Conference 7.286::digital

    Tell them good luck in their new adventures!

	Wish them good luck nothing. Ask them if they're hiring. :-)

			Alfred

    Anyone care to posit how badly we may be hurting ourselves by
    laying off people who will become competitors in either
    the services business, software engineering, or some other
    low-startup cost business?
    
    Of the three main businesses we will be in (silicon, software,
    and services), only one has high barriers to entry (silicon).
    The other two depend on what is in someone's head, and what
    they are able to accomplish with cheap (PC) tools and hard work.
    
    If it's true that we're laying off good people as well as
    under-performers (and anecdotal evidence would seem to support
    that contention), then we may be helping to create tomorrow's
    low-overhead competition.
    
    Comments?
    
    Glenn

    re .3
    
    I would guess that those let go are very good in something that Digital
    undervalues.  Customers may still be willing to pay for it though. 
    Everybody wins because Digital simplifies its over complex business and
    the erstwhile employees are now free of the legendary Digital overhead
    and customers of each get the benefits of reduced cost and better
    service.
    
    Win-Win-Win,
    
    Dick

    I had a friend in church Sunday tell me his company just picked up
    three of our commercial accounts and have hired one of our TFSO'd
    engineers to boot to do the maintenance.  Seems like we giving up on
    certain markets and concentrating on others where the margin is better. 

	I only recognized one name in .0, but that just shows how
	idiotic our downsizing has been.

	Don Vickers is extremely sharp, and if a competitor's got
	him, the DEC office in that area has its work cut out !

	He was never politically correct, so no doubt had a target
	painted on his back, but I watched him go into an account
	that was "True Blue", analyze their database application,
	tell them firmly that their application sucked 4 ways,
	and ***they loved him*****.   He opened many doors for DEC.

	Steve H

    re:  setting up future competitors
    
    It's true that there are many ex-DEC people out there taking away
    business that we used to be in.  EIS management has told us privately
    that it's business that we don't want to be in anymore, and that DEC
    is going to concentrate on the "cream"  Program Management business.
    
    But there are some other trends shaping up as well.  I've run into
    several ex-DEC people who are now our customers.  Companies who have
    DEC equipment have been staffing up lately.  A number of these new
    people also seem to have borne a grudge, and are actually steering
    business away from us.  One of the old IBM philosophies was to never
    burn bridges, because many of their ex-employees ended up as MIS
    managers that IBM had to sell to.  That lesson seems lost on DEC ...
    
    Geoff
    

    My friends at Sun tell me that among the ex-DEC employees, it's
    sometimes hard to tell whether they are driven to may Sun succeed or to
    make DEC fail.

The folks listed in .0 were part of the Cross-Industries EIC.  The entire
Charlotte plant was closed, so people were not let go because they were bad or
good.

Thanks for posting .0.  I've got a few friends on that list and it's very good
to see that they landed on their feet.

j.

    re .6
    
    Don "left" before the closing of Charlotte.
    
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Note 1123.0                        So long ...                        35 replies
BUFFER::VICKERS "and thanks for all the fish"        37 lines  25-JUL-1992 01:59
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          I  am  in the fifteenth year of a happy and enjoyable career
          with  Digital.  The joy of helping customers  has  been  the
          nicest  part of the career.  I have decided that it is  time
          to  move  on so that I can better serve customers.   I  have
          joined  a  small  services company called  Excellent  Office
          Systems.   Joe  Whatley,  who  is  the  chairperson  of  the
          Application Integration Special Interest Group of US  DECUS,
          is the President of the company and my partner.
          
          Excellent  Office  Systems has the  goal  of  providing  the
          highest  quality office systems to its customers.   We  will
          focus  on  Digital ALL-IN-1 customers in the next few  years
          and  evolve  with our clients.  We have formed  partnerships
          with  a  few customers and plan to form partnerships with  a
          few  more.   Our goal is not so much to make  money  but  to
          provide  the  services  that will  make  the  users  of  our
          clients' system productive and happy.  We certainly plan  to
          have fun doing it and believe that our partners should, too.
          
          I  am quite excited about this new chapter in my career  but
          am  sad  to leave a place like Digital where I have so  many
          wonderful  friends.  The best news is that I also have  many
          friends who are customers.
          
          My addresses are
          
          501 Gibson Street
          Leesburg, Florida 34748
          
          904-326-2873
          
          Vickers@eisner.decus.org	(Internet)
          
          My last day as a digit is August 14, 1992 or later depending.

          As always, keep the faith,
          don
    

    .7 very true
    
    .5 Guess what...all that low margin business that DEC developed (which
    had a higher margin in the beginning of the program...until DEC's "OVER
    HEAD" was applied has a demand in the market place and is profitable.
    Profitable provided the product/service has the appropriate amount of
    overhead.  Which get's us to one of the root causes of DEC's problems 
    today....the appropriate level of overhead.  We have VP's who manage
    VP's who manage Managers who manage Managers who manage doers.  We need
    about 90% less VP's and about 90% less managers.  What DEC needs is a 
    great Pres. to give us a good, solid direction for a few VP's and
    Managers to use as guidance when they guide their doers.  A good doer
    does not need alot of direction.  DEC has alot of good doers, it also
    has some poor doers.  Most likely, some of those poor doers became that
    way because DEC confused them with all the direction they received....
    remember what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen.
    
    I must agree with those that say we are hurting ourselves (DEC) by
    spinning off employees and businesses that are profitable, however low.
    We need to spin off OVERHEAD to make those businesses and employees 
    more profitable.  Then we would have a "Win".

    re .3
    
>    If it's true that we're laying off good people as well as
>    under-performers (and anecdotal evidence would seem to support
>    that contention), then we may be helping to create tomorrow's
>    low-overhead competition.
    
    During the right sizing last year in Holland, 20 or 30 EIS
    specialists started a Consultancy company with help of
    Digital !!!!!! They got a garanteed number of years work !!!!
    They even have access to our Easynet !!!! So we have all the overhead.
    Because hardly anyone knows who left, they can use lots of informal
    contacts throughout Digital.
    
    And I thought Digital had Services on the top of its list.
    
    Regards,
    
    Jan
    
    

    
    

    re: .11
    
    It is sad to witness the phenomenon stated here.  I believe it is a
    natural course of events for a beauracracy, however.  Layers of
    overhead build up over the years.  After a while people who go to
    meetings for a living and ask people for data so they can report data
    to other people (for summarization and reporting) think they are
    producing revenue for the company.  
    
    Overhead is evil.  Some managers treat it like a FIXED cost and assume
    that margins on our work must be high to pay for the overhead...so the
    logical course of action it to trim off the lower margin work.  This
    allows us to focus on the high margin work.  An alternative (and a 
    better one in my opinion) is to view overhead as the problem and
    organize the low margin businesses such that they are not burdened by
    the high overhead....shed those costs, keep the "doers" and make a few
    bucks for the stockholders.
    
    Alas, Digital is paradise island compared to our federal government.
    
    -Jim