Conference 7.286::digital

	This is how he was introduced at the State of the Company meeting
	I hear. I don't know what it means.

			Alfred

    In one of last week's trade newspapers, there was an interview with 
    Jack Smith, and it was noted that he was named Operations VP the
    Thursday before the article was published.  On the Nightly Business
    Report on the day of the Apple/DEC product announcement, Jack was
    interviewed, and identified as VP of Operations.
    
    Guess we just don't get the official word down here in the trenches
    until after it is in the media.
    
    Mark
    

  What is "operations" in this context? Is it the new name for "Mfg./Eng./Mktg."
(MEM)? Does it include other groups besides MEM? Or is Jack wearing two hats
now?

                  DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION

                       INDUSTRY REACTIONS

Digital announced the promotion of Senior VP, John Smith, to the
position of Senior VP of Operations, a move giving him
responsibility for all manufacturing, sales, manufacturing,
service and marketing.  The decision appears to put Smith in the
position of second executive behind Digital founder and
President, Ken Olsen.  For the past four years Smith has been in
charge of Digital's manufacturing, engineering and product
marketing units.   Along with his other responsibilities, he will
also be responsible for the majority of Digital's employees.  
Smith said the new operations job was created to improve
integration between various units. 

Digital's promotion of John Smith to Senior VP of Operations
fueled speculation that he may be the designated heir to Kenneth
Olsen, but company officials and analysts were wary of saying so. 
John Smith himself declined comment on his own future and
Olsen's.  He said that the headship of operations had been
created to assist integration among separate company units to
improve their synergy.  

A company spokesman said that Smith would not centralize the
organization, but rather assist it to return to its former matrix
structure, in order to stimulate initiative.  

Although the spokesman would not acknowledge that Smith was now
in line to succeed Olsen, he did say that Smith would be over
Winston Hindle, the other Senior VP.  He noted that Smith was in
charge of between 100,000 and 125,000 employees, whereas Hindle
controlled from 300 to 400.  He likened Smith's position to that
of a COO.

Barry Willman, analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., and Terry
Shannon, of IDC, agreed that Smith was the likely candidate to
succeed, but cautioned that Digital's management was subject to
change under Olsen.  Shannon said that Olsen would not be giving
up control soon. (ELECTRONIC NEWS, 5/7/90, p12)

Every time there's some change in the company announced in the press, someone
complains bitterly that "I guess the employees are the last to know" and then, 
a few notes later, someone else (in this case me) points out that the company 
belongs to the stockholders, not the employees, and that federal law requires
that all announcements that substantially affect the business, such as
new products, layoffs, changes in officers, must be announced to the public
first.

    Sure so tell the public first. Heck, give them 2-3 minutes advanced
    warning but sooner or later don't you think it would be nice if they
    told the employees? Some of us are stockholders too BTW.
    
    		Alfred

    I didn't realize that I was excluded fromn the public sector as a DEC
    employee?? If the news is released publicly can it not also be released
    internally? I thought that we communicated with the new high
    technology(E Mail, VTX, Notes) within DEC. Is it illegal to communicate
    electronically until the news shows up on TV or Newspapers?
    
    

At another company the stockholder info people actually dashed around 
posting notices on the bulletin boards two or three minutes after 
transmission to the SEC or whatever.  They also had a mailing list (could be 
a notesfile here) to which all corporate press releases were sent.