Conference 7.286::digital

    But this is not the only media related tool that we are associated
    with. I seem to recall us doing a deal with the software house, that
    runs the applications, that run on the CNN news terminals....
    
    q
    

	How are is being a "wholly owned subsidiary within Digital" different
	from being Digital? Do those employees have Digital badges and Digital
	benifits or are those things seperate and different? How about network
	access? Are these companies totally seperate in the management chain?
	
			Alfred

    The subsidiaries seem to have the best of both worlds:
    
    (a) Integration into the Digital networks (tangible and intangible)
    
    (b) Freedom of action that comes from full financial accountability and
    discretion.
    
    (c) They have a far fewer levels of management from individual
    contributor to CEO.
    

    WHat we need to do, (a la Claris) is split off some of existing most
    profitable entities, and let them run autonomously...
    
    Q

.4>    WHat we need to do, (a la Claris) is split off some of existing most
.4>    profitable entities, and let them run autonomously...
    
    minor nit, perhaps we should split off some of the marginally
    profitable units, or those with the greatest unrealized potential.
    
    the most profitable existing units are already successful in
    the present structure, why risk screwing them up too?

    re .-1
    
    I bet your tongue was firmly in cheek on that one, bruce.
    
    Take for example (as Bruce and I have discussed with each other, many
    times) the current state of the PDP11 business. People are still buying
    them, we are still making them, but where is the DEC commitment on
    them. Just how big are the RSTS/RSX/RT11/DSM11/IAS development teams.
    or wven the maintenance people assigned to those O/S's. 
    
    There are ten's, if not, hundreds of thousands of PDP11's out there,
    and the support and maintenance of them, is quite a profitable
    business. It could sustain itself, as a profitable seperate operating
    entity for several years to come. But, what do with do with that
    business? Ignore it, and hope it goes away...
    
    q
    

    re .1
    
    The application running on CNN terminals you see over the air IS
    BASYS.
    
    Craig (ex NBC'r)

    	I've heard that's our new strategy. For small companies, we're
    going to buy them and then lay off all the people (save the buildings -
    like the neutron bomb of the computer industry). For large companies we
    can't buy, our TFSOed middle managers will infiltrate and while spewing
    forth verbage such as TQM, development processes, CASE, and lots of
    other words they like, will introduce enough confusion and poor morale
    to bring those companies to a standstill too. Then we'll look good by
    comparison.

    
    regarding  aquisitions...
    
    	Is the Philips Electronics in Europe, whose stock dropped 18.2%,
    the same Philips we bought last year?
    
                              just curious,
    				Fred Deady
    				WBC::deady
    

Re: .8

Have you considered that this is exactly what IBM has already done to us ?


;-)

    re .9
    
    No
    

    re: .6

    See also the "Digital NEWS" issue of May 11, 1992, page 4 for an article
    headed "PDP-11 is alive and well - with SCSI".

    For your further edification, see the cartoon on page 44 ... 8^)

	Ron

re .12>                -< "PDP-11 is alive and well - with SCSI" >-
    
    PDP-11 alive and well?  I hope so, maybe I'll survive the layoff
    rumors!
    
    I hate to continue taking this topic down a tangential rathole, but as
    one of the last PDP-11 software engineers in the company (as well as the
    author of a previous topic to which .6 was directed), I saw a
    connection with the base topic and some other recent threads.
    
    BTW, I liked the cartoon, except they omitted one crucial detail:  
    	it was missing the guys running along behind the PDP-11 rabbit,
    	trying to pull the plug.
    
    Point is, I think that a lot of the company's problem today is that we
    have always been technological snobs.
    
    In the early days that meant we built better mousetraps, and folks
    bought them for the advantages they offered.
    
    Unfortunately that outlook turned into NIH, and we fell behind the
    curve in things like workstations and RISC architectures.
    
    It also meant that the culture in the corporation turned a successful
    product into a backwater, because the PDP-11 was cursed with being
    "obsolescent" due to its 16-bit architecture.  The facts that it was
    our most profitable product in terms of both margin and total net
    revenues just a couple of years ago didn't matter as much as the
    perception that it was old and doomed.  Nobody bothered to ask why we
    still sold so many of them.  Nobody in power, at least, because a
    couple of years ago I asked a customer why he was interested in buying 
    the 11/94 we'd just introduced. His answer:  
    		"Nothing else does our job as well, even today!"
    
    Our technological chauvinism blinded us to the fact that for some
    purposes an existing solution is sufficient or even ideal.  A lot of
    times we have tried to move customers into answers that we designed for
    a different question.  A lot of those customers are not ours, now.
    
    Along with this, that NIH syndrome meant Digital was not fertile ground
    for innovative ideas about solving market needs.  That niche was filled
    by others, who started developing marketable technology until we are now 
    buying them.
    
    I don't think this is necessarily bad, I could even see it providing a
    cohesive vision to take the corporation successfully into the future. 
    But that is not certain, and it could as easily continue to confuse us
    all.  Personally, I'd like to finish up my PDP-11 work and get on with
    creating that vision - but there's this bank using PDP-11s for their 
    wire transfer link with the Federal Reserve clearing house, and they
    seem to think that if we're selling it we should have engineering 
    resources working on it too....  (but I've got a sucker, er, friend in
    CXO lined up to take it off my hands as soon as it's done :-)
    
    --bruce

.13:

Amen!

Never could understand a company that'd kill a cash cow, just because they
discovered that the cow is mortal.

    Broadcasting could never be accused of being on the leading edge. There
    are still an awful lot of CMX videotape editing systems out there in
    TV-land, most based on LSI-11/23's and PDP-11/04's. Grass Valley Group
    (a subsidiary of Tektronix) still makes editing systems and TV
    station automation systems based on J11 chips. Broadcasting has always
    been a business where capital equipment was on-line 'til it burned
    to the ground. With economic conditions the way they are, maybe that's
    an idea that will catch on in corporate computing. Faced with budget
    recisions, a lot of DP managers are just going to decide that they
    really don't need the fastest chips on the block.
    
    I think Witek left because he saw Digital trying to put the
    developmental bucks into building his Alpha chips into high-end, high-$
    replacements for VAX6000 and 9000's; when what's really called-for
    is mass-marketed low-cost Alpha PC's, Workstations, and small 4000-sized
    servers. This company has certainly learned how to SAY "downsizing",
    but I really don't think it fully understands the implications as
    regards the products we're trying to sell... to customers with
    very limited budgets.

.15>    Grass Valley Group (a subsidiary of Tektronix) still makes editing 
.15>    systems and TV station automation systems based on J11 chips. 
    
    hm, wonder where they buy those Jaws chips?  More interesting, do they
    buy them at the chip level, or do they buy them on boards?
    
.15>    ...what's really called-for is mass-marketed low-cost Alpha PC's, 
.15>    Workstations, and small 4000-sized servers. 
    
    Nah, the success of the 9000 proved there's money to made in high-end
    systems!
    
.15>    This company has certainly learned how to SAY "downsizing",
.15>    but I really don't think it fully understands the implications as
.15>    regards the products we're trying to sell... to customers with
.15>    very limited budgets.
    
    I don't think the company fully understands the implications of
    organizational downsizing, which has action matching the words (alas!).
    
    We don't fully understand what that sort of thing means for
    organizational functions and structure, for our company or customers
    who do likewise.  So in that sense we are embarked on a grand
    experiment, without any controlled scientific method.  Thus we seem
    certain to have a disconnect between the future organizational model
    and the design of our emerging technologies.
    
    We certainly don't know what this organizational evolution (devolution?) 
    all means for our product directions and technical future.  Too bad,
    this is an area where we could bring some valuable skills to the table,
    if only we applied them in the right direction (instead of turning them
    out onto the street).
    
    --bruce

    re: .16 
    
>    Nah, the success of the 9000 proved there's money to made in high-end
>    systems!
    
    I can only assume this is meant as sarcasm.  I've never seen anything
    that has indicated we even made our investment back on 9000's, much
    less consider them a success.  The only 9000 I know of in our city is
    one we sold at 80% off to the University.
    
    Geoff