Conference turris::tle_trips

216.0. "UK Developer Days Trip Report" by QUARK::LIONEL (Free advice is worth every cent) Mon Mar 31 1997 15:57

Subj:  UK Developer Days Trip Report
Digital Internal Use Only


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   | d | i | g | i | t | a | l |        INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM
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To:  Fortran Group            Date:  31-March-1997
     Dave Hague               From:  Steven Lionel
     Ian McKenzie             Dept:  Core Technologies Group
                              DTN:  381-2073   Loc.:  ZKO2-3/N30
                              E-Mail: QUARK::LIONEL
                                      lionel@quark.zko.dec.com
                              Rev.:  0


    I attended the Microsoft Developer Days events in London  and
    Birmingham,   England,  March  25  and  26  1997.   I  was  a
    last-minute substitute, the situation not being helped by  my
    discovery  that  my passport expired on the 24th!  However, I
    was able to renew the passport in time.  The flight over  was
    uneventful,  but  I  arrived  at 6AM local time, when my body
    thought it was 1AM.  It took me two days to begin to adjust.

    There were two separate events  -  London  on  the  25th  and
    Birmingham  on the 26th.  The London venue was at an arena in
    the Docklands district, a two-hour tube ride  from  my  hotel
    near  Heathrow,  delayed  somewhat  by a bomb scare due to an
    unattended package at one of the stations down the line.  The
    package   was   claimed   and   the   train  continued.   The
    organization of the London event was pretty much the same  as
    it  was  in Boston - right down to the same scripted sessions
    and the taped Gates opening, though one difference  was  that
    things  started  later than they did in Boston.  I heard that
    about 1200 attended (it seemed about the same as Boston.)

    I spent the majority of the day by the  Digital  booth  there
    was  a  200i  workstation  running  Windows  NT  onto which I
    installed DVF so that I could demonstrate it.  I also  copied
    over  the  "home  page"  of  our  Fortran  web site, with the
    "DIGITAL Fortran" graphics in the hope of  attracting  people
    over.   It  worked better than I had expected over the course
    of the day I spoke to about a dozen people using Fortran  who
    were  interested  in  DVF.   The  only actual demonstration I
    gave, however, was to a pair of  bored  paramedics  who  were
    looking for someone to talk to.

    The vendor exhibits were set up in a central area between the
    various presentation rooms and where food/drinks were served.
    (Well, it sort of was food -  the  lunch  consisted  of  "tea
    sandwiches" which were small and tasteless.  Otherwise, there
    were "biscuits" (sort of a mix between crackers and cookies),
    including  the  famous  "digestives".   I  have  never before
    encountered such awful "convention food".) There were perhaps

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    a  dozen or more exhibitors (contrast with Boston where there
    were about four.) The layout was good, as attendees tended to
    circulate  by  on their way to and from presentations.  There
    were two software distributors there, neither  one  of  which
    had  heard  about  DVF.   I gave Kathy's name to both.  (This
    seems to be a persistent problem the resellers dont even know
    the product exists.) I was asked if Digital could provide any
    collateral or marketing assistance, something we are going to
    have to help with.

    My presentation, which had the  broad  theme  of  development
    tools  but  which featured DVF, was scheduled for 5PM.  I had
    been told that I had 45 minutes, and had  prepared  for  that
    length,   but  when  I  got  there,  I  discovered  that  the
    organizers had given half my time to Fujitsu (which was there
    to  talk  about  their Cobol compiler), without telling me in
    advance.  I stepped through the slides at a quick  pace,  and
    skipped part of the demo that would have been familiar to the
    audience (having seen the same  features  shown  with  Visual
    Studio  earlier  in the day.) I closed with a demo run of the
    QWPiano example program playing "The Entertainer" through the
    PCs speakers (but hooked up to the rooms sound system.) I had
    about 20 people in the room, (a bit more  than  I  expected),
    and   they  seemed  genuinely  interested.   It  was  another
    two-hour (thereabouts) ride back to the hotel (but at least I
    could  sit  down most of the trip!) There, my host Dave Hague
    from the Reading office picked up his car  and  we  drove  to
    Birmingham,  about  100  miles  away, where we checked into a
    hotel near the event site.

    The Birmingham event was  held  at  the  National  Motorcycle
    Museum, but nary a cycle was to be seen around the convention
    center building.  Unlike in London, the  meeting  rooms  were
    two  floors away from the exhibit areas the Digital booth was
    tucked in the back of a secondary room  and  we  were  afraid
    that  we would not get enough traffic, even though coffee and
    lunch would be served in both rooms.  This fear turned out to
    be unfounded, we got plenty of people coming by, though since
    overall attendance was about 750, it was slower  than  London
    (especially as between food breaks, NOBODY was in the exhibit
    area, unlike London.  Nevertheless, I did get several  people
    come  by  and  ask  about Fortran (though, as in London, some
    asked "I remember Fortran - does anyone still  use  it?"  The
    lunch  was  again  tea  sandwiches and biscuits and was again
    awful.

    I again did my presentation in  the  last  slot  of  the  day
    (5:05PM),  but  as the Fujitsu Cobol people didnt show, I had
    the entire slot to myself.  (There  were  people  there  from
    ICL,  once  a  well-known British mainframe manufacturer, but
    now a subsidiary of Fujitsu mainly providing  services.)  The
    room  was  nice  and  big, and if I shielded my eyes from the
    lights, I could count the,  um,  four  people  in  attendance
    (including  one  Digit.)  Nevertheless,  one  audience member

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    asked me  several  serious  questions  about  DIGITAL  Visual
    Fortran,  mainly  about  the  IMSL  libraries  and  any other
    mathematics libraries that might be available.   I  told  him
    about  the  plans to make DXML available, but I couldn't give
    (didn't know) details.  Afterwards, when all  was  packed  up
    and  on  the  truck, Dave drove me back to London, but on the
    way we stopped for dinner at a  nice  pub  in  Oxford,  after
    which I got my first view of Hale-Bopp.

    Thursday morning, Dave picked me  up  and  drove  me  to  the
    Digital  offices in Reading (REO).  The facility most reminds
    me of MRO, but nicer.  To enter or exit the building, you had
    to  use  a  keycard  I got a "visitor" card.  There, I did an
    abbreviated form of my presentation, concentrating on DIGITAL
    Visual  Fortran,  which  the  folks  there  will be receiving
    support calls on.  One issue which came up was how they would
    get  kits - would they have to order them at retail?  I think
    a good idea would be to create a special version of  the  kit
    which  doesnt include Developer Studio, requiring that Visual
    C++ be installed, assuming that this would still not obligate
    us  to  pay  royalties to Microsoft.  (Indeed, I think such a
    configuration might be worth selling, though it may  be  that
    the  price  difference  isnt  worth  the hassle of stocking a
    separate kit.)

    Again the issue of who sells the product came  up  weve  been
    telling  customers to "call your local Digital sales office",
    but this doesnt help if the Digital people dont know what  to
    say.  I think we should compile a list of known resellers and
    make it available at least internally  (though  I  favor  the
    idea  of putting it on the external web pages as well.) Also,
    the Reading people were unaware of what types of  service  we
    were  offering for DIGITAL Visual Fortran, and I explained it
    as best I could.  This too needs to be  communicated  clearly
    to  the field.  Afterwards, Ian McKenzie, Dave and I went out
    to a pub lunch, where I tried yet another locally brewed  ale
    (quite  good!) Ian had initially arranged for me to meet with
    a customer in the afternoon, but when we discovered that  the
    customer didnt care about Fortran and wanted instead to grill
    me about the availability of Alpha versions of VB  and  VC++,
    the meeting was cancelled.  Dave then drove me back to London
    and we said our farewells.

    The messages I heard in England were much  the  same  as  I'm
    hearing in the US.  Customers are eager to buy DIGITAL Visual
    Fortran, if only they can figure out where to order it.   The
    combination  of  a quality Fortran compiler with a compatible
    language  through  high-performance  systems,  and  Developer
    Studio,  is unbeatable.  The field needs to know what to tell
    customers who call them to ask where to buy the product,  and
    what  the  service  options  are.   We  do  not  seem to have
    effectively communicated that to date.

    And now a bit of travelogue England is a very enjoyable place

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    to  visit  the  notoriously bad weather even held off for the
    most part it was cool and sunny most days.  The first thing I
    noticed  was that everything and everyone was so polite, even
    the "under construction" signs!   Tube  operators  would  ask
    passengers  to  "mind  the  gap,  please,"  referring  to the
    sometimes uneven match between train and platform.  A  series
    of signs along an escalator explained in apologetic tones why
    some escalators would be out of service  during  maintenance,
    insisting  that "your journey will not be delayed." The roads
    are all clearly marked, and traffic on  the  Motorways  (like
    our  Interstates)  flowed  smoothly at speeds of up to 100MPH
    (even though the legal limit is 70) with drivers  courteously
    keeping  to  the  left except to pass none of the weaving and
    dodging I see in the US.  Prices are  high  even  though  the
    pound  is  valued  at  about $1.60, it is common to find that
    products cost in pounds about what  Americans  would  pay  in
    dollars  that includes Digital hardware and software.  I dont
    quite understand this.   But  pub  food  (and  drink)  was  a
    relative  bargain,  close  to  US  prices with better quality
    (even if there was  a  preference  for  foods  high  in  fat,
    including  vegetables  that  frequently came in a butter-type
    sauce.)

    In closing, I want to give special thanks to Dave  Hague  for
    carting  me  around  the  countryside  and helping to make my
    visit pleasant and rewarding.