Conference 7.286::digital

    I believe the downturn started the day of DECworld 1987. Remember
    when the stock was at $199 and we had the QEII and Oceanic moored
    in Boston. If ever that was a contrarian indicator that that had to
    take the cake. What absolute arrogance.
    
    Ever since then we've had the death by a thousand cuts. 1987 was the
    last year that "The VAX Strategy" was riding high. Unfortunately
    in 1985/86 nobody had replaced it with something. I've just
    read "The Ultimate Entrepreneur Again" (had to write a paper on it).
    Gordon Bell said that we should have got a VAX II out a lot earlier.
    Also if we'd been as prescient about the future as Gordon Bell was in
    1978 when he formed the VAX Strategy, or in 1964 when KO invented
    product lines, or when Gordon Bell invented the PDP-11. Or when we
    opened up the OEM business with the PDP-8 or when the company in the
    early 80s saw what the Charlotte Package (All-IN-1) could we wouldn't
    be in this mess now.
    
    The company has not had an all encompassing strategy since about 1987.
    I see the beginnings of one now but it is still a long way off.
    
    So remember folks next time you see DEC partying it up on the QEII
    phone your broker and shout SELL DEC.
    
    Dave

I believe that when a company starts to view its employees as a resource
to be used up, there is a major problem.  The Digital downturn is more
obvious because the company depended on the employees to produce more than
is in the job description.  But people catch on very quickly.  If you take
advantage of them, the result will be lower returns later.

I don't have enough time in the company to judge when the problem started.
But I can see the results every day.  Three years ago, the parking lot of
this building was busy after 5 o'clock and on weekends.  Now, it is empty
and there are just as many people working here on a daily basis.  What it
tells me is that either the ones who were working the extra hours stopped
or they were replaced by those who don't work the extra time.

My quess is that when bell curve rules came into effect on performance
review and the large growth in the market stopped, people were no longer
being compensated for working extra hard.  Doesn't take long to see where
the company heads at that point.

One more point, when was the last time a "midnight hack" was turned into a
corporate product?  I suppect that was when the downturn started.

Lee G.

P.S.  I think that top management is trying to turn this around but Digital is
a very BIG ship.  This problem didn't happen in a day and won't be solved in
one day either.

    The downturn began on the day IBM gave its stamp of approval to the
    personal computer, that being the critical event necessary to make the
    PC market take off. This event changed the nature of computing for
    ever. Control of computing passed from the provider (Vendors and their
    henchmen in I.S Departments) to consumers, the actual users of these
    computers. Just as Henry Ford, by perfecting the mass production of the
    private car, put an end to the oligoploy of the railroads and street
    car companies for passenger transport, IBM put in motion a set of
    forces that may even put IBM itself out of business and make Digital
    join the Concord, Maynard and Hudson Street Railway in oblivion.
    
    What happened subsequently, as mentioned in previous replies, merely
    contributed to our DECline. 

    I agree with .4 about the PC, but I also think that the success of the
    32-bit VAX(running VMS) also put us in the position we are in.

    As for the PC, Digital has had one disappointment after another.  When
    IBM came out with the first IBM PC, DEC came out with the Rainbow. 
    IBM's became the standard, DEC's became a failure.  I still think to
    this day that the rainbow was a better computer than the original PC. 
    I also wonder what would have happened had the Rainbow been able read
    the IBM 360Kb disk and run the same off-the-shelf software as the IBM
    PC. IBM spent a fortune on marketing the PC while Digital did very
    little marketing with the rainbow. DEC's next PC was the VAXmate, by
    this time IBM owned the the PC standards.  The VAXmate wasn't 100%
    compatible had few options and had no color option.  Now we have the
    DECstations manufactured by Tandy and it wouldn't surprise me if 75% of
    them were purchased internally. I wish that Digital would aggressively
    pursue producing a inexpensive but fast personal workstation(intel and 
    risc) that runs both msdos and unix.  This is what is going to sell in 
    the next bunch of years. 

    As for 32-bit VAX, the success of the VAX running VMS in my opinion
    caused DEC to make two major mistakes.  The first was treating Ultrix
    as an inferior operating system.  If we had been committed to Ultrix
    from the beginning "I think" we would be in a much better position both 
    in the workstation and minicomputer market today.  The other was not
    producing our own RISC processor back in 1987.  We went with MIPSCO
    then and that put us two or three years behind.

    -Bruce
    -Bruce

    While gloating over the wonderful success of the almighty VAX and
    her majesty VMS and her consort DECnet, we missed the major technology
    developments of the 80's:
    
    1. Pervasivness of PC's
    2. Open systems
    3. Heterogeneous networks -- notably Novell LAN's and TCP/IP
    4. Desktop publishing
    
    We're now in danger of missing the next wave:
    
    1. Disconnected computing (aka notebooks and pockets)
    2. UNIX TP (whoever thinks UNIX is for techies has their head in the
       sand).
    3. OOP
    4. OOP married to distributed computing
    5. Multi-media engines
    6. Real exploitation by applications of LAN's and disconnected computing
    
    There are many good folks in Engineering, Marketing, and Sales who are
    now forward-looking.  It's just gonna take time to refocus the
    corporation on a new business model that doesn't depend on VMS to keep
    us alive.
    
    Ever hopeful,
    Ken

    I believe its a combination of factors:
    
    - 386/486 CPUs taking over the desktop and displacing the VTxxx
      terminal, and now moving into the same space occupied by the PDP and
      low-end VAX processors.
    
    - RISC processors coming out with performance which leapfrogs VAX
      performance.  Even with the recent substantial improvements in the
      MicroVAX line (3xxx and 4000), VAXs are still perceived as not being
      competitive on a price/performance basis.
    
    - The advent of inexpensive, easy-to-use systems software, like Unix or
      DOS.  We talk a lot about the added value of VMS (which *does* exist),
      but reality is:
    
     o VMS is WAY too expensive, compared to the competition
    
     o For many customers, Unix (or DOS) is good enough, and they don't
       need, or want, all the bells and whistles they get with VMS.
    
    The product my group produces was very popular on PDP-11s until the
    mid-80's.  Today our competition can put 20 happy users on a 386 with
    an Arnet multiport board for about $12K.  The nearest thing we have is
    the MicroVAX 3100, which is double that ($8K just for VMS!).  I had a
    major European corporate customer (their logo looks like a sea
    shell...you know, like a scallop?) tell me that they were starting to
    use more and more of these systems.  He said "I want a machine with the
    power of a 3100 for half the cost", and I had nothing to say to him,
    cause we ain't got it, and it doesn't look like we're going to have it
    in our lifetime.
    
    These small 10-30 user systems used to be our bread and butter, and
    they used to migrate up to bigger DEC boxes as they grew up.  Now, they
    just lash some PC's together on a LAN, or buy a RISC box.
    
    The people who used to be our customers in the low-end and mid-range
    are buying systems which are smaller, faster, cheaper, and easier to
    install and maintain.  The customers who are in the high end, or who
    require high availability/functionality/expandability will continue to
    use VAX, but will still use PCs and other systems to supplement the
    (relatively expensive) VAX.  And I'm not convinced that Alpha (or
    whatever we're calling it this week) is going to solve that problem.
    
    It's especially discouraging to hear major portions of DEC focused on
    architectures, building massive data structures in the sky, and
    spending gobs of money with no prospect of profitability for years to
    come, while my manager has to grovel and beg to get $500K so we can
    produce a PC version of our product and try to regain the market share
    we've let slip away the last 5-6 years.  (No, he hasn't gotten it
    yet... but he's not giving up).
    
    Don't know about you, but I'm kinda worried.

	Re .6:     "We're now in danger of missing the next wave:"

	Pen-based systems are getting popular, another wave we missed.

	Regards, Robert.

    re .6 - On the mark!
    
    Things are happening in the company to do well in the 90's but 
    segments of our community still are focussed on past glories and missing
    out on both short-term and long-term opportunities. 
    
    The "Isn't it awful!" paradigm is really getting old!
    
    
    

    Like an aging dowager, we are totally inward focused and busy clipping
    the few remaining coupons on our VAX/VMS stock.  Someone else used the
    ship analogy, and it is very appropriate.  Like the Titanic, we thought
    the "even God (IBM) can't sink DEC (Titanic)..."  We ignored all the
    warnings....PC's, Open Systems, Work Stations...but we not only ignored
    them, we (KO) ridiculed them.
    
    Someone previous said that the Rainbow was a "better computer".  That's
    the damned virus that is killing us.  Our customers don't really care
    whose computer is "better".  They just want their problems solved.
    
    So now we have a new strategy for the 90's (I forget what it is).  But
    I fear once again we've missed the boat.  I fear that nothing less than
    a reduction in headcount of 35-50,000, and an almost total
    house-cleaning at the highest levels of the Corporation will work. 
    Let's break the traditional VAX/VMS business away from the mainstream
    of the company (divisionalize it),  essentially get ought'a the
    hardware business (except as a commodity platform), and go after
    the new world with the best software expertise we've got.  We might
    make it.

    I find it interesting to read all these hardware based replies and not
    one thing about our software, solutions, applications.  I find that a
    little scary. Perhaps the stovepipe mentality in this corporation is
    part of the problem as well!  As someone who doesn't know a computer
    from a coke machine - I don't care what the application runs on, I
    only care that it does what my business needs to survive!
    
    (I have the feling that the rocks are about to come flying 8-)! )
    

	Not only do customers want their problems solved (which we can do), 
    but they want the solution to be as inexpensive and as quick as possible.
    Once we are competitive on those grounds, they will look at the quality of
    the solution.  If we got our administrative structure under control, at
    least to the point where we could get a system into customers hands quickly
    and at a reasonable cost, the strangle hold PCs have on the market would
    probably be easily broken.

	When did DEC start losing its edge?  Personally, I suspect it was
    when the uVAX II was announced.  At that time we had the best 
    price/performance in the industry and were making gains in market share
    all over the place.  It was the time when our stock price hit its peak.
    Instead of agressively following up on our success, we went to pot.  We
    started hiring tons of people.  We let our costs get out of control.
    We did not push new systems out the door as fast as we could.  We let our
    best people be put into the corner because they were so demanding and hard
    to get along with.  Simply, we ignored the source of our success and had
    a party.  Well we've got the grand-daddy of all hangovers now.
	We'll get over it, if we can stop partying and get back to work.

    I agree with Dave Garrod about the $199 stock price, but we had
    started seriously smoking our own exhaust a couple of years before
    that.
    
    In 1985 we were getting great press about digging ourselves out
    of 1982.   We also began to seriously believe that whatever we did
    would turn to gold.
    
    The success of Ethernet made the networks business high growth,
    but we too seriously our own story about architecture and standards
    and put all the eggs in the OSI basket.
    
       We ignored (in fact dismissed TCP/IP)
    
    We built the VAXmate, with the initial goal of being IBM compatible,
    but could not resist adding Digital Value to an obsolete model of
    PC (the AT with CGA)
    
    	We ignored the fact that the market was still moving, and that
        the after market was a strong force.
    
    We were legimitized by IBM's competition in the Office Space and the
    success of ALL-IN-1 in meeting user needs.  We assumed that everyone
    with a PC also wanted VAX's and ALL-IN-1.  We built PC ALL-IN-1, and
    stalled PCSA, and PC-DECnet with political infighting. 
        
    	We missed the PC LAN market (Novell)
    
    We loved VMS to death.  UNIX was snake oil, no commercial customer
    would want a "hot box" or a non-VMS operating system.
    
    	We missed becomeing a legitimate player in the UNIX world.
    
    RISC was not VAX.  Architecture was supreme.  The early workstation
    systems (based on 68000's) was lost.  We tried to push VAX/VMS price
    performance too low on the curve.
    
    	Sun was born.  Cutler was lost.
    
    We had an 8600 that was obsoleted by Digital months later
    
        We had money to burn.  Projects live on from momemtum, not demand.
    
    We released the uVAX I for what seems more like process reasons than
    market pull.  It was too little.  Customers became perterbed when the
    uVAX II appeared soon after (is a uVAX III a week away?)
    
       We blinded ourselves to believing that our short term mistakes
       would be fixed in the next release.
    
    We continued to push time shared word processing WPS+ while the rest of
    the world went to Wordstar and Word Perfect.
    
       We ignored the desktop.  In fact we scorned it.
    
    We had political bloodbaths over our need to adhere to standards,
    long after defacto standards existed.  It seemed more driven by
    pride than business sense.
    
       We neglected multi-vendor, and multi-protocol as the expense
       of our installed base.

    We hired every warm body we could, and threw them at each new idea
    we could come up with, without listening to the customers, or looking
    at the competition.

    We went from a point where our internal computing environment and
    communications network was leading edge, futuristic technology,
    to a point where it is non-mainstream, tangential, and lagging.

    So what's happened? 
    
    We added a lot of people with a very poor ROI. 
    
    We've finally seen the end of the profits from the major (in some
    cases bet the company) investments we made from 1976-1980.  
    
    	- VAX
    	- VMS
    	- Ethernet
    	- DECnet
    	- ALL-IN-1
    
    We've lost many of the people who remembered what it was like to
    compete, and were willing to make those decisions.  We've surrounded
    those who remain.
    
    So now we're playing catch-up.  We're hanging on.  
    
    We have ALPHA coming, the middle of the VAX line remains strong,
    we're trying to seriously compete in the transaction processing
    area.  We have a real main frame.   TCP/IP is gaining acceptance.
    We are at least selling a PC.  PCSA (LANworks) is competing, we
    offer somewhat competitive RISC workstations.
    
    We're not leading any more.  We no longer have money to burn.  We
    can no longer afford to carry people and projects as expenses. 
    
    Unfortunatly, we're doing just well enough for the pain to be bearable.
    
    The passion is gone, replaced by a positive attitude and a human
    relations course.
    
-Kevin
        
    

Re .14:

	Most of what you said is right on, except for the last two lines.

>    The passion is gone, replaced by a positive attitude and a human
>    relations course.

	The passion is gone, replaced by a negative attitude and a disreguard
    for the human values, the human values that made DEC the great company it 
    was...

.15 beat me to the point but let me add some more thoughts to the discussion.

As I pointed out in an earlier reply, I think that the company started to lose
when the employees became resources to be used and abused.  Now let me ask some
questions. Are the better people ususally more passionate and as such, do they
cause more problems for managers?   I think that the answer is a resounding
"YES".  BTW, I am not management-bashing but what I am saying is that there are
"professional status-climbing" managers that can be found in every company.
And what does this manager do with a problem employee?  Either the manager
downgrades the employee's performance rating because they cause problems or
just gets rid of them.

Since there are no people, only resources, there is no downside.  The employee
can be replaced by someone who is more calm and quiet even if the new person
can't do the job as well.  If this process goes on long enough, what you end
up with is a very mediocre company.  Calm and quiet but mediocre.

Then, a downturn in the economy or a some other major event happens.  The
company is left without the talent or ability to recover.  Need an example?
Read what Lee Iaccoca said when he first took over Chrysler and looked at their
Engineering department.  It was said to be the best Engineering group in the
Auto industry.  What Lee found was a shell.  The best and brightest had left
Chrysler for better jobs elsewhere.  That company is still trying to recover.

I would hope that Digital doesn't suffer the same fate.  I truly think that
KO has stated both the problem and the solution.  The problem is that the
numbers were more important than the customers or the employees.  The solution
is to get back to the customer as the focus and not to judge any employee's
performance by a number.

Hopeful still for a turnaround,
Lee G.

    While there are certianly mistakes made, I belive that a large factor
    in our problems has been a lack of faith in and understanding our
    strengths.  If our PC clones are cost more because they are better
    engineered and more reliable than others we should be telling people.
    
    VMS was for years the most secure commerical operating system, and
    currently is still one of the most secure.  It certianly offers the
    easist to use security features.  But did we let anyone know?
    
    I just read an interview with David Stone, indicating VMS will be, with
    the addition of the POSIX interface, as open as any UNIX system.  And
    that in terms of networking it is ALREADY an open system.  But are we
    going to let anyone know?
    
    We are not perfect, but even in areas we are good we don't get the
    message out often because we don't realize how good we are.
    
    It is wrong to ignore the demands of the marketplace, but it is also
    wrong not to try to shape it.  Somewhere along the line I think a lot
    of folks decided we could only be followers, not leaders.
    
    Eariler someone knocked long range, complex, architectures and
    projects.  They were correct in observing that we can't be totally
    dedicated to such things to the exclusion of short range goals.  But we
    also can't concentrate only on the short term and ignore the long term.
    
    In fact, I wonder if the basic problem isn't that we have lost the
    right balance between short and long term goals.  To few people are
    interested in both.  The same is probably true of the balance between
    VMS and ULTRIX, between propritary and open systems, leading and
    following the marketplace and so on.
    
    Steve

    re: .17
    
    >strengths.  If our PC clones are cost more because they are better
    >engineered and more reliable than others we should be telling people.
    
    What good is that going to do?  99% of the PC purchase decision in most
    companies are based upon cost.  If you aren't one of the 3 least
    expensive PC manufacturers, they won't even look at your product.  As
    has been said in other replies and topics, most companies don't expect
    to use any given PC for more than a few years.  They don't care if they
    die after 3 years of use.
    
    >VMS was for years the most secure commerical operating system, and
    >currently is still one of the most secure.  It certianly offers the
    >easist to use security features.  But did we let anyone know?
    
    Once again, most customers buying Un*x boxes don't care.  Most
    customers do NOT have world-wide networks and feel that a
    terminal-server-like box with password protection is sufficient.  Now,
    that may change when people put their bet-your-business applications on
    those boxes and someone takes a big-time hit.
    
    If your first statement is true, then we are probably shooting
    ourselves in the foot and should re-think what we are doing.
    
    Your second statement is probably true and we should be doing our best
    to make sure that VMS and ULTRIX stay in the forefront on security. 
    This is a long-term investment that we need to make so that when the
    poop hits the prop and someone takes that big hit, we can step in and
    take advantage of the sudden market demand for 'secure' systems.
    
    An aquaintence of mine lived in an apartment and didn't have renters
    insurance.  Some people working on the roof caught the building on fire
    and the fire stopped one apartment from his.  His belongings suffered
    some water damage.  Did he buy insurance?  No.  2 months later, a hot
    water heater in his building exploded causing more water damage to his
    belongings.  He finally bought renters insurance.  Some companies are
    this way about security.
    
    Bob
    

>    What good is that going to do?  99% of the PC purchase decision in most
>    companies are based upon cost.  If you aren't one of the 3 least
>    expensive PC manufacturers, they won't even look at your product.  As
>    has been said in other replies and topics, most companies don't expect
>    to use any given PC for more than a few years.  They don't care if they
>    die after 3 years of use.

    1.  If the 99% figure was true, IBM would not sell any PCs because
    theirs are not the cheapest.  People still look at IBM because of
    their quality, service and leadership in the field. 

    2. How long a PC's is to be used is not the quality issue.  If the damn
    thing breaks down and people lose data during those three years, that
    adds to the cost of that "cheap" box.  One of AT&T current ads claims
    the SECONDS it takes to make long distance phone calls matter.  What is
    the cost in time of a head crash?

 On security:

    >   Once again, most customers buying Un*x boxes don't care.  Most
 >   customers do NOT have world-wide networks and feel that a
 >   terminal-server-like box with password protection is sufficient.  Now,
 >   that may change when people put their bet-your-business applications on
 >  those boxes and someone takes a big-time hit.

    Just my point.  We should have been making them care now!  This is not
    a "NETWORK" problem.  It is a "I'll boot your PC and copy all your
    files" issues.  Or a "anyone who can plug a PC into your LAN can screw
    up all your local systems" issue. 

    My area of  expertise is security, but it is just an example.  This
    company made "distributed" computing possible.  13 years ago I worked
    for a DEC OEM which was selling PDP-8(!) systems for inventory control
    and distribution management system.  My first job was to convert the
    systems to PDP-11.  We were selling to Fortune 500 companies, replacing
    batch and remote job entry systems.  The concept of doing such things
    was so new that corporate DP departments wanted nothing to do with it. 
    It was driven by the distribution departments, once we showed what was
    possible.  The latest version of that system is still being sold by CA.
    Digital was leading the field. 

    Digital also led the field in networking. 

    We can certainly do better following the market than we are, but to
    really be successful we have to start leading again.  And one way to do
    that is to sell what strengths we have now while developing future
    strong and leading products; not whine that we don't have everything we
    want to sell NOW.

    We did shoot ourselves in the foot on security.  A lot of re-thinking
    and work as been and is being done in that area.  VMS and ULTRIX are on
    the forefront of security, but it does not seem so because of the way
    they are sold.  5 years ago VMS was the ONLY commercial system with an
    official US government security rating, and remained so for at least a
    couple years.  We failed to make that important in the commercial
    market place.  I suspect we have made similar errors in other
    technologies.

    You mention insurance.  Insurance companies spend a great deal of time
    and effort selling the importance of insurance.  They invent new
    innovative products.  AND THE SELL THEIR STRENGTHS.  They don't sit back
    and wait for customers to discover some policies are worth while.

    I don't claim that any single salesperson could get their customer to
    buy a bunch of DEC PCs that can't compete with other clones on a
    commodity basis.  That clearly cannot happen.  But if the company gets
    it act together it should be able make the market want something more
    than a bunch of clone PCs.
    
    And just saying "we have the best" whatever will NOT sell it.  We need
    to explain what makes the best and why it is worth it.  No one thought
    overnight delivery was important until Federal Express made it so.
    
    Steve
    
    

re: .19

Steve,

I think we are in more agreement that we first thought on the security area.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how we can sell security into the general market,
especially the UN*X hot-box market without resorting to FUD.  And even then,
I'm not sure that will work.  It may take a major systems problem caused by
a security breach before most companies have a high level of security awareness.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on the PC area.  It's been a few
years since I was in PSS, but even then, the PC market was essentially a
commodity market.  My customers had one or two IBM PCs and the rest were clones.
In this kind of market, I don't think any 'Digital Difference' will sell many
PCs.

Bob

    The first I felt that we were going for a future fall was in
    the mid eighties. An article in DECWORLD had an interview 
    with either KO or some VP. He indicated that we were going
    to enter the 90's as a 20 billion dollar company and we were
    going to start 'gearing' up for it. That was when the 'empire'
    building started unabated. Of course there was no clear cut plan
    on how we were going to get to this number. 
    
    Jim C.
    

I believe that Digital's downfall is both directly and indirectly attributable
to IBM's introduction of the AS/400 line of computers for the following two
reasons:

  o Digital could no longer claim a premium based on being the dominant
    minicomputer manufacturer.  Now no market was secure.  This eliminated
    our cash cow and restricted our development efforts.  

  o The invasion of our minicomputer market led to our counterpunch in the 
    mainframe market:  the VAX 9000 series.  Although they were and are
    a technological tour de force the 9000s were a blunder of magnificent
    proportions.  The series will never make money as our market is too
    small to recoup development costs but this isn't the worst of it.

    The resources which were spend on the 9000s were not spent on disk 
    drives, workstations, networks, or other opportunities.  Think of where
    we would be today if we had invested as much on porting all our VMS
    based software over to UNIX as we did on the 9000s.

Where do we go from here?  Alpha is probably the only way DEC can keep its
customer base and position for future growth.  Unfortunately Alpha is a long
way away and is no guarantee.  Once you get behind on a treadmill it is 
very difficult to catch up.  And there will be alot of red ink between now
and Alpha.

Unfortunately Digital has no choice but to CUT, CUT NOW, and CUT DEEP.  Full
departments, buildings, and product lines must be eliminated and rationalized.
At least 20,000 people, one million square feet of building space, and 33% of
our products must be eliminated to lower our breakeven point.  All cuts should
be based on where we can combine products to maximize profitability.  Personnel
cuts should be arbitrary and based upon what department that individual
resides in.

I feel lousy about the individual impacts such a course of action will have and
will probably be one of the people who is layed off but it does nobody any good
to do several gradual cutbacks based on short term performance reviews.  The
company would be so weakened as to be a motivational and economical cripple.

Mike
    

    People, People, People!!!  You're missing it.  Five years from now the
    average user in a distributed computing environment will not know, much
    less care what kind of computer/operating system is running.  Their
    only concern will be application up-time and superb service of same.
    
    By then price will constitute 99.999% of the decision process in buying
    new pc's/work stations.  We cannot compete in this hardware marketplace
    given our cost structure.  In FY89 we sold 50,000 workstations and lost
    50 megabucks.  In FY90 we sold 25,OOO PC's and lost 11M bucks.  Our
    hardware business is killing us, and I'm sorry to tell ya, but SW isn't
    a hell of a lot better.  You want good state-of-the-art software these
    days???....go to the software store in your local mall...but it might
    cost you a hundred bucks.
    
    To others...we are not negative...we are realistic.  The VAX/VMS
    business must be stabilized technically and cut loose from the
    Corporate mainstream otherwise we are dead.  If we can't deliver superb
    software in 9-12 months at 20% of today's cost that market is dead too.
    
    On "human values".....sorry, we are literally in a fight for survival.
    It is that bad!  We are not the corporate equivalent of Mount Holyoke.
    
    If we are not seriously into the distributing computing business, and
    successful at it 4-5 years from now I think we'll lose it.
    
    To be successful, we should downsize to about 60-70K employees by that
    time.                                                   

    re: .23
    
    Who died and made you omniscient?
    
    First of all, it is by no means clear that price will be the primary
    buying criteria in this marketplace.  There will continue to be a mix
    of relationship and transaction buyers and companies who compete based
    on adding value and service will continue to dominate over those who do
    not.  Digital's problem is not that it is a value-added supplier, per
    se, but that we still seem to arrogantly think that what's valuable to 
    us is naturally of value to our customers.  We don't listen.
    
    Second, I don't believe for an instant your figures on how much we lost
    on workstations and PC's because this is a company which doesn't have a
    clue what it's costs are.  The current mechanism for allocating
    corporate overhead is brain-dead because it cannot effectively account
    for the proportion of use among the various products we manufacture and
    sell. In fact, this is not an unusual problem for large corporations
    and is one of the reasons we are moving towards the "New Management
    System".
    
    Al
    

Re .23:

	Just out of curiosity, where do your loss figures come from?  If we
    lost so much on workstations and PCs, where did we make up for it?

	Also, you are missing a very very important point about the human
    relations stuff.  The problem is NOT to be nicy nicy to the people who
    work for you.  The problem is to listen to what they have to say when 
    they tell you that you are full of shit and are about to blow it big 
    time.  The problem is to identify the people who really do the work and
    encourage them, rather than encouraging the people who do nothing more
    than make you feel good.  The problem is to get the work done and reduce
    the friction that stops or slows the work.  The human relations stuff IS
    what a manager HAS to manage.  If he doesn't, he's acting as a technical
    project leader, not as a manager.

    No one made me an expert...but I do keep my eyes and ears open.  Even
    someone as dumb as me can make an educated guess that a VMS layered
    product that took two-plus years to develop, and sold .7% of forecasted
    licenses is probably losing money.  
    
    I feel that there is no such thing as added value on what are rapidly
    becoming the purest form of commodity items (computers that is).
    
    We have a reasonably good chance of adding value in the distributed
    computing environment.  We are generally rated rather highly in this
    arena...but we gotta get moving FAST!
    
    Please don't sniff at my numbers that quickly.  The source of the WS
    numbers was the VP who managed that PBU; the source of the PC numbers
    was a Corporate Consulting Engineer.  BTW, our attempts at selling
    PC's is a good example of how much our customers appreciate our
    added value there.  In that same year 33,000,000 PC's were sold
    without "added value".
    
    I know everything is allocated....but I do have a reasonably good
    handle on the numbers for some of our hardware businesses, and I think
    WSs and PCs are pretty easily to isolate.
                         

Re .26:

	I've met some of the projections before.  It depends on who is doing
    the projecting how realistic they are.  Still you're probably right about
    the product that only did .7% of projected not making a profit.

	However, you ignored the other half of the question.  Where did we
    MAKE the money that covered the losses you mentioned?

	And the point about the human relation stuff is exactly the point in
    your title.

    Re .-1
    
    What product are we talking about that only made 0.7% of projected
    revenue. I've lost the thread here.
    
    Dave

Re .28:

    From .26

>    No one made me an expert...but I do keep my eyes and ears open.  Even
>    someone as dumb as me can make an educated guess that a VMS layered
>    product that took two-plus years to develop, and sold .7% of forecasted
>    licenses is probably losing money.  
    
	That one.  I havn't the foggiest exactly what he's talking about but
    I'm willing to believe the critter exists.  I've seen stuff sell 500 units
    when 20000 were projected by the enthusiastic (and that 500 units wildly
    exceeded the sales the unenthusiastic predicted).

    Re: .20
    
    I am not sure we disagree NOW, but the discussion was about what caused
    the downturn, not what can turn it around today.  There were many
    causes, I'm sure, but I still think not exploiting our strengths to the
    fullest was one.  Not recognizing our weaknesses was another.
    
    Steve
    
    

    You're right, we should get back to the core issue.
    
    I believe the true cause was that we failed (refused??) to recognize
    a major course change in the business from proprietary mini's and
    O/S's, to commodity platforms, open systems, and multi-vendor
    distributed environments.
    
    We fell deeply in love with our engineering "excellence", and our
    damned corporate mystique (whatever that is).  We truly believed that
    we could ignore the obvious.  It's very much the same as what happened
    when silent movies were replaced by "talkies".
    
    We were also very ill-served by senior management.

    I perceive the downturn started after DECworld'87, when I think we
    really started to believe all the press and analysts stories about 
    how good we were.  I think certain events, before & after DECworld '87,
    were indicators of things to come:
    
    1).  We started stating when we estimated we would pass IBM in
         revenues (we were growng 20-30% & IBM 10%)
    
    2).  PRISM was cancelled to insure the growth of traditional VAX
         systems (RISC was not going to be popular)
    
    3).  Just when the UNIX market started taking off for good, we hit
         the "snake oil" patch
    
    4).  The "NBS" (New Business System) was developed to save our 
         ability to control, monitor and account for the new organizational
         responsibilities
    
    5).  3-6 months before "Silverlake" was due to hit, Marketing
         cancelled a program to directly attack the S/34-36-38 base,
         saying the market was not large enough or strategic enough,
         and the AS/400 was not a direct threat to Digital.
    
    There were others, and most were overshadowed by the good things we
    did, but hopefully we will prevent future problems by remembering the
    past.
    
    Mark
    
    
    5).  

    
    	I think Kevin(.14) spoke most eloquent. For the first time i can
    remember, i have no rebute, especially the last 2 lines. I've certainly
    had my passion bludgeoned by what i consider HR terror tactics.
    Dick Lennard speaks numbers I've heard before. All the personel cost
    estimates are probably being too generous since we all like our
    jobs :-).   A memo I saw concerning a David Stone talk attributes him
    saying most of our layered products don't earn money 'till v3.0, if
    they get that far! I'd certainly agree....
    
    	We are NO LONGER LEADERS in this industry.  We HAVE to change 
    many of our business practices. We need to take MONTHS, not YEARS
    to develop sofware products. We need to scrape away the built in
    6 months minimum process overhead for each project. 
    
    	bob
    

    Anyone interested in this overall subject matter would probably enjoy
    reading "Marketing Warfare" by Al Ries and Jack Trout (Plume).  It's a
    great strategy book and any reader will not likely forget the basics of
    attacking one's own products and services in order to survive.

    	I don't know if I would pin the blame on the admittedly somewhat
    wild partying on the QEII at DECworld '87.  Those were excessive times,
    there is no doubt about that.  I have been to some fairly extravagant
    parties in my day (Hollywood film debuts, expensive weddings, etc.),
    and nothing came close to DECworld '87.  But DECworld '87 was, for
    the most part, money well spent given the existing economic climate.
    As with any promotional event, it was a big gamble: you have to spend
    money to make money.  If it wasn't for the overall economic downturn
    which occurred later that year, DECworld '87 would have paid off big
    time (especially since DEC barely advertises at all - another problem).

    	I think we can all basically agree that the downturn occurred
    during the Stock market crash of October '87.  That was when the
    nightmare began, and despite a few promising glimmers of light here
    and there, it continues.  It wasn't until the spring of 1988 that
    I learned of the biggest mistake DEC had made that year: two many
    capital expenditures (i.e. purchases of previously leased buildings
    and/or properties primarily in Massachusetts, but also elsewhere).
    The reason I know this is because I was in Merrimack for the State
    of the Company address manning the Transaction Processing demo and
    I listened to the bad news along with the rest of the top company
    executives.

				   -davo

    As a recent additional to the world of DEC, I can't say much about
    *when* the downturn started, but I can make a few comments about some
    other contributing factors.  I work in Customer Services Account
    Support (the folks who sell maintenance, etc.) as a Dept Coord III.  I
    have fairly good business sense, and I see things pretty clearly. 
    Here's some of the things I see that may have caused the downturn and
    are continuing to exacerbate the problem:
    
    1.  A reluctance to grow, change, learn.  I see this every single day;
    even the wonderful group with which I work does this.  As an example,
    we are currently implementing TRS (don't ask me what it stands for!),
    which is an ALLIN1-based leads management system.  I have tried it, and
    it is great.  But every single ASG rep was peeved that the "old" way
    (haphazard mental/hand tracking) was changing, and frightened that the
    new way would interfere with their old habits.  Geez, *somebody* spent
    a lot of time and money to make their lives easier, and they wouldn't
    even give the system the benefit of the doubt!  
    
    While this single instance means little or nothing in the long run, it
    is typical of the reigning attitude DEC has run on for years now..."We
    are the best already, so why change?"  
    
    2.  Price/performance is a *major* issue with our customers.  All of
    you have noticed this and discussed it from the H/W and S/W viewpoint. 
    However, it just adds fuel to the downturn fire when you factor in
    third party maintenance firms that can offer services for up to 50%
    *less* than DEC, and that's without using discounts/allowances!  Since
    most of the TPM firms do not have to "support" a large manufacturing
    and sales division, they can afford to offer service for less. 
    Customer Services has hedged its bets for a long time with the thought
    that our customers *have* to come to us for software updates, which
    will supposedly give us an edge over the competition. HAH!  Some edge! 
    While most of the end users we serve are very pro-DEC and would rather
    see a DEC engineer than any other, their purchasing organizations don't
    look at "quality" in maintenance, just the bottom-line price!  I cannot
    count the number of customers we have lost this year over price issues. 
    We cannot allowance deep enough to be competitive, especially when we
    cannot allowance software service at all!!  
    
    3.  I also see a "pound wise, penny foolish" attitude that is *still*
    out there, in spite of transition, cut-backs, freezes, falling stock
    price, etc.  I recently attempted to capitalize an order for a PC for
    my desk so that I could produce really good proposal data, with color
    graphics, etc. (I support 14 CS sales reps in a highly competitive
    market here in Southern California...)  My order for $1800 (for which
    we did budget this year) was rejected my boss' manager, and yet 
    there are over a dozen idle lease car sitting in a garage at another
    lcoal facility for over a year now, and my poor boss has had to make six
    expensive trips (over $300 in airfare each time, plus hotel, etc.) for
    staff meeting which netted absolutely no useful information that could
    not have been transmitted via e-mail, con call, etc.
    
    3.  The "attitude" that keeps poor performers because it is too
    difficult to fire someone, but gets rid of great people because their
    job has "gone away".  We have all seen this happen in the recent
    transition, and many of those poor performers have been riding on the
    waves of management apathy for a very long time, so it can't be a
    recent phenomenon.  Now, H/W-S/W sales reps all over are being berated
    for budget deficiencies, regardless of whether any sense was put into
    the budget calculation.  I have an acquaintance in sales whose personal
    budget for FY91 is as large as some entire units, even though he sells
    in the aerospace industry!!  He is suffering just as hard for his
    budget deficiency as anyone else, and could be fired if he doesn't make
    it, yet some people out there have 200%-300% of budget by virtue of the
    fact that their industry is doing well and their budget was less than a
    tenth of my acquaintance!!  What is wrong with this picture??
    
    Okay, time to get off my high horse!! *Deep Sigh*!!  
    
    Anyway, as far as I am concerned, there is very little wrong
    with DEC that would not be cured by common sense management and some
    *major* enthusiam boosting in the employee ranks!!
    
    M.

    I'm just a fab operator but I have read all these replies and
    agree with just 95% of them. Its said that this company as
    gone this way, bigger ones have had the same problem.
    My question is didn't anyone forsee this situation before
    all of this downturn happened? Didn't anyone speak up and
    say "look out we're going under". When I came in here
    8 mos. again I had the same energy that all the new people
    had. I was so excited and brainwashed into believing this
    was something bigger and better than ever.  Now all I feel
    is sadness because I really enjoyed working on what I thought
    was a big item in the market. I'm not alone there are many
    many of us fab people who feel this way. But why did'nt 
    someone see this before?????
    

    
    >Didn't anyone forsee this situation before it happened?
    
      Yup - I still remember back in 87 when the stock was over $180/share
    and we had just announced another good quarter,  Some unknown
    guy named Smith was complaining that our cost structure was too
    high...  I remember wondering if he knew something that the 
    other 119,999 of us didn't...
    
    
                                           -al
    

    some random thoughts.......
    
    "price" and "commodity": By calling our products commodity items, we
    automatically concede to a price war.  We have to differentiate our
    products and services by finding and highlighting our added values or
    capabilities.  Price IS NOT the #1 consideration of our customers! 
    It's on the list of critiria, but it's not a show stopper.  In 5 years
    of sales, I can only think of a handful of sales I lost because of
    price.  The secret is that our "added value" has to be priced
    reasonably.  If Price was the sole critiria, IBM would've gone out of
    business a long time ago.
    
    Downturn: I absolutely agree that we missed some strategic markets that
    we could've captured easily.  PCs - we were THE distributed computing
    vendor when PCs took off, and aren't PCs the ultimate distribution of 
    compute power? Workstations - we owned the engineering departments where 
    workstations made their initial mark.  Just about every engineering 
    department I dealt with had VAXes and was loyal to Digital.  They 
    wanted to buy DEC, if only we had a product.  We were at least 2-3 
    years late with our serious products.  UNIX - I remember that when UNIX
    started becoming a buzzword, Digital had the LARGEST market share of
    installed UNIX/ULTRIX systems.  We saw that eroded because we couldn't
    market our way out of a paperbag.  It's easy to see these mistakes
    NOW since hindsight is 20/20.  However, it does us no good to talk 
    about what COULD have happened.  We need to learn our lessons and 
    move on.  We have to find and focus on our strengths, organize around 
    them, and sell/market them agressively.
    
    blindspot: I've always felt that our engineering group and product
    marketing group had a blindspot when it came to competition.  The
    message was that whatever we built just had to be better than what's
    out there, and that there weren't any reasons why a customer would want
    a competitor's products, because, hey, we're DEC! Consequently, some 
    products (I won't say all since we have some excellent products that 
    are unmatched in the industry) miss the target markets entirely. 
    Let's keep it simple!  ASK the customers, or us salespeople, what the
    customers want and map that into our product strategy.
    
    human value: I agree 100% with the noters who pointed out that Digital
    seems to be valuing its employees less.  Cutting headcounts and
    reducing expense may help improve our short term profitability, but
    until we get the workforce motivated again and marching to a single
    drumbeat, we are not going to see profitable growth in the near future.  
    
    PROFIT = REVENUE - EXPENSE.  I've seen a LOT of activities on reducing the
    expense side.  But I haven't seen an equal level of enthusiasm on
    raising the revenue side, which is where I think our salvation is.
    
    anyway....enough rambling for one note......
    
        

    Some markets are price-insensitive.
    Others are more price-sensitive.
    Yet others are commodity markets.
    
    All of them can recognize an over-priced product when they see one.
    
    -dave

    .39 .. really determined to go down with the ship, aren't you?  Price
    is the overwhelming issue, period.  We never really did have much
    added value...just thought we did, and then actually started believing
    it.  We've gotta wake up...even the 9000 is a damned commodity.
    
    .36 has really hit it on the head.  We have too many people unwilling
    to change...too close to retirement, I guess.  Also our attitude
    towards the internal useage of PC's, WS's, etc., is absolutely
    medieval.  I too would love to have a PC.  No chance, but I could
    get a business trip of equivalent cost approved in 15 minutes.
    
    And then I took a day's vacation yesterday, and the stock went down
    four bucks.  I'm gonna have to start being more careful.

    .41...No, I'm just trying to help turn the ship in the right direction. 
    Price IS an issue, but it's NOT the overwhelming one.  The game of
    sales is in differentiating your products & services so that the
    customer is aware of your added value.  Prime and Data General were two
    companies that competed on price primarily, yet we beat them
    consistently on our added value.  Look at where they are now.  
    Sun's primary competitive strategy at the beginning wasn't price,
    it was performance!  Our customers gladly paid more for the superior
    performance.  Once we had competitive hardware products, they shifted
    the playing field to applications portfolio.  They had the
    applications, we didn't.  Now that we have the applications, and
    products, and maybe even price, they're competing with superior market
    share and mindshare of the customers.  This is exactly how we competed 
    against DG and Prime in the mid 80s!
    
    If you think that we can be successful by mfg low-cost "commodity"
    items, you're dead wrong.  Besides, it'd be a dull company to work for.
     
    By calling our products commodity items, you level the 
    playing field for our competitors and concede away whatever added value
    we do have.  It's a quick way to lose.  Paperclips and pencils may be 
    commodity items, but I'll even doubt that paperclips and pencils 
    manufacturers will tout their items as commodity items.
    
    Successful companies will always differentiate their products from the
    competition.  Purdue does it by claiming the highest quality.  IBM does
    it by claiming superior service.  Sun does it by claiming standards,
    openess, and market share.  H-P does it by claiming superior
    engineering.  Compaq does it by claiming superior implementation of
    technology.  The list goes on.  When we start to believe we market
    commodity items, we're in REAL trouble.  If I want to sell low cost
    "commodity" PCs, I'd have left Digital a while ago.  I happen to agree
    with Ken that we do the complex stuff better than anyone else, and
    that's what I want to sell.  
    
    I will agree with you that at some point, we started believing we had
    MORE added value than what customers actually perceived.  But don't
    believe for one moment that we don't bring added value to a customer.
    
    

    re -1 .... well stated, but rearwards looking.  I'm basically talking
    about five years from now.  Most large users won't even know, much
    less care whose equipment is behind their application.
    
    Personally, I believe we will pretty much be out of the hardware
    business, except in those instances where we can make a commodity
    priced hardware offering as part of our systems integration pitch.
    I expect that if you are hardware oriented, you will be very bored
    as by that time hardware will be very boring.
    
    There's a guy named Olsen who I think agrees with me.  Last week he
    directed the PC, WS, Communications, and Storage businesses to adopt
    the Dell Computer Co., business model.  That's about as "commodity"
    oriented as you can get.
    
    The next 3-5 years ought to be very interesting.

    RE- LAST BUNCH!!!
    
    Commodities, applications, service, quality, cost,---- not a d**n bit
    of it makes any difference if the whatever is not ====$OLD=====.
    
    Oh yes, we sell stuff by the billions of dolars worht but lets just
    face the facts, Digital, as a corporate entity, has never had a good 
    track record for SALESMANSHIP. Many have believed that if we built the
    better mouse trap, or mouse, or mouse controller, the wourld would beat
    a path to our door. They probably would if anyone except the engineers
    knew about it because we never allowed ourselves to be advertised on
    anything except educational TV or as " the official computer of the
    NBA" once a year, Or if once a prospective customer learned of our Mouse,
    there was a person to talk to at the time of the call, not a week
    later, or if the person who answered the call a month later was really
    talking about mouse traps and not mouse t**ds.
    
    I am not saying that sales or advertising are the total culprits because 
    they certainly are not. Other factors are Ignorabnce and apathy -
    people don't know whats wrong and don't care whats wrong. or the
    problems are recognized and the soulution without malice aforethought
    is, feed it money and people. Or the thought prevails that "hey it
    worked 20 years ago it's got to work now."
    
    I may be rambling but after 17 years with the company I feel I do have
    a right to speak. Right wrong or indifferent. And maybe I, like a
    goodly number of others, have waited too long to do so.
    

    Over the weekend I hade time to think about Digital"s problem.
    If management and sales are to blame why doesn't the company
    get some new ideas from new people. Give it a good dose of
    common sense. Get with the 90"s and quit sitting on our
    with their hands tied. Come down here to the fab talk to
    us the little people who are building this product....
    You'd be surprised at what answers and ideas you would get
    from us... It seems all the big boys in those higher offices
    only read reports and paperwork but do they ever really
    see what goes on in here the heartbeat of DIGITAL...
    Maybe some of the idea could help get this product moving
    in the right direction....

re: .44,

>   Other factors are Ignorabnce and apathy -

    	This is either a classic typo, or you are exactly right!  %^)

    	I do have to agree with you however on the issue of selling.
    We still have yet to fully lower ourselves to that petty bourgeois,
    non-collegiate, and mundane capitalistic endeavor.  We can't advertise
    either, it's too tacky as well.  Or, at least you'd think that was the
    case sometimes after looking at how we end up soliciting business.  Hell,
    maybe we should hold a fundraiser like public television and radio do
    and simply beg for money?  of course we'd call it something else, like
    "user-supported computerware" or something tasteful like that.  At least
    then the people outside of New England who've been told we exist (you
    know, the people who watch PBS that one or two times a week when the
    kiddy-block logo gets a few seconds of TV time) might comprehend that
    we are actually in business selling computer products.

    	The shame of it all is that our most powerful potential advertising
    medium of all - these notesfiles and the Digital people who know how
    to utilize them - have always been off-limits to the marketplace!~~
    If we could only set up an alternate noting envionment that would be
    open to the public, then we would instantly add an on-line, 24-hour-a-day
    sales and marketing force to help boost sales!  Not only would it help
    sell DEC equipment, but such a network setup would also sell itself as
    an innovative marketing medium!  We can cash in on this people-oriented
    electronic environment!

	What's even more amazing is that the groundwork for such a network
    noting marketplace is already in place!  For years we have had The
    Electronic Store (an on-line, VAX Producer-based electronic showcase
    of Digital products), and now there is something even newer called
    ISVNet which promises to be even more successful.  To access ISVNet,
    simply use any terminal & modem (set to 8-bits per character, no parity,
    on either a 1200, or 2400 baud line) and call 1-800-234-1998.  Then
    enter the following to log in and use it:

	User Account : 1-19771
	Sub Account Number : 0
	Password : ISVUSER

	...and you're in business with DEC!  Check it out!  All we need
    now is the human element - all we need are DEC's employees noting in
    ISVNet notesfiles to communicate with potential DEC customers!

				  -davo

p.s.   	My first job at DEC was that of programming Interactive Video
    	Information System (IVIS) training courseware to the Digital Sales
    	force (back before the IVIS Sales Training group, along with the
    	Pro-Series computer it depended on, went down the tubes).  Strange
    	how ever since the decision was made to eliminate the computer-based
    	courses from Sales Training that DEC seems to be having more trouble
    	selling computers!  I think it's high time we reconfigured the sales
    	force such that they use our computer products in helping them sell!

    re: -.1
    
    I suggested that to my management years ago.  It was blown off as a
    security issue.  Same reason for not allowing us to have our node path
    on business cards.  I don't know if that is still the policy.  Funny
    though that I was REQUIRED to put my organization and such on the card.
    
    Steve

    re: .47
    
    Years ago; security as an excuse?; yes possible! (due to lack of 
    understanding and/or discipline!).
                     
    These and coming years; DEC into and pushing for open systems, 
    open networks; we all (as company) for certainly (must) understand 
    and also force ourselves into certain disciplinairy mode to ensure 
    security clearance; only then we merit open systems/network company 
    awards (sell what we use; show what we use,....you know!).
    
    Advanced Electronic Services, positioned as a very important and world
    wide program, is/will also be introduced, whereby basically customers 
    (and there systems) will be  "(in)directly" tied into the easynet
    (security show up as a controlled topic now).
    Imagine the possibilities. Not only Customer Services ("Services")
    will be able to use these facilities for predictive,
    preventive and remedial services but other functions providing their
    services (via the same facility-link) such as; training catalogue, 
    -enrollment; direct mailing, direct merchandising catalogue, -survey; 
    symptom/solution questionaires, etc......  try yourself and fill in.
    
    A facility as such (in)directly reduce costs for DEC and probably is
    sellable to our customers to be used to reduce their purchasing costs
    (business: we introduce internal cost saving to be competitive, use it
    also and sell it later to the customer as form of consultancy, that's
    fact of life!).  
    
    Keep on convincing! 
    
    ...closing down my phylosophical part, and back to work!
       

	Remember when we used to bundle lots of "non-supported" programs
	on OS distributions, sorta, kinda like some other operating systems
	at that time? But then, we couldn't do that any more because "the"
	(some? one?) customers couldn't distinguish supported from non-
	supported software? And then, for some reason, we could only enhance
	the programmer visible parts of VMS - end user tools like MAIL
	stopped improving at V3 or so. Was this the slippery slope that
	caused us to pull back on the functionality of the OOTB programs
	for DECwindows? (Does anyone out there have an aftermarket 
	DECwindows program that is enduser focused. Ie, not a major app,
	just a $25 - $50 program. Maybe a DECwindows solitaire?)

	If this isn't clear, I think I'm talking about times when we
	found strategic reasons to disappoint our customers.

	Jim

    re: .46-.48
    
    There is also the question of liability to DEC.
    
    Imagine that a customer uses some suggestions from the CLUSTER notes
    file to address a problem he's having.  The customer implements the 
    suggestions only to find that his cluster crashes and won't get back
    up.  He could, potentially, sue DEC for bad advice.
    
    Not to throw water on the idea in its basic form.  I think it is an
    excellent thought and should be brought up to the appropriate Comm.
    
    -TB

    Suggesting what customers will or won't do in order to sue or not sue
    is the sort of speculation that conferences like this one need less of. 

    Hardly speculation!  All you have to do is read about customers who
    sue their software suppliers (or try to) because a change in code 
    has now broken their model or application!
    
    Suggest you read Wall Street Journal, Digital Review, DEC Professional
    and other trade magazines.
    
    It's still a good idea!  Just limit the number of people to those who
    can help the customer not flood him with suggestions.
    

    It's sort of humorous to suggest that I, of all people, should read the
    Wall Street Journal...
    
    In any case, I'm aware that companies get sued and in DIGITAL and
    MARKETING have commented on them:  Real cases that don't involve
    Digital but have a lesson for Digital.
    
    The sort of speculation that we need less of is of the form:
    
    "If Digital does (does not do) X, we ought to be sued"
    
    "If the customer found out that we did (did not do) X, we should be (are
    going to be) sued".
                                          

The suggestion in .46 was not to give customers access to the internal
conferences, but to set up an alternate noting environment, like ISVnet.

Well, just that was done over three years ago.  It has been running strong
since then.  It currently costs customers $60/year plus whatever it costs
them to dial in (at most $15/hour undiscounted day rates on AT&T).  DECUS
is proposing to drop the annual fee as of 1 July.

It's called DECUServe, and it is one of the fastest and cheapest ways that
customers can get problems solved.  Some of the best technical people around
are participants (both DEC employees and DECUS wizards).

For more information, see the internal conference CADSYS::DECUSERVE, which
describes the system and how DEC employees can get free accounts.

/john

re: .54,

> Well, just that was done over three years ago.  It has been running strong
> since then.  It currently costs customers $60/year plus whatever it costs
> them to dial in (at most $15/hour undiscounted day rates on AT&T).  DECUS
> is proposing to drop the annual fee as of 1 July.

	Sounds like a great deal for DEC customers!  But what about DEC
    support centers?  Why should the customer pay for support anymore
    when they can get the [milk] for free?

	I'm elated that such a network exists, and I also think it's good
    that we are dropping the annual fee (as an annual fee is like forcing
    someone to pay an entry fee to shop in an [information] store), but I
    think the network might benefit from an Info-Store setup (along the
    lines of the note #1024 discussion) to allow certain valuable information
    to be sold for a price.

				    -davo

>> DECUS
>> is proposing to drop the annual fee as of 1 July.

    Note that the latest *rumor* at our Detroit area LUG meeting indicates
    that this may not be so, due to lower attendance at recent symposia.
    
>	Sounds like a great deal for DEC customers!  But what about DEC
>    support centers?  Why should the customer pay for support anymore
>    when they can get the [milk] for free?

    DECUServe is not the only support outlet.  There is a VAX Forum on
    CompuServe and the VAX echo in FIDOnet.  I'm sure that many DECUS LUGs
    run bulletin boards in their geographic areas that do the same thing.
    
    DECUServe is NOT an official DEC support outlet.  I peruse DECUServe
    daily, answer questions when I can and offer advice when asked.  Also,
    note that I pay my $60/year - not DEC. However, I am not the offical
    voice of Digital.  My comments are my own - if they're wrong, the
    people who read my comments suffer accordingly.  There is no escalation
    procedure for those questions that no one on DECUServe can answer.
    
>	I'm elated that such a network exists, and I also think it's good
>    that we are dropping the annual fee (as an annual fee is like forcing
    
    Remember that DECUServe is a service provided by DECUS, *not* by DEC. 
    We (DEC) didn't drop the annual fee, as we didn't charge it to begin
    with.  
    	Stu (a DECUServe subscriber, and Sysop of the CompuServe VAX Forum)

Yep, Free DECUServe may be dead.

It remains free to DEC Employees, subject to approval by the DECUServe Chair.

re: .0

>Can anyone pinpoint when the Digital Downturn started?

Hard to say!  (Especially since it's continued for so long since that entry.)

Everyone probably has their own chronology of the events that have brought
this company a few short steps away from the brink of Wang-dom.  Here's one
version (note about half of these "milestones" happened since we first started
to admit that there was an actual "downturn"):



Apr/May	1986	The Death Spiral Begins: SEXCETERA notesfile closed down.;^)

Sep	1986	Strike Two: misnamed VAXmate introduced as an AT "unclone".

Sep	1987	DECb(l)oat: cash flows for DECworld on the QE2.

Oct	1987	Stock market crashes.

Dec	1987	JEC rears its ugly head, redefining the term "boondoggle".

Sep	1988	Snake Oil: Ken Olsen makes DEC persona non grata at UNIX EXPO.

Nov	1988	Hackers: a year of computer and network break-ins culminates
			in the shutdown of numerous major data center systems.

Feb/Mar	1989	Just Say Yes: to drug testing for Digital employees on DoD
			contracts (mostly in Services).

May	1989	Experiment in Terror: AHOD, which begat COD I, which begat COD
			II, which begat COD III (over the next year), with most
			of the relocated and retrained workers laid off later.

Sep	1989	CRACK!: "Voluntary" TFSOs start for idled manufacturing workers.

Oct	1989	THUD!: the VAX 9000 is introduced in a "bet-the-company" move to
			gain entry to a market already in decline.

Mar	1990	TFSO is reaffirmed/continued as a voluntary program at less $$$.

Oct	1990	Does It Hurt When I Do This?: US medical benefit cuts pick up
			steam as HealthNet concept is introduced.

Jan	1991	The Dam Breaks: "involuntary" TFSOs begin with lesser package.

May	1991	NMS rears ITS ugly head--the ensuing year will show how little
			control Ken Olsen really has over his middle managers.

Jun	1991	Late For Its Own Funeral: DECnet/OSI finally officially
			announced (for Ultrix only).

Jul	1991	Red ink starts gushing in earnest as Q4 loss is announced.

Nov/Dec	1991	Don't Try Suicide: medical benefits cut again; Alpha is
			prematurely introduced in response to trade rag leaks-- 
			killing whatever momentum VAX sales had.

Mar	1992	The Longest Rumor: SERP finally arrives.

Jun	1992	What's In a Name?: VMS becomes OpenVMS.

Jul	1992	BODybagged: Ken Olsen out--the Board bypasses the Senior VPs
			(Jack Smith, John Sims, Win Hindle, Don Zereski--all
			but Hindle are eventually ex-employees) to pluck Bob
			Palmer from the ranks of the Young Turks (of the
			others, Pier Carlo Falotti departs immediately and
			David Stone soon after, leaving only Charlie Christ).

Oct	1992	TFSO package reduced sharply.

Nov	1992	Medical benefits cut again.

Mar	1993	Home Sweet Home: planned Maynard Mill closing is announced.

Jul	1993	TFSO package reduced again.

Aug	1993	Round Up the Usual Suspects: Corporate Telecomm threatens to
			close down wicked employee interest notes files for
			sapping the company's network resources.;^)



When the Q1 and Q2 results get announced we'll probably see the climax of
this chain of events.  Given the latest news about the CBUs, it leads one
to wonder whether the power of top management to effect major changes is
vastly overrated (other than by the most drastic measures--selling off the
company or large chunks of it, etc.).  There's an apparently insurmountable
disconnect between top management and the line supervisors and workers--
whatever you'd care to call the layers that stand between them seem to be
able to frustrate even revolutionary attempts to change things.

We may well become a classic textbook case study for future business majors.
Is there anything we can learn from this before it comes to that?

								- paul

    My take is that it started during the massive hiring that started
    right after an article in one of our news mags. We had a bunch 
    back then so I can't remember which one. This was around 85 - 86.
    In the article a certain high level senior vp stated that we were
    to become a 20 billion dollar company by 1990. I believe we were
    betwen 8 - 10 at the time with a poplulation of around 85,000. The
    vp mentioned that in order to get to this number we needed many many
    more people. So we hired tons of people.
    
    Of course there were also the loss of direction, loss of network
    leadership, pc and unix disasters, etc. It's hard to really narrow
    it down to one event. However, the article above opened my eyes.
    Sure we were going gangbusters at the time, but the cycle of the
    economy was sure to hit and create a downturn soon. I cringed at
    what was happening in the pc, unix, network spaces and said to many
    at the time. Watch out in a couple of years because it won't be pretty.
    It sure hasn't been.
    
    Jim C.
    
    

re Note 1414.58 by ARCANA::CONNELLY:

> Everyone probably has their own chronology of the events that have brought
> this company a few short steps away from the brink of Wang-dom.  Here's one
> version 

        I'm impressed -- a very good summary!

        Bob

I agree, yes a very good summary.

 To add another milestone:

 Final Days pay increases -  Upper Management shows it is short term 
                              with "Fire sale pay increases"