When are we going to fix and unleash marketing?

Ever since the great wave that swept product marketing out of the 
business units several years ago, marketing responsibility has been 
horribly fragmented, with disastrous consequences.  While product 
marketing people have trickled back to the business units, several of 
the most critical functions for generating awareness and demand, such as 
press relations, analyst & consultant relations, and advertising remain 
subect to "centralization constipation".

Furthermore, for most of our marketing groups, money to actually DO 
anything keeps getting sucked up by, filtered through, and siphoned off 
by an infinite number of vertical layers, SBU/ABU, initiatives, 
campaigns (the name changes yearly), etc.  For a product to get any 
marketing attention at all, it needs to distort its message in order to 
fit into one of these initiatives and get its 15-second mentions in the 
50,000-foot campaign ads.

Product marketing and thematic marketing do NOT have to be mutually 
exclusive or have one subordinated to the other.  Each of our products, 
from the lowliest Digital PC to the most obscure middleware to 
TurboLaser, has to compete with other products of the same type -- 
products whose vendors are ususally much more focussed on laptops, 
middleware, or whatever.  

Groups like the PCBU have shown what we can accomplish when marketing is 
unfettered by corporate and large-organization bureaucracies.  Digital 
PCs now actually show up in product reviews, trade press "shoot-outs", 
and even are mentioned as the PCs that reviewers use in testing out 
other vendors' hardware options and software.  This kind of visibility 
is the only way to create the credibility and mindshare that can expand 
our market share.

Another controlled experiment that confirmed this came in the early '90s 
when the old Personal Computing Systems Group had its own marketing 
communications responsibility.  Despite having an installed base about 
20% of what it is now, we got PATHWORKS in the trade press on the 
average of about once a week, and our sales and revenues grew about 50% 
a year despite the maturing of our traditional systems business.  Since 
those days, marketing has been constantly shuffled around, reorganized, 
and living hand-to-mouth, quarter-to-quarter, campaign-to-initiative, 
and our growth has been slowing consistently.  The most common complaint 
from our loyal customers is not about our products - it is that we make 
it so hard for them to sell our products internally because their 
colleagues and managers never see us mentioned in the press!

Let the high-level corporate marketing organizations continue to promote 
Digital's image and key themes that attract corporate buyers.  But, 
please, give the individual product marketing organizations the level of
people, funding, and freedom that they would have if they were 
independent companies so they can compete with their competitors who 
have that level of freedom and dynamic autonomy!

If we don't do this, all of the talk about creating business units will 
be just a cruel joke, since the business units won't have a chance of 
succeeding, and we will never escape our Ken-Olsen-born, 
engineering-driven tradition of "Field of Dreams" marketing: "If you 
build it, they will come"

Bob Nusbaum

    Bob,
    
    My questions and concerns are the following:
    
    Growth:  What have HP and Compaq have that we don't have?
    
    Marketing: We need sustained and consistent marketing - not a few hit
    or miss efforts
    
    Alarming rate of attrition:  We can't succeed when we continue to lose
    our best people to competitors
    
    Thanks
    
    cs

    I would like to hear about:
    
    1) How will the new SW business group be organized from field's point
    of view? When do we hear something real about, what is our software
    strategy?
    
    2)What is the expected role of SI? It's pretty frustrating to be
    an SI consultant in the field at the moment. To my opinion, we have
    too much rhetoric and too little real pragmatic support for the field work 
    at the moment in many competence areas.
    
    3) Do we plan to have in future more models for the co-operation between 
    different business units. Most field organizations can't have competence 
    in all needed areas, where local support is important for the success.
    Improved co-operation would also give our customers an image of one unified 
    Digital.
    
    Ritva Siren
    Technology consultant
    Digital, Finland

    
    With regards to marketing.  I've read a few articles which state that
    this holiday season is supposed to be a banner year for the sale of
    computers and related gear.  I'd like to see some consideration given
    to an ad campaign designed to take advantage of these predictions.  I 
    don't think we need to spend a large amount of dollars doing the super
    bowl or something that big, use the money to do spots during some prime
    time slots.  Let's get our name out to the people who aren't that
    familiar with computers who are considering getting one for the first
    time.
    
    
    Mike

    Well, I read through this whole series and I must ask a business
    orientated question.
    
    Bob, did you ever get to see John Sculley assembling a Macintosh
    computer in front of a crowd of thousands in under 5 minutes, start to
    finish? Very impressive.
    
    If you were to try that with one of our PC's, you'd find that even with
    2 weeks, 80 hours, of practise, the best you could do would be 30
    minutes, tops.
    
    The reason for this is simple, the Macintosh is a Design For
    Manufacturing, something Apple doesn't just pay lip service too, but
    they use it. The whole system is designed to snap together and in fact,
    the placement of cables is done to minimize length and eliminate
    routing.
    
    Our Pc's on the other hand, are a nightmare of cables snaking all over
    the place inside the unit, in fact, sometimes these things have to be
    routed through tiny little holes. There are more than 28 screws on a
    typical Digital PC and that means manufacturing has to deal with 3
    sometimes 5 different screws of varying length and location, easy to
    get them mixed up you know, either in assembly, or in inventory, or
    refilling production on the floor, or heck, sometimes, you forget to
    stick one or two or three of them in there. Some of these screws differ
    from each other by only their length, a 1/32 of an inch in some cases.
    On some PC's you have to unlatch stuff and flip it up and install a
    disk drive and then flip it down and install a cable and then, well, it
    does go on and on.
    
    Until we actually create PC designs that are truly DFM, you'll have to
    let the next Berhnard Auer go too, because he can't make a profit when
    he has to eat the profit building the product. I can assure you, 30
    minutes eats a lot of profit. It's fairly easy to calculate how many
    people it takes to build 10,000 PC's a day when each PC takes 30
    minutes to build. Well, not really, cause there are support people
    involved but, you hit the ballpark with a figure that does for
    comparison. Now do the same calculation at 5 minutes per PC. Golly,
    this is not rocket science you know, can you see the savings? Can you
    see now where we eat our potential profits.
    
    C'mon Bob, let's do some real smart DFM. Let's manage our vendors
    better too. Let's put performance clauses into out contracts that are
    so scary, the suppliers won't ship anything to Digital except 100%
    good material.
    
    FWIW, I have begun to enjoy the new marketing program, I think some of
    the ads that I have seen are very punchy.
    
    Best regards, and don't breath easy yet, there's a lot more work to do
    still.
    
    Richard Tomkins

    re .28
    
    Have u seen the Celebris? You can get into the chassis without
    unscrewing ANY screws at all.

    Hello Bob
    
    	Thanks for the opportunity to communicate directly.
    
    	My burning issue has to be the one of compensation.
    
    	Here in the UK we currently have a variable compensation plan which
    awards bonus's based on company/department/personal performance. This
    gives rise to one-off payments which do not count as an increase in
    basic salary, and consequently do no accrue any benefits for personal
    pension funds. Furthermore next year's basic salary is the same as last
    years but the bills are bigger.
    
    	Last Year's bonus payment amounted to #350 after taxes...about
    $500. Small incentive for the effort to help the turnaround. Even less
    of a contribution for the old-age savings!
    
    	I haven't heard if there's a payment this year yet!
    
    The UK seems to have been operating a pay freeze for five years now,
    which means that in real terms, frozen salaries are worth about 25%
    less than they were five years ago....and of course the pension is
    frozen at the same level, posing a threat to old age subsistence.
    
    	The UK management in reply to queries along the same lines quote
    statistics like "98% of all UK employees got something last year" (Alan
    Evans, DIGITAL TODAY page 7 July 95)
    
    	The reality is that the "something" did not even cover the cost of
    a decent week's vacation for one person, let alone a family.
    
    	In the face of a massively increased workload for fewer employees,
    as the consequence of re-structuring, this is no longer acceptable..
    
    	It is time that DIGITAL in the UK faced the reality that it is
    loosing critical skills because of an "ostrich" mentality. Those who
    are unable to move on because of age or restricted skills are just
    loosing the commitment which was the essential element of DIGITAL's
    "great" years.
    
    	I hope you can frame this as a discussion aimed at the UK branch of
    the company.
    
    				Regards...
    				Dave Clark
    				UK-CSC
    				(DIGITAL 15 years) 
                                                  

    Bob,
    
    Thanks for listening.
    
    I just received my FY96 ABU Sales budget today.  It has increased 29%
    over last year.  According to others I have spoke with in ABU, this
    increase is what others are seeing.  I am in full support of "Go For
    Growth", but is Digital expecting a 29% growth for FY96?
    
    My concern is that this % increase may increase the ABU attrition rate
    to the point where it will not be able to recover and grow more than
    single digit %'s.  Could you please provide some insight into your
    expectations of the ABU for FY96, including revenue growth?
    
    Regards,
    Steve
    

    "profitable growth"

    At the risk of bursting another vein in my head .... I too would like
    to understand how our compensation model was created ... what were the
    methodologies used to determine the metrics.  We are a
    geography/partner driven sales force, however, we still cannot sell or
    be compensated for the following products/services:
    
    Multivendor Customer Services
    Personal Computers
    Network Services
    Systems Integration
    
    I know that the rationale for the compensation plan is to promote
    systems and servers.  But this measurement drives behavior that
    probably led to Bernard Auer's departure.  Customers are not interested
    in hearing that "gee, I can't sell you that", but "I can sell you
    this".
    
    My question is this:
    
    Will Digital ever move to a total products sales model that is
    geography driven (inside/outside sales) with sales support in the areas
    of network services, personal computers, MCS?
    
    IMHO we can not only be #1 in sysstems & servers, but #1 in personal
    computers.
    
    Thanks for listening,
    Jane

Hi Bob,

Question 1.

Intel P5: 				$1000.00
Digital 21164(EV5):			$3000.00
Configured Pentium system: 		$6000.00
Same system with 21164(EV5) chip:     $30,000.00

What the hell is going on ??
(Are we paying $800 for a screwdriver ?)


Question 2.

Isn't the PCBU now grown-up enough to share the Desktop with Alpha?
This market is huge, it's growing, it's evolving and it's hungry.
What are we waiting for ? 
Can you please clearly and unequivocally fasten Digital's flag to 
the Alpha mast in a way which eliminates the need to pussyfoot 
around with semantics like "desktop appliance"; in a way which 
encourages and enables us to design, build and proudly sell Alpha 
systems which genuinely compete head-on with all comers to the 
desktop - even Sony's Playstation; and in a way which will ultimately 
give us cohesion as a company(desktop to datacentre), unity of purpose 
and pleasure in winning.
We've made our bed with Alpha, our head's on the TurboLaser pillow 
but our feet are still on the floor.


Thanks and regards,

Will Pendergrast. Digital London.

    
    
    Bob ....  Congrats on getting the company profitable.
    
    Thanks for asking us how we feel.  It's refreshing.
    
    ********************************************************************
    
    I second the "credibility issue" mentioned in .45.  I believe this to 
    be a major factor in our poor growth rate vs. the competition.  We
    certainly have better products than Sun and HP. and their growth rates
    are in double digits.  Difference being "Sun and HP were not in a
    meltdown for 5 years".  It took DEC 30 + years to build it's credibility,
    and five short years to lose it.  Apparently, it doesn't matter that
    Alpha is the fastest chip on the planet, what matters is that the
    public perceives that Digital is back, and back to stay.  We have the 
    "better mousetrap", but there is no path being beaten to our door..
    
    Digital is still a product company.  As the products go, so will the
    rest of Digital.  Is our problem Sales Management ? Should you not hire
    the SUN or HP Sales Guru, so he/she can grow Digital at a 20% revenue
    growth rate.  They're doing something that we're not !!!!!!
    
    Regards,
    
    Bob                  
     
    
     
    
    
    
     
     
    
    

    
    My question is DEC gives deep discount to reseller like
    Avenet, Pioneer, etc.  Why we have to do pre-sale effort
    for them, like sale support, benchmark, etc?  Looks like
    we lose money on reseller business.
    
    Jason

    Bob,
    
    I want to talk about DECUS.  
    
    The Digital Equipment Computer User Society.  Digital's User Group and
    the best marketing arm the company ever had.
    
    For most Customers Digital information is gleened from a Salespeople 
    (if they can be contacted), the Press (not exactly the most pro-Digital
     Group in the world), the NET, or.. DECUS.
    
    I'm not talking about the National Event/Tradeshow that DECUS
    sponsors and Digital Engineering attends for 3-4,000 of our users 
    every six months, but the 90% of Digital Customer base that will 
    never go to a National Show.  
    
    I am talking about DECUS LUGS (Local User Groups).
    
    DECUS Local User Groups have all but been abandoned (financially)
    by National DECUS and over the last two years and all but a handful
    have dwindled to near extintion in major geographies thoughout North
    America (and other continents as well)
    
    Several of the larger LUGs in Dallas, Boston, San Francisco and others
    have survived, primarily because of their close (but unofficial)
    relationship with someone in the Local Digital Sales/Service/Logistics
    Office.
    
    With Distributors, VARs, Consultants, the ABU and the SBU in any 
    given geography it would make a great deal of sense to have a single
    PRO Digital group that Digital CUSTOMERS can turn to in that geography 
    for the straight scoop on Digital Information and find a generally
    Digital favorable story.
    
    Digital should be officially sponsoring DECUS LUGs (Local User Group) 
    out of every local Sales Office.
    
    Please consider that every city has a PC, Data Management, IEEE
    or other techical group that regularly meets there and adds no Value 
    or little Information to Digital Customers about Digital, a local 
    DECUS group would.
    
    
    I've attached a memo I sent to Laurie Maytrott who is looking at what 
    would be required to support LUGs (Local Users Groups) from a National 
    DECUS level.  The Welcome-Wagon Kit could easily be put together at a 
    modest cost for distribution to our potential DECUS LUG sites.
    
    I would recommend that if we want this initiative to succeed, Digital
    should do it through the local Sales offices instead of through the 
    National Chapter.

    We can get a listing from National DECUS of the DECUS members
    in each geography by zipcodes for LUG notification and mailings.  

    Digital Sales offices should provide the following to insure the JUMPSTART 
    of DECUS LUGs in a geography:

    1) Assign a Technical Sales Support resource (Note: not Marketing or Sales)
       as Local Digital Liaison to the LUG.  This should be a Goal-Sheet 
       assignment with measurements for success being:

           a) Increased LUG membership/participation over the previous year
           b) Successful holding of regular (monthly?) meeting of the LUG.
           c) Publishing of a regular LUG Technical newsletter
           d) Identifying Speakers for the LUG on Technical Topics from 
              Digital's Sales Support Community
           e) Identifying Sales leads from the LUG/DECUS community

     2) The Sales Support Person should identify and select a Sales Liaison
        for the group.  This should be a salesman who will be responsible
        for any sales issues that DECUS/LUG members have with Digital.
    
        A DECUS/LUG should be considered a joint ABU/SBU account with an 
        assigned Sales Person(s) and be able to be part of the PID Process
        (Proprietary Information Discloser) as a group.

     3) The Local Digital Office should provide local office hosting of
        DECUS/LUG activities (Meeting room, Conference calls to national 
        DECUS, Copying of Newsletters, and helping with office supplies)

     4) The Local Digital Office should pay for all DECUS/LUG mailings to 
        the local DECUS community (100-500 pieces each month for each 
        geography)

     5) The local Digital office should provide a meeting room and facilities
        for LUGs to meet and speakers to address them.

     6) Obsolete Equipment and RotCon should be donated or offered for sale 
        through the LUG for use by individuals, for Newsletter preparation, 
        BBS services, or as door Prizes for LUG meetings.


     That just about Covers it!  The Process for starting a LUG is simple,
     have a meeting, announce an election of Officers at the following meeting
     and national will recognize the local organization.  Digital liaisons will
     have to hold hands for the first 3-6 months (or longer) but it's always
     worth it for customer satisfaction, increased sales, and building a real
     Digital Customer community in a given geography.


    Thanks for Listening
    
    John Wisniewski
    
    -----
From:	ROVER::SYSTEM       "John Wisniewski DFWLUG BBS SYSOP (214)270-3313" 11-JUL-1995 00:27:46.82
To:	UUCP%"maytrott@eisner.decus.org"
CC:	SYSTEM
Subj:	Welcome wagon kit for LUGs 

Laurie,

Here is a good start on a kit that needs to be sent to new and existing LUGs 
every 1-2 years.  Something like this from the national chapter would help
to promote the feeling of "Belonging" to the LUGs and help to feel like we are 
doing more than paying lip service to LUG support.


DECUS LUG Welcome Wagon

1) Banner or Printed Poster with DECUS logo and LUG name/Logo for display at
   LUG meetings.

2) Presentations kit in Microsoft Power Point on a floppy disk:
   History of DIGITAL
   History of DIGITAL's Product Lines PDP, VAX, Alpha, 
   History of DECUS
   DECUS information locations on the Internet
   Digital contact information and phone numbers

3) Newsletter kit in Microsoft Word on floppy disk:
   Newsletter templates
   Speaker/Award Certificate Templates and pack of certificate "Paper"
   DECUS and Digital Clipart
   National DECUS Information and Calender of events for the Upcoming year
   Mailing Labels template and DECUS membership database for LUG's zipcodes

4) DECUS literature kit:
   Printed Membership forms for National DECUS and LUG membership
   New User "Welcome" to DECUS packs
   Should have 50-150 per LUG per year.

5) 12 small DECUS/Digital(logo'd) gifts to be given away as door prizes at each 
   LUG monthly meeting.  Sources for DECUS novelties should be provided 
   as well.



    

    Bob:
    
    Two issues that I believe every sales representative in the ABU's
    want answers to:
    1. Why are budgets so inflated? Mine was increased 86%. I was told
       that the company wants a five million yield from each sales rep.
       
    2. When would you like the sales force to sell direct, and indirect?
    
    Anxiously awaiting your reply.
    
    George

The Marketing Council was recently treated to an eye-opening talk on
Digital's customer satisfaction. Doug Smith reported on the monthly
customer satisfaction survey results; they are disasterous! Where 100%
means totally satisfied, we are at the 25% level. 

And it is not just due to the fact that we have down-sized our sales
force. Particularly bad are our ratings in "billing and invoicing",
"software", servicing non-Digital equipment", "ease of doing business". 
Our satisfaction ratings in these categories are down in the 15-35% area.
The bright spot is "hardware" satisfaction - our best category. 

Since these customers will provide our profit and growth, the problem
needs to be addressed at the highest level. Maybe the corporate theme for
FY96 should be "Digital - whatever it takes for total customer 
satisfaction" kicked off with a dedicated, mandatory DVN on this subject.
It needs to come from the top and every other level. 

    Bob,
    
    As others have said, 'Thanks for asking'
    
    I would like to hear something about our plans to become a truly global
    company.
    
    Many of our largest ABU customers are operating on a global basis and
    yet we have repeatedly been unable to respond to them appropriately.
    
    Despite our best efforts and intentions, we somehow manage to implement
    organisations, business practices, policies and measurement systems
    which are all geographically oriented.
    
    (Example:  The ABU is an Accounts-based organisation, yet when final
    budgets are set, it is done in a top-down, geographic manner.)
     
    While it is easy to point fingers at the problems, I would like to hear
    your views about operating on a global basis and who in the corporation
    has responsibility for making it happen.
    
    Also if all the Business Units have global responsibility, would you
    consider allowing one or more of them to be located outside of the US??
    
    
    Regards,
    
    David Strage
    European Account Manager
    The DuPont Company
      

    Bob,
    
    I just received my goal sheet today.  Yup you guessed it, the number
    went up (again).  I have a single VAR customer to call on and they are
    not forecasting the kind of growth rate we are forecasting from the top
    down.  
    
    This Disney like game we play with goalsheets not being tied to 
    quantifiable, objective and realistic market reality is ridiculous.  I too
     have heard that we are aiming for a $5.0M yield per ABU/SBU sales person. 
    Question-what business model and rationale was done to come up with
    these figures.  No manager I have spoken with can explain it to me.
    
    Regards

    re: .97 who was obviously doing a re: .96 and not re: .28.
    
    I have had my eyes inside almost every system we have made in the past
    ten years. In fact, I have had my hands in them, and sometime my feet.
    
    I was not talking about how easy it is to get into the box, I was
    talking about how time consuming it is to build them.
    
    If you want to see us build a Celebris, you are invited. Sure, pop the
    top and you're in. Now, try that with an empty box, add the MLB, add
    the CPU, add the memory, add the disk, add the cables, on and on and
    on.
    
    It should really not matter how easy it is to get into a box, after
    all, we don't expect them to require service for many years. If our OA
    and OE process were any better, we'd be able to sell and install all the
    options in manufacturing and then you'd never have to open the box.
    
    The issue is manufacturing time and 35 minutes equals $44.00 or
    somewhat more. A savings of 30 minutes on assembly translates to $40.00
    that Digital can put in the bank per machine, right.
    
    For the astute, the above quoted numbers are not actual, but for the
    purposes of comparison the are useful.
    
    Regards, Richard Tomkins

    Re: 110
    
    It does matter how easy it is to get into a box -- some owners
    will later be adding extra cards (modems, upgrading to multi-media,
    etc.) replacing cpus, and so forth.
    

    re .110:
    
    	It also matters how easy it is to get into a box, because a
    customer may have a problem and you never tell them that it is their
    software and just walk off site.  You have to prove it either Hardware,
    Software, or Operator Error.  F.S. has to open the box very often, even
    when there is no hardware problem.  And DITTO the upgrades.  Please
    don't be so narrow minded that you over look the service cost and
    customer frustration factor...
    
    Jim Morton
    Hardware Remote Support
    

    My burning question has got be: Who is your tailor? :-)
    
    A second (perhaps less important :^) question is our continued lack
    of a software strategy which "will be out in 2 months" for as long
    as I've been with the company (about 3 1/2 years). I just noted that
    we apparently have a strategy coming up in September so that fits
    in nicely with the 2 month out scenario...
    
    In IBM's view the battle for account control will take place at 
    the workgroup computing level in the coming years and this is why it
    was willing to spend $3.5B to purchase Lotus. It intends to leverage 
    Lotus technology and mind share to battle Microsoft to acquire/retain 
    account control.
    
    So what position will Digital take? With a budget that runs less than
    1% (2 orders of magnitude) the size of IBM's investment many analysts
    point out that Digital has already opted out of the workgroup computing 
    space (currently best represented through its LinkWorks/Teamlinks products)
    whatever software strategy statements Digital might come up with. With
    this kind of extreme underinvestment wrt to other market competitors
    the fact that a product like LinkWorks, for example, has a 2 year 
    technological lead (as Gartner Group pointed out just a few months ago) 
    is of little consequence.
    
    In short, if IBM is correct in its analysis that workgroup computing
    is key to account control and if Digital is not prepared to provide
    a serious investment in workgroup computing (and we are talking 10
    _times_ more here not 10% more) how will Digital avoid losing its
    account control to either IBM/HP on the one hand or Microsoft on the
    other?
    
    I fully agree with the remarks made on the seeming lack of progress
    in correcting the BPS (Broken Process Syndrome), the NCS motivated
    attrition (Non Competitive Salary), R&FSO (Rank & File Stock Option)
    should have been instituted long ago, also why it seems so difficult to get
    the core values that you obviously embrace down through the management
    ranks is also something I would appreciate if you could expand on.
    
    Finally, responses to many of these issues need not be limited to
    a DVN, I see that you know how to use the Notes reply function :-), you
    might want to give some of your senior managers a short course on
    how to use the reply function in Notes too ;-)
    
    The fact that you are using this medium is proof enough to me that
    you truly want dialogue something that I (and clearly many others)
    appreciate.
               
    re roelof
               
                                   

    Bob,
    
    Fragmentation of the Digital sales force is the biggest issue for me. I
    can see the sense in the creation of the business units, however from a
    customer point of view, looking at Digital from the outside, they are
    bemused by this approach. Multiple business unit salespeople, using
    different channels for product fulfilment and, in the case of SBU and
    PCBU, competing with each other is surely not the optimal way to create
    demand.          
    
    Regards,
    
    John McDonnell
    SBU server sales.

Bob,

I have two questions, one about the Digital organisation and one about
the Software Business Group


1.  When I look from bottom to top to the organisation I see 7 (seven)
    management layers. This is down from eight since the SW Business Group
    is a separate BU.
    This means that each manager, on average, oversees only 5 persons.
    I did not see any decrease in the number of management layers during
    the right(down)sizing during the last 18 months.
    Can you expres your view, looking from the top down, on this number.
    I think it should be four or five layers.


2.  Software strategy
    Can you address the Digital Software strategy (or the lack thereof),
    and give your view on this. Is software a lubricant to shift computer 
    systems into the customers organisation or should it be a business on 
    its own.


Thanks for asking in this way (and avoiding 7 filters),

Theo van Hunnik
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]

	First, a short story:

	Once upon a time, there was a company.  This company had innovative
	ideas and superior products for quite a long time.  Due to ignoring
	market trend and slow response to customer demands, this company 
	was in very bad financial situation for a couple of years.  Sales
	were down, market share shrinked and people were laid off.  Latter
	on this company revised their core designs and put new products on
	the market.  Those new products came out with multiple options
	for customers to select to fit for their best needs.  The world was
	shocked immediately and customers gave their hottest welcome.
	Everybody said good appraisal and they re-gained their market share. 
	After enjoying their leading edges over competitors for a few years, 
	this company made the same mistakes again.  They did not respond to 
	market changes quick enough so their market share was shrinked 
	and eventually closed all their manufacture plants in America.

	Sounds familiar on the first part?  No, this company is not Digital, 
	it is American  Volkswagen whose Golf/Jetta is still achieving the 
	highest scores by Consumers Union.  This is "NOT" intended to discuss 
	VW's success/failure but try to use this case as a mirror for ourselves.
	When we look at ourselves over last couple of years, we are
	coming back from the down turn not identical but some kind of similar 
	to the what happened to VW in late 70s.  Today, We are thrilled by the 
	results of FY95 and looking forward to being more successful.
	Our Alpha serves provide technical leading edge over competitors and 
	almost everything we are making received high appraisal from industry 
	analysts.   We may think we have resolved all problems which have 
	caused this down turn and we are very confident for the future.  
	
	When we look at VW whose comeback success was eroded recently.
	We want to ask ourselves what we should do to avoid being 
	the one like Volkswagen but more like Ford and Toshiba who have 
	carried their recovering momentumn all the way to the present.  Many 
	noters have suggested areas for improving.  My personal opinion
	is maybe we should look from a macroscopic view.  

	Within our company, about 62,700 people, we have a few decision makers 
	( < 1%) and the President/CEO makes the ultimate decisions.  After
	decisions have been made, 10-15% people (mostly level 1 and 2 managers)
	will try to interpret those decisions and decide how to implement them.
	The rest 85-90% will carry out the implementations.  Feedback from
	the 85-90% will be filtered by the 10-15% people and sent back to 
	those decision makers.   From my personal opinion this 10-15% people 
	are the  major factors for the productivity, working ethics and 
	morales of the rest 85-90% people.  My intention is not to argue
	who is more important for this company but to point out that
	quality of this 10-15% people is essential to our survival and growth.
	Before I joined Digital 5 years ago, I was working as a consultant
	for Boeing Computer Service.  I am very impressed by the quality
	of their managers.  Here listed my observations:

	No of samples:	3 

	Educational background: Ph.D 2 (Math, Physics),  MS 1 (EE)

	Age: 38, 42, 49

	No of people to manage: 15-25

	Technical skill:  Know how, provide technical leadership and 
			  guidance.

	Managerial skill: Combined single-thread and multi-thread

	Resource management: Not afraid of fighting for needed
			     equipments, software and supplies
			     for people 

	Business vision: Know exactly what the customer needs and what
			 the company needs

	Enthusiasm: Discuss/answer questions in cafeteria, rest room, ... etc.   

	Working hours:	10+/day, always in during weekends

	Personality: Always smile but serious on schedule.

	When snow storm arrived:  Notify everybody verbally to ensure
				  everyone returns home safely.

	We know we have a lot of good managers.  However, when we are told
	that good people are leaving, customers are confused, account
	representatives have no idea of their budget plans, ... etc, 
	I think communications between the 10-15% and 85-90% may have
	a lot to improve.  We may want to ask the following questions to the
	10-15% people:

	1. Do you know ourselves?

	   Who are we?  What are we making?  What are we selling?
	   What can we do?  What can't we do?  What can our competitor do?
	   What will we be 1,5,10,15 years from today?  What is your vision?

	2. Do you know our customer?

	   Who are they? internal customer? external customer?
	   What do they need today?  What will they need 1,5,10,15 years 
	   from today?  What is Digital's added value to this customer?
	   Do customers feel easy or difficult to do business with you?
	   What is the customer's vision?

	3. Do you know your responsibility?

	   What is it?  How to do it?  Where is the actions plan?

	4. Can you provide leadership and guidance?

	   What is the issue?  What is the solution?  Do you know how?
	   Where is the actions plan?

	4. Do you truly know your people?

	   Educational background?  experience?  career plans?  strength
	   and weakness?  Do you give assignment based on capability, or
	   on availability, or on authority ( e.g. "because I say so!")?  
	   When was the latest performance review, salary review, 
	   promotion and salary action?

	5. Do you truly care for your people?

	   What is the action?  What have you done over last 5 years to
	   retain good people and promote morales?

	Today we are proud to be Digital and our customers are proud to buy 
	Digital because we are breaking so many system performance records 
	due to constantly improving the quality of our products.
	If we could constantly improve the quality of the 10-15% people
	as well as the rest 85-90% people, I believe one day the 
	Digital's  legendary comeback story will become popular classroom 
	materials thus our children/grandchildren will read it and be proud 
	of their parents/grandparents too.

re: .115

>>1.  When I look from bottom to top to the organisation I see 7 (seven)
>>    management layers. 
  [Snip]

>>    Can you expres your view, looking from the top down, on this number.
>>    I think it should be four or five layers.
  [Snip]

Amen.

And don't forget about those dangling managers who don't have anyone reporting
to them - that tends to make the average of number of people first line
managers have reporting to them look better.

bjm

    Bob,

    Thanks for participating. As always, it's great to see you here.

    The DEC/Digital subject has come up a number of times in this string.
    See also note 4033.*, and 3904.36 and following. By and large, the
    sentiment expressed in this forum is that our company missed the boat
    big time in insisting that people call us Digital to the exclusion of
    DEC. Further, confidence in upper management is eroded because it is
    perceived that the significant amount of anecdotal information
    amassed in this conference is ignored.

    What are your views on the corporate name controversy. The best suggestion
    I've seen so far is a campaign blitz that says "DEC == |d|i|g|i|t|a|l|";
    have you considered such a move? Conversely, have you seen studies or
    anecdotal information indicating that our insistence on calling us
    "Digital" has increased mindshare and decreased confusion?

Bob,

  Thanks for asking and I am sure you want all different kind of questions,
  issues, and concerns from bottom of our hearts with nothing to hold back.
  So, here comes mine...

  I would like to echo the voices and comments addressed in RE:.38 on 
  "Data Warhouses" with my concerns in other areas.

  o Data Warehousing

	Over a year ago (17-May-1994), inputs were sent to the top
	management about "Data Warehouses". It was about DRC and
	AP/A(aka GIA)-DW. The memo was then forwarded to another
	top management with no further action taken.

	About five months ago (08-Mar-1995), it was brought up again
	to another top management and a reply was sent with comments
	saying a 'directional model' being worked at.

	Today, AP/A-DW will soon be retired due to no direct support
	from top management, however, DRC/EMIS/ESSBASE is continuing
	with much dollars invested and it still does not do a true
	promising data warehouse (see comments made in RE:.38).

	So, where are our top managements standing on "data warehousing"
	today and how much longer we still have to wait before we can
	start and then do catch-up, just like our PC in the market today?

  o Time-To-Market

	Today 'data warehousing' is booming and many companies are
	reviewing and/or doing it as they see 'data' as an asset to
	the success of a company and to *EVERYONE* in the company
	who needs access to the information (data) to support their
	business needs every day.

	How about the market of "Alpha" and "Intel"? Have we done enough
	in "Time-To-Market" on our "Alpha" yet? If not, then we are in
	trouble because "Intel" is doing *GOOD* in market and starts to
	catch up with "Alpha" speed day-by-day.

	Therefore, we have better to be in the right TIME to MARKET
	our products and expertises, from hardware to software, to
	networking, and to services. If not, then we lose time and
	we lose market. So, let's set plan and move fast!

  o Return-On-Investments

	How are we doing in our "Return-On-Investments"?

	"Time-To-Market" is a critical factor to the success of
	"Return-On-Investments". Has anyone in our top managements
	taken a hard-look at our dollars spent in programs/projects/
	etc. to insure that "Time-To-Market" is in-line with our
	"Return-On-Investments"?

	The following are a few examples:

	. VAX9000 	  : lost time,  lost market, lost a big one on "ROI"...
	. PC	  	  : lost time,  lost market, doing catch-up...
	. Alpha	  	  : right time, lost market, doing catch-up...
	. Data warehousing: lost time,  lost market, ?(doing catch-up)...

  o Concerns

    .MANAGEMENT

	Starting our managements from TOP -> MIDDEL -> LOW, what are
	they doing and how are they performing?

	Do our managements do commitments or do they do politics?
	-Politic is wasting time, money, ...
	-Politic is s*...
	-Politic is a killer to a company!

	How would you like to see our managements to be evaluated?
	Should they be evaluated by us (people), just like us to be
	evaluated by the managements?

    .JOB

	How focus are we on jobs, job commitments, job promotions,
	and job salaries?

	Are job promotions being fairly reviewed and done by the
	managements based on peformances and results rather than
	"like-and-dislike"?

    .MORALE

	Morale? => Job? => Management?

	Morale will come back when job focus are improved and managements
	are doing commitments instead of politics.

    .BRAND...Name-"digital" and Color-"burgundy"

	Is our BRAND campaign paying off?

	When one says "digital...", is "digital" us or something else?

	To many of us in the world, "digital" is just too common and
	too confusing, e.g., "digital" watch, "digital" signal, "digtal"
	computer, and you can keep on finding many and many ..., just
	like that!

	How about finding something ( eg: "digit-AL(L)" ) that stands out
	itself and not be confused with the others? 

  Thank you for taking your valuable time to read our comments and inputs
  to your DVN.

  Regards,

  One of your truly hard-working employee,

/Jimmy Lai

=>DIS/ISWS => GIA/IM&T => APA/IM&T => CIO-AP/PSG => CIO-IS AP/PSG

    I'm seconding .108 about the need for a global view.

    I work in DSNlink engineering. In order to get customers
    easy electronic access to the CSCs we have to deal with 3 
    incompatible call handling systems and 3 (or more) incompatible
    business models. Our customers just don't understand why their 
    New York, Paris and Hong Kong offices all see different database 
    articles and can't have calls easily transfered. We talk about
    worldwide all the time but the 3 geographies are often at odds.

    And as for Digital, make us DEC again too. liesl

    Bob, thanks for checking in here.  Congratulations on FY95 and here's
    to a successful FY96!
    
    I didn't see this question in here (folks, *please* put a title on
    your notes!), so apologies if it's a repeat:
    
    What will the impact of our alliance with Microsoft be on our other
    relationships/partnerships/alliances in the industry.  I'm not talking
    quantitative (i.e., hottest, best, fastest, etc.), I'm thinking of the
    relationships themselves i.e., with Oracle, etc.  There are a lot of
    folks out there who do not have a very high opinion of either Bill
    Gates or Microsoft.  Have we alienated potential customers and/or
    alliance partners?
    
    Also, it seems that in the urge to cut costs we have managed to cut
    the services that are needed most, especially by internal customers.
    Namely, Help Desk support.  I think the Help Desk folks are terrific --
    but they are beyond overworked.  It's not unusual to call the Help Desk
    and wait on hold for 10+ minutes.  Again, this isn't a criticism of 
    the people who work on the desk...but if that's happening to me, as an
    internal customer, what must our external customers think?  Any plans
    to increase staffing of the help lines in order to improve both
    customer service *and* productivity?

    I'd like to hear about our Quality strategy as mentioned in .4.  I'm
    particularly interested in software quality.
    
    						John

    Bob,
    
    In your last DVN, August 17, you briefly spoke on working hard
    to grow the business.  Although hard work is important, doing
    the right work is even more important.  I'm curious to know if the
    business model plans to utilize Activity Based Management on
    a company wide scale.  ABM ensures the right work is being
    done to grow the business.
    
    Thankyou,
    Jeff     

    Picked up through my management chain: apparently a "whole bunch
    of questions are coming out of Bob Palmers' office" and they
    were scrambling to find answers. They were wondering about Bob's
    sudden interest and where the questions were coming from...
    
    :-)
    

    
    Great! Maybe they'll start reading this conference as a survival
    tactic.
    

    
    	If Roelef is correct, then RP's stock just max'd my fun meter.
    
    	Got to love it....
    
    
    		the Greyhawk :*)

    Given the focus on returning to product revenue growth, we have built
    a business plan and an organizational comittment to achieve over 50%
    revenue growth in UNIX this fiscal year.  The external competitive
    environment is what we are focused on, and are able to be competitive
    and WIN in the market.  However, a considerable (and unproductive)
    amount of energy and time has to be applied to the internal
    competitive environment just to be able to get into the external
    customer opportunity situation.  What is being done to eliminate the
    internal cycle-consuming processes, debates, etc. so we can do a better 
    job solving external customer problems with Digital UNIX?
    
    Thanks for listening
    
    Mark Silverberg
    

	  I've had a thought for some years, that Digital has carefully set 
     up a performance review/reward system based on contributing to the 
     reviewing manager, rather than on contributing to Digital.  I know the 
     two are supposed to be rather the same -- and I also know that we all 
     know not uncommon situations where they are not only different, they
     are opposed.

	  I have no idea how one could address this institutionalized 
     dysfunctional behavior.  But I would very much like to see some 
     evidence of awareness of it.

				     Brian

RE: .124

	hehehehe.. That'd be fun to watch.. Oh the times I wish I could
	be a fly on the wall... :)

						mike

    There's a discussion in the DIGITAL_INVESTING conference about
    the SAVE Stable Value Fund losing money this week, which was a
    surprise to those of us who thought it was an option which
    guaranteed the safety of principal.
    
    I think there should be a SAVE option which is actually safe.
    (If the Schwab self-directed account I asked about in an earlier
    reply were available, individuals could invest the conservative
    part of their 401K funds in T bills, etc. through that.)
    

    I am yet another software developer feeling impatient for a clear
    software strategy.  I thought it might help to list some of the questions
    that I believe a real software strategy must answer (hint: a slogan is not
    a strategy!).

    1. Is Digital software a business in its own right, or is it purely an
       adjunct to hardware systems?  (If the answer is "It depends", then what
       software is in each category, or what simple rule can be applied so
       that we can figure it out ourselves?)

    1a. Is Digital software (pick one):
        a) forbidden
	b) discouraged
	c) encouraged
	d) required
	to run on a wide variety of systems, including those produced by
	other major vendors?  (Again, if "It depends", what software is in
	each category?)

    2. Will there be any future application software development at Digital?
       If so, what sort of applications?  If not, what is the strategy for
       making necessary applications available on Digital hardware?

    3. Same as 2, but substitute "middleware" (whatever that means) for
       "application software".  Also, define "middleware".

    4. Same as 2, but substitute "system software" for "application software".

    If 2, 3, and 4 aren't a good set of categories, or if there are
    important categories not mentioned there, specify the missing categories
    and answer the same questions for them.

    5. Is it a goal for Digital to once again provide the software development
       environment of choice, like it did with VAX/VMS in the 1980's?  If so,
       what is the plan for achieving that goal?  If not, why not?

    6. In case answers to the preceding questions haven't made this moot:
       When will we see someone in the upper echelon of management who has
       substantial first-hand experience in software development (not
       necessarily writing code, but running a successful software development
       organization, and with a real understanding of software)?  Hardware
       guys who have done a bit of hacking as a hobby don't count!

    Thanks,
	cheryl

Please cultivate this type of wisdom all through the company, starting with
line management and all the way up to your direct reports, and watch the 
company grow and prosper!



     "Many folks have made a million dollars, but Charles Schwab was one of 
the few before World War II who were paid a salary of one million dollars a
year.
      Schwab, a steel executive under Andrew Carnegie, was once asked what 
he felt made him worth that much. Was it because he knew more about steel
than anyone else? "No," said Schwab, pointing out that there were many people
working for him who knew more about steel than he did. He attributed his 
large salary to his ability to deal with people.

     "I consider my ability to arouse enthusiam among the people the greatest
asset I posesss. The way to develop the best that is in a man is by
appreciation and encouragement."     

    Bob,
    Thanks for asking.
    
    1. How can we address the many mismatches between employees' experience/skills and
    their jobs since downsizing and reorganization? There are many people with
    enormous resources now in jobs where they are structurally unable to
    contribute at a level commensurate with their skills, their
    experiences, and their inclinations. I think this is part of the reason
    for so many people leaving the company. Do you agree? How can the
    company address this if so? 
    
    2. Please comment on the following in light of Digital's stratgey and
    direction: "Silicon and boxes are not what people want. People want some
    problem or other solved. Software is what solves problems. Silicon is
    increasingly cheap and ubiquitous. Silicon and related hardware are
    commodities.  Trying to build a business on them relegates that
    business to a low-margin niche in a globally ferocious marketplace.
    What the world really needs is clever software. The successful computer
    company of the 21st century will be a software company. Partcularly, it
    will be a company that builds software that enables groups of people to work
    together on common problems. It will not be a hardware company, at
    least not primarily. Hardware can be made anywhere. Chips can be bought
    from volume suppliers. Clever software that fits the needs of
    organisations embedded in a culture cannot be farmed out to the lowest
    bidder anywhare in the world. This is what will command value in the
    future."
    How does Digital fit into this view of the future?  
      
    3. Why has the hierarchy gotten so much steeper even as we have gotten
    smaller? For the last four years, through various reorgs, downsizings,
    capsizings, and second thoughts, I have "sort of" stood still. But,
    while I think I was four levels of management from the top back then, I
    now would guess that I am at least eight levels from the top. Is this a
    common problem, or is it just my own? If it is common, why, and what
    can be done. Feeling pushed away from the center is very demoralizing.
    
    Like many others, I appreciate your interest. Can we call this
    "Management by Noting Around?" ( A new acronym, MBNA?)    
    
    Regards,
    Bruce

    You're sure you're not holding back now, Bruce? We really want to
    get the _tough_ questions out to Bob :^)
    
    And before I forget if there's anybody in the company (no matter how
    high up :-) who is starting to feel a little crowded in by all these
    Tough Questions, I do happen to run a little Tough Question Consultancy
    and Answering Service which you can hire in for the bargain rate of
    just $350 an hour (or per question, your choice)... :^)

    .133> Can we call this "Management by Noting Around?" 
          (A new acronym, MBNA?)
    
          See 2342.* :-)
    

Hi Bob,

Remember me? :-)

How about letting employees that have a stake in Digital's future know that
the legitimate concerns they raise with management will get more of a response
from management than: "quit writing those stupid memos!", and other veiled
threats?  And that the issues they raise, rather than the person who raised
them, will be dealt with.

Thanks,

Rob Marshall

Dear Bob:

  A usually reliable source told me that you personally fired
  a (PR? Marketing?) employee who wrote a press piece and used
  the term "DEC" (rather than "Digital") to refer to us.

  While I realize you can't discuss an individual dismissal,
  I would like to know if we are so serious at ignoring the
  broad market's perception of us that using their term ("DEC")
  has become cause for dismissal.

  Or was this just an unfounded rumor?

                                   Atlant

    (Usual thanks etc go here. Reusability is important...)
    
    Another on the subject of "the seven layers" and the "isolatedness of
    the faceless ones in Head Office". Here is just a trivial but very
    irritating example of an apparently wider problem. Your thoughts on
    addressing the general problem (as well as the particular symptom)
    would be appreciated.
    
    It's time to order new business cards. Head Office's faceless ones say
    (via our Purchasing Dept) you can only have a total of seven lines on
    the address and telephone numbers. Not negotiable. The office address
    is unavoidably a minimum of four lines. Not negotiable. On the business
    card I need:
    
    	My "office" number (where a PERSON, not voicemail, will usually answer)
        My mobile number (where I can often be reached, and can always take
    		messages)
        My office fax number
        My Internet address (shouldn't that be compulsory on business
        	cards? It's on the Corporate fax form already...)
    
    Does this seem unreasonable ? Seems reasonable to me (it's what I have
    at the moment and it looks OK). Well, the new improved corporate
    standards don't permit it!
    
    What kind of world are these Head Office "standard-setters" living in,
    and how do we encorage them to share some reality with the rest of us,
    who are actually trying hard to be easy to deal with, yet find our
    way obstructed for no understandable reason...
    
    regards
    john
    
    btw: earlier, someone mentioned "pats on the back" not being around
    much any more from the high-ups. Well the last one I got was a while
    ago, but it was a mail from Mr Palmer to thank the team who'd been
    involved in making successful a particularly challenging SI project for
    a local manufacturing customer. A nice touch.

    Bob, 
    
    Please keep 2 times vacation accrual benefit. We should be adding
    new benefit(s) instead of removing. Thanks for consideration and also
    for asking.
    
    Bharat

RE: .139

	I have to agree. I can't figure out how I'm going to take
	4 weeks between now and the end of the year. It's going to
	impact my schedule, plus, I can't afford it! I took 6 weeks
	last year and have to take 6 this year. Yes, I'd LOVE to
	take it all, but I realistically can't.

	Bob, PLEASE fix/address this. Let me turn 2 of my weeks into
	$$'s and I'll take another 2 weeks someplace warm and sunny in
	November.

						mike

    i would agree to keep the 2x accrual .. people were bankrolling 
    vacation when the never ending threat of layoffs hovered over their 
    heads while the TFSO package was emaciated with each successive wave of
    layoffs... 
    
    since it would appear that we are now on a track of profitability and
    hopefully revenue growth i would expect folks to not worry as much and 
    begin to take vacation time etc....

    
    Yes, Bob, please restore the 2X accrual, and stop slapping your
    longest employed (and, dare I say, most faithful) on the other cheek.
    Either that, or let me trade some weeks in for stock, hardware or
    cash money. (I've made the latter request up my management chain,
    with no response. Perhaps from the top down...)
    

I agree with the vacation comments, Bob. Please keep the 2x accrual. There is 
so much to do and I enjoy my job so much that I will probably end up losing 
some vacation time with the current policy...    

regards,

Jim

    re: previous -
    
    My previous employer offerred a "vacation banking" option, wherein you
    were allowed to deposit the value of excess vacation into your 401K.
    
    If the decision is to keep the 5 week max, how about something similar?
    
    Dave

	Hi Bob,

		Dittos on "Thanks for Asking."
	I have surveyed our group for one common theme to ask and 
	this was what I heard the most.

		What does Senior Leadership Team now view as 
		Digitals Core Competencies?

	Several years ago most of us recall the four "S'es" and an "N"

		- Service
		- Software
		- Silicon
		- Storage
		- Networks

		Based on the events of the last few years I believe this
	list is no longer accurate.   Would you please let the us know 
	what the SLT considers our core competencies to be, how they 
        will play in a continued role in our return to profitability, and 
        how does Digital plan on letting the world know we are the best at 
        these C.C.

	Best Regards
	Les Baczko

    Hi Bob,
    
    Thanks for asking.
    
    I have a few questions and will try to keep them short.
    
    -Is anyone in our Design/Manufacturing/Purchasing groups looking into
    standardization of products (ie: screws - one size for every
    application) toward cost savings.  This would directly increase bottom
    line profitability as we could place larger orders for one item for
    supplier cost savings and we could decrease stocking space and picking
    space etc...  Lots more money for us without increasing prices to our
    Customers.
    
    -Please share what our plans are to increase Customer Satisfaction
    during this fiscal year.  What will we do, how will we measure our
    success, what expectations do we have?
    
    -I believe it was communicated during Q3 FY95 (?) that we would
    decrease our employee population to 50,000 by the end of calendar year
    1995.  Can you tell us what percentage by organization will be effected
    during Q1 and what percentage during Q2?
    
    -Will you tell us if the Customer Support Consultants are adding enough
    value to be retained into calendar year 1996?  If so, please comment on
    what future work you percieve will be done by these folks.
    
    Thanks for listening.
    Sue Setlock
    Customer Support Consultant
    Customer Operations
    

Hi Bob,

I don't beleive it - I've just picked up my free copy of the Times (UK) and
nothing , not 1 Digital Advert. On page 22 of the Windows 95 supplement there's
3-4 lines about some training software Digital has developed.

The biggest media hype in the history of the computing and Digital has missed
out again.

Where's the joint marketing that was talked about in the Digital-Microsoft
alliance.

What about these new PCs (Pentium-based Starion) designed to optimize all the
ease-of-use features that come with Microsoft's Windows 95.  How is the general
consumer market going know about these PCs if we don't advertise.


Regards,
Ciaran.
   

    Hello Bob,
    
      As the previous replies, thanks for asking. It does more good for
    morale than you know, and if we see some results will do a great deal
    more.
    
      I would ask you to take the time to read 4067 and replies, on our
    broken internal systems, and state what you propose to do to get them
    fixed. 
    
      Also, I would like to know when (if) DEC/Digital intends to enter the
    consumer market in Europe. When the Starion line was announced last
    year I waited expectantly for the European launch. Nothing; while IBM
    and Compaq had massive advertising campaigns in the UK for their
    'consumer' systems during the run-up to Christmas, our marvellous new
    PCs stayed firmly on the other side of the Atlantic. Even there, it seems,
    their availability was limited to certain outlets, which repeatedly ran
    out of stock. If we are to be a player in this market, customers need to
    be able to buy our systems when they want to, where they want to. If
    they can't, most of them will just buy another manufacturer's, rather than
    have to go someplace else and/or wait weeks, maybe months to get them.
    Also, ignoring non-US buyers altogether is hardly the best way to increase
    the volume we so desperately need to have any chance of making real money
    in this market.
    
      Therefore, are the new Starion models also to be a US-only venture, and
    if so, why?
    
    Ken 
    

To add to the comments in reply .149,

Adding DEC back alongside Digital would do one other key thing:

It would show the world that this corporation is capable of listening
to its customers and the marketplace instead of trying to dictate
reality as in the past.

Thanks,
Kevin

	Hi Bob,

	 I have another question in addition to my .15 note,

	 Why is it that Digital does not obtain corporate or even site
	licenses for popular 3rd party products such as Microsoft's
	Windows 95 & MS office? It seems like there could be substantial 
	savings from eliminating redundant efforts in the following areas:

		- Each employee placing individual requests to a Cost
		  Center

		- Administrative costs for processing each request

		- Management costs for processing each request

		- Finance & purchasing people who have to approve &
		  process the request

		- Support people who have to support & maintain multiple 
		  versions of software only because individual Cost Centers 
		  can not afford to purchase the most recently released
		  version of software.

		- IM&T people who are responsible for tracking all of the
		  licenses
		  	

	 Even if some of these areas seem to have an overall negligible 
	impact, it seems like there would be a huge opportunity to negotiate 
	a lower 'per desktop' rate for the corporate licenses which could 
	off-set a higher per desktop rate for individual licenses.

	 Additionally, it certainly seems like reducing, or eliminating the 
	complexities added by running multiple platforms would help everybody 
	actually using the products.


	 Once again, thanks for asking the question in an open forum (from 
	those of us who feel totally disconnected from the management of 
	this company).


	Glenn

    Bob,
    
    Do you have specific plans to make DEC more aggresive on all fronts??
    
    Thanks

	Hello Bob, Thanks for looking for issues to discuss at your next
                   DVN.  I was looking thru this past Sunday's Boston Globe
                   advertisments and I did not see any Digital (DEC) products
                   being advertised for sale in flyers such as Lechmere's,
                   COMPUSA, Computer City, Circuit City, Staples, Sears, etc...


                   I did however, see Compaq, Packard Bell, IBM, HP, etc...
                   advertised everywhere.  The only place I saw the "Digital"
                   name was as a throw in of printers when you bought another
                   vendor's system.  The consumer market is supposed to be a
                   large market but no where do I see "Digital" actively 
                   participating.  I haven't seen any advertising on TV since
                   the innovative but shortlived flashy advertising done around
                   the Spuer Bowl.  Are we a PC player or not?





								Tom

    Alas, I have not been able to read the past 153 replies but my two
    cents worth would be:
    
    Customer satisfaction is suffering because of our performance related
    pay goals, technically incompetant partners, DEC employees atempts to
    manipulate the opportunity channel and MVCS desire to put anything on
    contract and only worrying about fixing it when it breaks.
    
    One previous note I did read mentioned the affect of stove piping, the
    whole company, encouraged by personal goals pay, is willingly embracing
    the little empire mind set.  Thus putting a complete lie to all those
    smart words and nice overheads of the change forum.
    
    I would like to know how you hope to raise customer satisfaction and
    getting existing customers to maintain there links with digital.  
    
    I hope you will be able to look at how digital measures customer
    satisfaction, and discuss if the measures we use are truthfull?
                                                            
    
    Regards, Michael Williams.

>    Customer satisfaction is suffering because of our performance related
>    pay goals

I'm glad someone brought up this point.  I'm sick and tired of the sham
that the bonus scheme has become, where, because apparent manipulation of
various figures and reinterpretation of the original rules for the scheme,
employees who have achieved their goals are denied the bonus payments
originally offered (which were less than generous anyway, it must be said)
Apparently any work which is cross charged from another PSC does not count
as chargeable time, and neither does any internal work forced upon us, such
as the many office closures which have affected so many over the last fiscal
year, so what are we supposed to do?  Refuse to accept or embark on any work
where the SAMS code is not directly chargeable to a customer?  It'd be nice
if this was pointed out when the FY95 goal sheets were handed out.  I wonder
what new unpleasant surprises will be sprung on us next time around?

So, yeah, a great morale booster the variable pay scheme was.  The outcome
seems to be lots of demoralised and pissed off employees, and I suspect that
because of all the internal bickering that will undoubtedly ensue between
cost centres, the level of customer service will suffer.  But, what the hell,
the bean-counters have saved a few pennies today (and thus earned *their*
bonuses), we'll worry about tomorrow when it happens!

Mightily pissed off with the whole bloody thing,
Chris.

    
    Chris,
    
     I've never ever, ever, seen any type of bonus from DEC.  I've been
     here 18+ years and as long as I've been counting beans I've never
     seen any bonus.  Maybe others have, I can't speak for all of Finance or
     Accounting.  I've always been rated a 1 or 2 performer but never seen
     any bonus.
    
     Mark

Sorry Mark, didn't wish to offend.  Sometimes I just get a bit irate
with the `system' as it stands...

Chris.

    
    Chris,
    
     I understand, "changing" rules make everyone crazy.  I just needed to
    stand up and be counted (so to speak).
    
    Mark

    Gotta jump in on this one...
    
    Customer Satisfaction can be termed an oxymoron, as long as your
    products or services and meeting current customer expectations, you
    will find the 'survey' in the round file, Satisfied customers do not
    complain. 
    
    Most customers only remember the last fiasco, and completely forget the
    'x' number of months/years of excellent service. To base my performance
    review, or someones 'bonus' on such a 'number' is not a good thing. 
    Most reviews are just last years', with the dates changed.
    
    To increase customer satisfaction we should make owning/using
    DEC/Digital products the top shelf choice of computing professionals.
    When their peers discover DECstuff in the plant, it should be
    'ooohhsss' and 'ahhhsss' instead of "Why DECstuff, instead of 'XYZ's?"
    
    How do we do that? Advertise. A lot. Everywhere. We already have the
    products, we just need to get the word out. And on both sides of the
    pond(s) too. Don't advertise only products, Advertise US! DIGITAL! DEC! 
    Tell our story, (Ok, leave out some of the bad parts) Let's get going,
    because at this rate we are not going right now. 
    I want people to see that DEC/Digital badge and KNOW who we are.
    
    And, in a probably unpopular statement, bring back the company cars
    with the stripes and logo on the side. You want advertising? Free?
    There it is.
    
    More than 2-cents worth, I'm sure, but I'm on a roll.
    .mike.
    

    so, perhaps the question is:
    
    What is variable pay for?
    
    Keeping wage bills and redundancy costs down is one answer.
    
    The purpose of these measures seems to be so that people can be put in
    some sort of order.  Ranking is necessary, for promotion etc.  There
    needs to be the illusion that the good rather than the lucky get on. 
    The customer survey is the worst of these games, the honours go to the
    people that get the right values in the right spread sheet cells.
    How doesn't matter, CS itself doesn't matter, just get the numbers.
    
    
    Another question:
    
    What is the customer survey used for?
    
    
    R. Michael.  (touchy man eating his lunch too late)

    re: .154
    
    For the record Bob, I don't personally see widespread manipulation of
    the "channels".  That smacks of ethics violations and if I personally
    saw anything like this I believe it is up to each of us to ensure we
    are not violating any business practices or Digital's code of ethics
    and conduct.
    
    On the pay for performance issue someone *really* needs to examine the
    current pay matrix for the SBU sales people.  I have run some different
    scenarios ranging from 100% (making your goals) to being 120% (goal for
    the SBU), 125%, 150%,180% and 200%.  Given the yields we have been given it
    is fairly improbable that anyone will be significantly over 200% this 
    year in terms of performance, not impossible but not highly likely.  
    
    The net of this is if I finish at 100% I receive a bonus of $6,000.
    gross and factoring in a 40% tax rate like we usually see it nets out
    to approximately $3,600.  If we do 120% which is the SBU target, that
    nets out to $12,000. gross and $7,200. net.  At 150% it's $25,500 gross
    and $15,300 net. At 180% it is $39,000. gross and $23,400 net and at
    200% it is $48,000 gross and $28,800. net.  These would be on top of
    your "base" salary whatever that currently is today.  The message this
    sends is that the "value" the company is putting on your work from a
    bonus perspective is from a minimum of $3,600. to a maximum of 3 times
    your Targeted Earnings.  As you can see selling and performing at 200%
    will not get you to a targeted earnings of 3x.  
    
    Now my question:  We were told that Digital benchmarked their sales
    compensation plan against the "industry".  Who in the industry did we
    benchmark against and in what quartile did Digital fall into?  Where do
    we rank in terms of pay for incentive performance relative to the
    companies we were benchmarked against?
    
    Thanks and regards,
    Bill James
    Channels Sales SBU 
    Account Manager

the figures quoted in .161 are *way* over my head.  I'll be lucky to
receive a couple of hundred quid bonus for the last 6 months, whether
my performance had been 110%, 120% or 5000%.  And I have heard talk
of the opportunity channel being `misused', although without hard
facts to back this up I won't elaborate.

Chris.,

	I got a $50 bonus last year. I think I saw $30 out of it.
	
	Maybe they misplaced the decimal point. Yea, that's it.

							mike

>	I got a $50 bonus last year. I think I saw $30 out of it.
>	
>	Maybe they misplaced the decimal point. Yea, that's it.

I calculated that my bonus will be #34, but that's after tax, so
maybe I shouldn't complain so loudly... :)

Chris.

Hello, Bob,

I would like to hear about your plans to streamline internal processes for
addressing problem reports we receive from customers and the field.

Someone else already referred you to note 4067 in this conference.  Recognizing
that you probably don't have time to read the entire discussion, I've included
part of note 4067.23 below because I think it is an excellent summary of the
issues.

Please share with us your thoughts on how we can fix the Software Problem Report
(SPR) and Critical Level Disruptions (CLD) processes.

Best regards,

Val
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    	The escalation procedures are wasteful.
    
    		It takes too long for problems to be elevated.
    
    		The wrong problems are elevated.
    
    		The right information is not sent with the problems.
    
    		An overload of distracting information is sent.
    
    		The field staff has been reduced.
    
    			They no longer have the resources to screen
    			problems sufficiently.
    
    			They have lost the expertise to handle many of
    			the problems they used to.
    
    		Management at all levels, field, engineering, and
    		corporate, places priority on the wrong things:
    
    			Interrupting engineers working on a fix to
    			force them to provide an information-void
    			response to a political problem.
    
    			Focusing on the short-term CLD load instead
    			of the long-term product quality.
    
    	The support systems are wasteful.
    
    		Response time to a problem that prevents an employee
    		from working should not be so long.
    
    		Continually changing organization and support so that
    		an employee doesn't know who is managing what system
    		is a mistake.
    
    		Responding to a break-in with hysterical password
    		procedures that don't fix the actual problem has caused
    		countless hours of wasted time.
    
    		Our management failed to put pressure on the management
    		responsible for the system manager to provide better
    		service.
    
    		System management didn't just make a mistake.  They
    		delayed, passed the buck, violated security procedures,
    		failed to understand the problem properly, failed to
    		set the system up correctly in the first place so that
    		it would warn in advance of password expiration, and
    		THEN failed to fix the problem after it occurred.
    
    I'd be delighted to see any of these changed.  The solutions to most
    would come by changing management.  If management wants Digital to cut
    costs, Digital will cut costs.  If, on the other hand, management wants
    Digital to do a good job, Digital will do a good job.  If the managers
    of the maintenance group want us to spend an hour in a conference call
    whose only purpose is to reassure the customer that their CLD is in
    fact assigned to an engineer, who would be working on it if they
    weren't in a conference call, then engineers will spend hours in such
    conference calls.  If, other the hand, the managers want us to fix
    bugs, then we will fix bugs.
    
    Currently, engineers in our group are measured and ranked on CLD
    closures, even though we were assured we would not be.  There is NO
    system in place that tracks or measures the submission of changes to
    our source pools that correspond to closed CLDs.  The work that gets
    done is the work that management indicates it wants.

  Did anyone hear specific answers to any of these questions?

                                   Atlant

    I think he thanked all us who did contribute and said that he was 
    going to sit down and read every one of them. I do have a question 
    with regard to something he said. What issue of Datamation magazine has 
    the survey that has us in the #2 rank in terms of the quality of our PC's?
    
    Barry 
    

    The questions about our software strategy were definitely answered.
    
    DEbbie
    

>>    The questions about our software strategy were definitely answered.

Care to elaborate or point at a transcript or other reference?  I was unable to
make it to the broadcast, and I haven't seen anything on VTX.

						Brian

>> Care to elaborate or point at a transcript or other reference?  I was unable to
>> make it to the broadcast, and I haven't seen anything on VTX.

The transcripts and white papers are there.  Try VTX IR and search
by key term:  Corporate Strategy

You can also access all of the documents by going to Digital"s
WWW External Home Page, clicking on "FLASH".


.../ken

    The actual files referred to from the FLASH! page are in .PS and .PDF
    formats -- so to view 'em you'll need compatible viewers or printers.
    

>    The actual files referred to from the FLASH! page are in .PS and .PDF
>    formats -- so to view 'em you'll need compatible viewers or printers.

I found my way to WWW page

http://www.digital.com/info/newstuff/sept95/ftppage.html

which has a nice summary of each of the seven strategy and three transcripts
that are available, each in either Postscript or PDF format. However,
every attempt to access one of those 20 files (I admit I only tried about
12 before giving up) results in an error such as

Fatal Error 500
Can't Access Document: ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/info/whitepaper/li01f5p8.ps.
Reason: System call `connect' failed: I/O error.

Who worries about and fixes such problems?   

    
    
    Ron,
    
    I work in the SBU WW Marketing Internet group.  We are responsible for
    those pages. 
    
    Having read your note, We just checked those files, and did not 
    encounter the same problem you described. Please try again, and 
    feel free to send me mail directly, if you still encounter the problem.
    
    rgds,
    Ray
    
    
    
      

    Mr. Palmer;
    
    I was very encouraged when you opened this notes string and asked for
    input, after meeting you twice at Circle of Excellence/Decathlon and at
    Scott Rothes Leadership forums, I wanted to belive that you want to
    change Digital for the better.
    
    Viewing your last DVN and waiting for the response to the group who had
    responded to your request, and nothing, not even a thank you to the
    respondents, not even here in your string.
    
    Your failure to respond, along with the broken people issues,
    questionable ethics over compensation this past year, miss set quotas
    and still no printed pay plan in my hands after a whole quarter, has
    prompted my resignation after almost 9 years.
    
    I have asked Scott Rothe, John Oleary and yourself how we are going to
    retain employees without any response over the last 18 months as we
    turn around the company, I can no longer wait for that response.
    
    I wish you and Digital well in the future, and I hope you can fix the
    people issues while retaining the wonderful technology.
    
    I hope you can respond here to some of the issues raised as I hope to
    be around for the next two weeks before moving on.
    
    Scott Williams
    EX-Workstation Warrior

RE: <<< Note 4031.175 by NWD002::WILLIAMS_SC >>>
    
>    Viewing your last DVN and waiting for the response to the group who had
>    responded to your request, and nothing, not even a thank you to the
>    respondents, not even here in your string.

Bob did say, in his latest Employee Forum DVN, thank you to all of the people
who entered replies to this note. It was near the beginning; might you have
missed it?
						-- Tom

    Was a transcript of the DVN posted anywhere?  I thought we'd see it
    here since suggestions were solicited here.  The last few replies to
    this topic referenced answers to questions about Corporate Strategy,
    which is helpful, but I'd like to read how Bob addressed all the morale
    issues, etc. raised in this topic.
    
    Thanks in advance, and apologies if I simply missed the pointer,
    Diane

    
    
    
    
    
    
This answers most of the questions....
    
Cheers,
Paul
    
    
<><><><><><><><>  T h e   V O G O N   N e w s   S e r v i c e  <><><><><><><><>

 Edition : 3395               Monday 25-Sep-1995            Circulation :  4574 

...

 Digital - Palmer, other VPs, get bonuses
	{The Boston Globe, 21-Sep-95, p. 49}
   Digital gave chairman Robert Palmer a bonus of $375,000 in fiscal 1995,
 although he didn't get a salary increase, according to the company's latest
 proxy statement.  The executive's salary was kept at $900,016, even as the
 nation's 3rd largest computer maker posted its 1st profit in four years in the
 year ended July 1.  Palmer also was awarded stock options for 300,000 shares
 prior to the close of the fiscal year and at the time of his appointment to
 chairman in May, the statement said.  Palmer also received stock awards
 shortly after the close of the fiscal year.  In addition, vice presidents
 Charles F. Christ, Enrico Pesatori, William D. Strecker, and John J. Rando all
 received bonuses.

...

    re: -.1
    
    imho, posting this here was in poor taste

    
    re: .179 
    
    Why?
    

    it's okay, I'm pretty sure that Mr. Palmer is not going to bother
    reading replies this late...
    
    Save it for next quarter.
    
    Mark

    Since I was at the Unix Symposium while the DVN was on, I don't know
    what the DVN was like.
    
    Could you tell if the questions posed to Palmer were from this Notes
    file, or from more timid sources?

RE: <<< Note 4031.182 by GUIDUK::MANN >>>

>    Could you tell if the questions posed to Palmer were from this Notes
>    file, or from more timid sources?

Just a quick observation: Bob Palmer did address questions from this note. In
fact he quoted a paragraph or two from one of the replies (I don't recall which
one).
						-- Tom

    'timid sources' ??
    
    Give the man some credit - every thing he said he would do, he has
    done. We may not like what he did, but he is consistant.
    
    Alan