Conference 7.286::digital

Well, it seems pretty near the mark to me.

DEC made money by riding the minicomputer wave while other
computer manufacturers stuck obstinately to the old way of
computing - classic mainframe installations.   Other companies
went to the wall because they couldn't change.

Well, computing's changed again.  Minicomputers are not where
the money is.  Companies which cannot deal with that will
not last.   Can DEC deal with that?  I don't know.

IBM is a bit of a special case here; they didn't die along
with the other glasshouse mainframe manufacturers because of 
the immense size of their installed base, who were locked
in to the IBM way of life.    IBM never really did get
the hang of departmental computing.     

>IBM never really did get the hang of departmental computing.     
    
    Oh, I don't know.. the RS/6000 does pretty well.. even talks 802.5 and
    5250 just fine.  Not to mention the RS/6000 scales from desktop to a
    100SPECmark data center system.
    
    karl

    Isn't the AS400 a departmental system?  Last I heard, that line did as
    much biz as all of Digital combined.

    Given the trend perhaps we should be looking into pico-computers,
    as ubiquitous as knuckle joints?
    
    Calvin

    
    
    
        This is just another example of what I call "movie critic" 
    expertise. I've mentioned this before (maybe even in this notes-
    file?)
        To use a couple of examples. Remember the Gulf War? Every
    network had their own middle eastern expert and military expert.
    I never realized this country had so many middle eastern experts.
    In fact, if that's the case, how come we still don't understand
    the culture(s)? Any way, each one of these experts had a different
    opinion. You'd change channels and get a completely different
    "expert" opinion of what was about to happen.
        The same goes for the economy, how many different stories have
    we heard here? These experts, in all fields, are no more then movie
    critics voicing their opinion based on what they think. If I avoided
    every movie the critics trashed, I would have missed some great stuff.
        What really annoys me is these people change their tune at the 
    drop of a hat. Just a few weeks ago (before the Q3 results) I had seen
    a couple of very positive articles on DEC. One went so far as to say,
    "The biggest problem DEC will have by early 1994, will be hiring enough
    good people fast enough." Then of course after the Q3 earnings, DEC is
    doomed! If they are such experts, why didn't they see this coming?
        The one that gets me is, about 3 or 4 months before the formal
    announcement of the VAX 9000, there were a couple of articles on DEC.
    One I remember was in the Wall Street Journal and it basically said
    that DEC was on the forefront of making major cuts into IBMs mainframe
    market. It went on to talk about the 9000 and it's price performance
    and how that would put DEC on a new "plateau" in the industray. Well,
    we all know what (didn't) happened there. But what burns me up is the
    same people who said the 9000 would bring us to new heights, were
    saying we misjudged the market, we came out with a mainframe when
    customers were "changing direction" and going towards a client/server
    and desktop environment. Well why didn't they say that to begin with?
        In my opinion, the so called experts, make (educated?) guesses,
    and if they're right, thay make sure they pat themselves on the back
    and tell everyone, "I told you so." If they're wrong, they just change
    their story, and say there is new data, or the previous information
    was inconclusive, or some BS like that.
    
         My father once told me, "Believe half of what you see, and none
    of what you read". I know it's not original, but it is good advice.
    
    
                                             Phil...

   Re:      <<< Note 1877.5 by PHDVAX::RICCIO "H. Ross Perot for President!" >>>

As far as I know, the old definition of an expert still holds:

   "An expert comes from more than fifty miles away and brings slides."
   
Apparently, this definition is applied by editors of trade
magazines, the WSJ, and the Globe, as well as by some of our
managers.  :-)

Dick

re .6


>> As far as I know, the old definition of an expert still holds:

>>    "An expert comes from more than fifty miles away and brings slides."

hmmmm.... The definition I always relied on:

	expert: Used to be a spurt.



Bob.

    Re .7:
    
    More accurately: an "ex" is a has-been and a "spert" is a drip under
    pressure. Not sure if this fits, but....
    
    Fred   :^)
    
    

    
    An expert is a person who knows everything of nothing.

Some of these experts are about as good as the psychics
in the National Enquirer - and no one checks the records
in either case, except that they both trumpet their few right
predictions.

In that vein, I'll give some of my own predictions:

Elvis will buy Digital, move the headquarters to Memphis, and
institute a dress code requiring everyone to wear blue suede shoes.

Then, with the technology Elvis brought back from the aliens,
we'll blow all the competition away.

    Was Elvis seen at DECworld??????
    
    fjk   :^)
    

re: .11

>    Was Elvis seen at DECworld??????
    
Well, rumor has it that Elvis has been seen more frequently than certain
managers in Digital by their direct reports!  (But not in my group.;-))

							;-) paul

    Just to get serious for a moment, the 'fallable expert' syndrome
    is just an indication that people in supposed 'leadership' positions,
    cannot make useful forecasts or assesments because the rate of change
    has outstripped their training and experience.  This is true in
    virtually every arena, but shows up mostly in the business and
    politics.  I'ts a bit easier to be a technical expert, as the
    problem set is more bounded, but, even there, technology is now
    driven by what the market will buy, not the limitations of
    our ability to design and build.  In addition, hoards of totally
    inadequate people have risen to positions which give them credibility
    far beyond their cognitive abilities...mwr

    Elvis was  seen at DECWORLD and if the rumors are correct. He was
    giving the Pathworks Demo last Friday between 2 and 5 PM.

    According to the Boston Globe about a year ago, the market for goods
    and services identified with Elvis was about $500M annually.  Maybe we
    should rename some of our stuff...
    
    -- Paul

Well, I tried to get "Elvis" adopted as the code name for
a software product I was working on (I can't stand all those
names from astronomy, Greek mythology, and the like -- too
self-important).   The rest of the team turned it down.
We ended up with "Boris" instead; Mr. Y. was big in the
news at that time.

re .-1

> We ended up with "Boris" instead; Mr. Y. was big in the
> news at that time.

Well, you could try to get even and name your next project Natasha :^)

/harley

    I beg your pardon?

    The natasha reference, is to Boris and Natasha, the team of Bad guys in
    the old Rocky and Bullwinkle Cartoon series.
    
    Gee, doesn't anyone know anythin important anymore???
    
    :-)
    
    q
    

Oh, it's an American cultural reference!