Conference 7.286::digital

    As if All-in-1 was better (faster) for email or used less system
    resources - therefore required smaller hosts - hmmmmm?
    
    As if "non-work related" notes are'nt really... Who decides this one,
    where are the lines drawn?  Nothing like removing creative
    opportunities from the workplace to fire up the old enthusiasm, eh?
    

    Most of the things listed in .0 are not really all that new. I've been
    with this company for 12 years... I was part of Corp. Telecomm for a
    long time.... Most of the list has been around as long as I have!

    CT has been trying to get ALL-IN-1 blessed as a company wide product
    for years... I personally think it's a good tool... Not for those who
    have problems with menus, however.

    So it seems the process is coming full circle. 

    IF (the big IF) "employee interest notesfiles" are done away with,
    would Digital offer to donate some of its older equipment to employees
    who would desire to continue these conferences off Digital property.

    Maybe a new business twist.... PUBLIC bulletin boards on specific
    topics of interest....?!?!?
    
    Yup., nothing really to new... Just reborn....
    
    Bob G.
    

    
    Classic profit centre debate --
    
    Segment a. is charged with making money. Goes away & attempts to do
    just that. Not part of its charter to save other areas money, unless it
    is compensated for doing so.
    
    Net result. Segment a. saves x bucks. Other areas spend x+ bucks to
    conpensate, or operate less efficiently. Overall, the company spends
    more to get less.
    
    Several alternatives :-
    
    a. subsidise activities required by the company at large
    b. other specific users contribute their fair costs
    c. free up sourcing of capability to all comers -- eg go on Internet
       direct via your cost centre etc, charge telecommuting kit to local
       cc, & any other creative solution that keeps you efficient &
       cost-effective
    
    
    Colin

    	Why not shut down all the networks. We can communicate between
    sites using smoke signals and by carrier pigeon. Of course, the top
    execs should show their support by giving up using helicopters for
    travel and instead use horse-drawn carriages. As for the phones, I've
    been suspecting for the past year or so that payphones would be
    installed in the lobbies of each building for personal calls.
    	I guess I had better hurry up and update my resume before they take
    my account away! I think I still have my old slide-rule and flow-chart
    templates around here somewhere...

Most of the proposals in .0 are absurd.  Imagine life at Digital without on-line
access to ELF, Notes, or software kits.  And imagine forcing everyone to use the
same mail system.  This is not the way the real world works, folks.

Paul

I saw a copy of the complete memo - it was dated April 1.  Though this is not
proof, I strongly suspect it to be a well-crafted April Fools joke.  
Supporting this are some of the suggestions which would actually increase
CT costs, such as a switch to ALL-IN-1 and elimination of ELF.

				Steve

    
    I hope it's a joke.  Although on first blush, you'd think that
    getting a VP's signature on requisitions for paper clips would
    be a joke too -- or cutting interplant mileage for that matter.  
    I could have sworn that Jack Smith retired.
    
    A missing item from the memo quoted in .0 are the gateways
    to the internet (we're spending too DAMN much time reading what
    our customers are saying about our products; get back to work! :-))
    Oh yeah, and no more COMPUSERVE accounts either.  So there.
    
    Glenn
         

Re: .1

> As if All-in-1 was better (faster) for email or used less system
> resources - therefore required smaller hosts - hmmmmm?

Well, if you know so much about ALL-IN-1 (I doubt that you do by the way
you even spell it) why don't you tell us how 'less system resources'
are used when you end up creating 100 .mai files when sending one
document to 100 VMSmail users versus the sharing of only one file by 100 
ALL-IN-1 users (I am not even getting into a functionality debate since
it appears that does not matter to you)?

If VMSmail does the job for you, use VMSmail.  There is no need for 
knocking a Digital product in a public forum that is partly responsible
for paying your salary!
 

re Note 2449.8 by PUFFNS::ALLIN1:

> > As if All-in-1 was better (faster) for email or used less system
> > resources - therefore required smaller hosts - hmmmmm?
  ...
> If VMSmail does the job for you, use VMSmail.  There is no need for 
> knocking a Digital product in a public forum that is partly responsible
> for paying your salary!
  
        Well, neither the old standby mail system in ALL-IN-1 nor the
        VMS Mail system are our corporate enterprise mail offering --
        rather our corporate mail offering is the X.400-based system
        that used to be called, confusingly, ALL-IN-1 Mail and is now
        called something like "DEC MAILworks".

        Bob

    re: 2449.8 "public forum"?
    
    It's a private VAX Notes Conference,
    on a private computer system,
    on a private network,
    
    available to employees and contractors of Digital with access to the
    EASYNET.

    a lot of people do not like to use ALL-in-1.
    if 2,000,000 are happy with it, how many
    are unhappy.
    a fair number of people i communicate with have their
    ALL-in-1 mail automatically forwarded to vaxmail.
    
    i don't think ALL-in-1 is user friendly.
    
    my 2 cents

.2>IF (the big IF) "employee interest notesfiles" are done away with,
.2>would Digital offer to donate some of its older equipment to employees
.2>who would desire to continue these conferences off Digital property.

Apart from a network, notesfiles would be a flop- just another BBS
system.

.2>Maybe a new business twist.... PUBLIC bulletin boards on specific
.2>topics of interest....?!?!?

Already exists, many times over. CompuServe, Internet Newsgroups
(Usenet), BBS's that are FidoNet-ed together, etc.

Lee

> A lot of people have their All-IN-1 mail forwarded to VMS

Like me. ;-)

I've ALWAYS disliked ALL-IN-1. It's menu system is non-intuitive, out-dated,
and there's a massive amount of overhead. IMHO it's a good idea poorly done,
and sooner or later a competitor is going to produce a similar product
with a GUI and portable functionality and leave us behind.
(Inbox Index? Reorder filecabinet? XD?).

I don't know ANYONE using the meeting scheduler, calculator, etc
functions.

I also get annoyed that everytime someone voices a dislike for ALL-IN-1
(and believe me -- everyone I know dislikes it), some ALL-IN-1 techie
jumps down your throat about voicing your opinion or miss-spelling the
all-in-one acroymn. If it TRUELY is a good product, it will stand on its own
and doesn't need defending.


Let the flames begin :-)

What mail system one uses depends mostly on personal choice.  Discussion of the
relative merits of different systems does not belong in this topic.

Paul

      >                   <<< Note 2449.15 by RTL::LINDQUIST >>>
      >
      >Sorry to break the stride of your hobby-horse, but your
      >username violates the correct usage of the ALL-IN-1
      >trademark.
    
       Tell that to Engineering...that is the username the product
       install creates.                           
                                   

    and then there is the DCL command, and the name of the .EXE file, and
    even the fact that you aren't supposed to use a trademark as a noun
    
    (ie you don't use ALL-IN-1, you use the ALL-IN-1 Interactive Office
    System, or the ALL-IN-1 software, or the ALL-IN-1 product, or...)

    Anyone, who has given support to our Eastern European offices knows
    what it feels like, when you don't have access to Notes, VTX, ELF...
    and you are supposed to find information for customers cases.
    Due to embargo rules those offices have only ALL-IN-1 IOS. It's
    not funny.
    
    --Ritva
    

We've had enough of this rat-hole.

Bob - Co-moderator DIGITAL

    Getting back to the base note, I've been asked by the TSSM manager,
    Susan Schweizer (CTHQ::SCHWEIZER) or SUSAN SCHWEIZER @TAY, to have any
    comments/questions/issues you may have on the base note contents sent
    to her.
    As a quick organizational tutorial, TSSM is part of Corporate
    Telecommunications (CT). CT reports into Dick Scarborough and Max
    Mayer. CT is basically responsible for the design, implementation, and
    operation of all of DEC's internal wide area networks (Voice, video, data
    (DECnet, IP, WATN, whatever there is of OSI, AppleTalk) and also 
    transmission.
    
    	o TSSM (Telecommunications Strategies and Services Management) is the 
    	  business/program group
    
    	o ESC (Enterprise Services Center) is the operations group 
    
    	o CTE (Engineering, of which I'm a member) does the strategic
    	  design and writes some network management tools. 
    
    
    	MTS, ELF, VTX, etc. are services provided out of TSSM also.
    
    
    						Regards,
    
    						Thom...

  Maybe you could summarize what the driving cost factors are behind these
  proposals, Thom?  Reduce bandwidth use, reduce support headcount, reduce
  depreciation cost on hardware, reduce circuit charges...?  (I know, "all
  of the above", but it would be nice to see the list prioritized from CT's
  perspective to help understand why they are coming up with this particular
  set of proposed solutions.  I.e.: "What problem are you trying to solve?")

								- paul

re: .23

Does this mean that this idea is real????

Bob

    re: 2449.23

    Thom, I hope that you are monitoring the replies here.

    Are the suggestions made in the basenote, 2449.0, serious proposals
    under consideration by anyone in the corporation with the authority to
    implement them?

    Are you or anyone in your management chain satisfied with the method
    used for obtaining comment from your customers as indicated by the
    entry of the basenote into this conference?

    What is the process that your management chain uses to share proposals
    in services offered by your organization with its customers and collect
    comment from them?

    Do you consider customers to be all employees who use these data
    networks or only the peer vice presidents to Dick Scarborough and Max
    Mayer?

    All,
    
    	First, DON'T SHOOT ME I'M JUST THE MESSENGER. And we consider all
    the users of the network to be our customers but there is a whole
    process on how services are requested/delivered and it's through TSSM.
    	As for the reality of the base note, the first time I saw it was in
    this notesfile but, and this is my $.02 only, I believe it's the
    PROPOSAL for what would happen IF our budget were cut 20% (but DON'T
    quote me).
    	So, KINDLY address your questions to Susan Schweizer as I stated in
    reply .23 (you CAN quote her). 
    	I'm just the guy who happened to see the base note and pass it to
    Susan and she asked that I post a reply (.23) stating to send any
    queries to her.
    
    
    						Best regards,
    
    						Thom...

I would like to see a full & formal posting of the original memo detailed
in .0 so as to best fashion my responses.

Lee

    I am not sure these are serious ideas, but let me assume they are real.
    We in Networks Engineering know that customers primarily use DECnet for
    mail and copying files.  I would not be surprised if most EASYnet usage
    is MAIL and NOTES.  Perhaps, then, the capital budgets are being
    consumed by  the need to add more capacity and bandwidth for MAIL and
    NOTES.  Put that way, it sounds bad.  Why should we be spending money
    on equipment so people can send more junk mail?

    VAX MAIL opens and holds a logical link while the mail message is being
    composed.  If you are composing a message to a distribution list, many
    links are being used.  There are only so many logical links a CPU can
    handle, and only so many that a network link can accommodate.  NOTES is
    similar in that while you are composing a reply you are tying up a
    logical link between your node and the node on which the conference
    resides.  Again, there are only so many logical links available.  Now,
    I think this is the real problem -- not the lack of bandwidth, not the
    behavior of people, but the behavior of the software.

    There is a way to reduce network traffic without reducing network
    usage.  How do you change the behavior of these software products?  In
    the case of VAX MAIL, you change it by using Nmail instead.  Nmail is a
    store-and-forward program that sends out messages in batch mode.  It
    only ties up a link while it is actually transmitting a message.  In
    the case of VAX NOTES, you change it by encouraging users to create
    topics and replies using a test editor, not the NOTES editor.  That
    way, the links are kept open for shorter periods.

    The corporation has tried to reduce telephone costs using a poster
    campaign. ("We're not asking you not to call...")  If this was
    successful, we could mount further campaigns, using the same theme, to
    change the way people use NOTES and MAIL.  (Perhaps "We're not asking
    you not to send mail..." and "We're not asking you not to use
    NOTES...")

    System administrators, support specialists, and NOTES conference
    moderators could be asked to encourage use of Nmail and pre-composed
    NOTES replies. It could be incorporated into system welcome banners and
    NOTES conference banners, or added to the standard list of NOTES
    "etiquette" rules.

    The impact of usage would be minimal, and I think people would
    appreciate that the company is trying to save money without forcing
    them to give up anything.

    I think Corporate Telecomm would be able to verify the facts I am only
    assuming in this suggestion.  They could probably calculate actual cost
    savings if Nmail were used exclusively instead of VAX MAIL.  What about
    it, guys?

Actually, in terms of network bandwidth we are behind the times.  The Internet
uses T3 links while most of our internal links are sub-T1 even though we own
the fiber they go over.  No wonder they are saturated.

    RE .29
    
    I'd just like to correct some factual misinformation in your reply.
    An idle DECnet logical link does not use any significant network
    bandwidth. Every 30 seconds or 1 minute (or something like that) a tiny
    message is sent by NSP to check that the network layer hasn't
    disappeared from under it. Essentially an idle logical link is 0 cost
    to the network. I agree that it consumes some, but no much, resources
    on the host system.
    
    Dave

    it's interesting to see this "kill VAXmail" on the net proposal. I use
    VAXmail exclusively. I simply got sick and tired of the restrictions
    placed on me when using the A1 (yeah i know that's not the "official"
    name) cluster. so years ago i got a VS2000 and divorced myself from A1
    almost entirely.
    
    for the last week or so i've been watching my mail closely. the junk
    mail i delete without reading (or read a tiny part of it) is almost
    ENTIRELY from A1 DL's. and i make it a concerted effort to answer those
    mail messages with a polite "get me the heck off this DL".
    
    forcing the corporation into A1 exclusively is a collosal mistake. we
    ought to be moving in the direction our customers are. PC LAN based
    mail packages such as cc:Mail and the like. Why? Because how can we
    compete against that what we know nothing about? 2M users or not. A1 on
    VAX computer "ain't" what people will be buying for the rest of this
    decade. they will be going elsewhere's. and by the tens-of-millions.
    
    gene

    Anent .31: Dave, I know you know more on the subject than I do, and I
    accept your corrections.  But if there isn't much network bandwidth
    consumed by mail, what is the savings in going to ALL-IN-1 mail?

    Re .33
    
    If you read the suggestions carefully the only sensible conclusion you
    can come to is that half the suggestions were put together by someone
    who:
    
    	a) Has no idea how DEC utilizes its network
    	b) Does not have a technical background
    
    When I first saw the note (I saw the whole message) I genuinely thought
    it was an April fools joke. The one that really got me was not using
    the network to distribute kits or software. I guess horse and cart
    would be more appropriate.
    
    I just finished a joint development effort with a company in Germany.
    We were regularly shipping kits, dumps, mail etc to and from Germany to
    the USA. There was no way the project would have happened if I wasn't
    allowed to ship kits across the network.
    
    Next we can ban sending software to the CSCs across the network and
    after than banning the use of the telephone to connect to customer
    systems.
    
    Big joke just ignore the memo.
    
    And as for the savings of going to ALL-IN-1 mail there aren't any as
    far as I can see (not on the network anyway). Just another suggestion
    given by someone who has no idea what they're talking about.
    
    Dave
    
    PS I'd still prefer to believe it is an April fools joke. I can sleep
       better then.

>>But if there isn't much network bandwidth
>>consumed by mail, what is the savings in going to ALL-IN-1 mail?


	Well, there is always the possiblity that the system that 
	your message is sitting on, waiting to be forwarded, has an
	unfortunate accident or the system manager gets TFSO'd.

							mike

    If part of the perceived problem comes from users shipping full-size
    files (like software kits) across the net, then it seems that we could
    use a general-purpose VMS file compress/decompress utility. There are a
    number of compression utilities around, but none seems to be in
    widespread use. PC and U*x users wouldn't tolerate shipment of
    full-sized files; it remains a puzzle to me why VMS has no such utiity
    in its standard toolkits.

This makes as much sense as...

Our highways are overcrowded.
95% of our highway traffic is cars.
We will ban cars from the highways to improve capacity.

Bob

>   PS I'd still prefer to believe it is an April fools joke. I can sleep
>       better then.

We might be missing the point.  The original document, as I recall,
said "If we have the telecoms budget cut, then this is how we'll deal 
with it".  The conclusion from that might not be "so we'll lose all
those services", the conclusion might be "DEC can't operate without
those services, so we can't cut the budget as much as was originally
proposed"

I hope.

--

With respect to telling everyone to use Nmail rather than plain MAIL.
Sounds fine to me, just as long as the entire Nmail project team 
is suitably compensated when its midnight hackery suddenly becomes
official company policy.

    I have just implemented my own MAIL solution, and it seems to work
    fine.  I recommend that you do the same to reduce network usage without
    affecting your work.  Perhaps, as Dave Garrod says, it will have little
    impact, but it will do no harm.
    
    At the MAIL prompt, enter this:
    
    MAIL> SET TRANSPORT NM%
    
    Send yourself a message to confirm that it works.  (If you don't have
    Nmail installed, I imagine it won't work.)
    
    If you wish to remove this setting, enter this:
    
    MAIL> SET NOTRANSPORT
    
    If you wish to see what your transport is, enter this:
    
    MAIL> SHOW TRANSPORT

    It is not the bandwidth on the fiber that is expensive, it is the
    bandwidth in the multiplexers, and the labor costs of the people who
    maintain them.
    
    A fair amount of intersite bandwidth in New England is actually for
    voice traffic.  (64 kb/s per conversation)  The bandwidth used for
    a 5-minute phone call is enough to transfer over 2 megabytes of
    information.
    
    Say it with a message.
    
    We should also be doing our part to decrease the environmental impact
    of cars on the road.  *Encouraging* people to work at home, or use
    teleconference facilities instead of driving, is in everybody's
    interest.

        Re: .36

>    it remains a puzzle to me why VMS has no such utiity
>    in its standard toolkits.

        A separate utility isn't the best way to go -- make it a
        transparent part of the network/operating system.  Users
        shouldn't have to do extra work to figure out the best way to
        copy.  Provide a way to specify the relative priority of
        bandwidth used, CPU time used, and elapsed time and let the
        network figure out how best to meet the goals.

        Re: .38

> With respect to telling everyone to use Nmail rather than plain MAIL.
> Sounds fine to me, just as long as the entire Nmail project team 
> is suitably compensated when its midnight hackery suddenly becomes
> official company policy.

        They can have their choice of all the atta-boys they can carry
        and a `get out of TSFO free' card good until the stock price
        drops below 60.

        					B.J.

    It is not entirely idle speculation on my part that cutting out
    employee notesfiles and telecommuting and other beneficial services
    might be yet another mechanism for inducing people to leave the
    corporation.  Take away the means to work efficiently, take away the
    pleasure of working here, and of course people will leave.  In large
    numbers, if my own informal survey means anything.

Re: Nmail project team.

The Nmail project team should be awarded by letting them (him) have an office
on the 2nd floor with all the big shot Consultant. Engs.

;-)

Either that or a draught Bass Ale - whichever they (he) likes...

;-)  ;-)  ;-)

    I used to respect Digital as a company mainly because of it's
    innovative use of networks in internal communications.  Every
    day I work with companies that are household names, and without
    exception, the employees of those companies respect and admire
    our internal communications abilities.  This list includes IBM.
    
    In the real world, many people are just beginning to discover
    what we have had for years.  The explosion of online services,
    low-cost bulletin boards, and online data distribution has
    amazed the industry pundits, and created major growth opportunities
    for computer and telecommunications companies.
    
    But not at Digital.  I think the point has finally been reached where
    *many* levels of management do *not* understand how their employees 
    use these tools to accomplish their normal jobs.  And I also believe
    that management will not gain an understanding of the importance of
    these tools, at least not without a lot of pain and destruction.  We
    will probably lose the notesfiles soon, because they have the least
    participation from management.
    
    Geoff

    Another one of my undeniable truths about Digital gets mentioned in
    .-0.

    People who can successfully sell computers and related technology must
    have an enthusiasm for computers and an enthusiasm for the people who
    use them.

    Re: .42
    
    You may have hit the nail on the head, dick... when I saw the original
    memo, my first response was that it would indeed produce cost savings:
    my salary for starters.  Many of my colleagues feel the same way....
    
    At this rate, why not take away our expensive workstations and put
    us all back on VT-100's?
    
    --jim
    

    Don't laugh.  A friend of mine in the field recently told me that he 
    found his facility's receptionist/admin asst sitting at her desk
    looking very bewildered one morning.  Her workstation was missing.
    Turns out a sales rep sold it.

Re: .48: Most of the equipment in the field is rotational, which means we have 
         12 months from the time we receive it to sell it. If we do, we get
	 back the monthly Loan & Demo Charges. This process allows many field
	 organizations to make use of the latest hardware and software, then
	 sell it to a customer at a good price, and replace the equipment with
	 new stuff. So, having a workstation sold out from under someone is
	 not that unusual (at least out here in the field).

Regards,

Jim Mickol
Xerox Team ROTCON Administrator (among other things)

    I agree with you Jim, but what of that bewildered Admin. Assistant? 
    I've seen this happen before (even with Sales 'loaning' EIS equipment). 
    It would be nice if we could all _count_ on having certain pieces of
    equipment to do our job.
    
    Maybe sales support could donate some of thier laptops? :) :) :)
    
    --- Gavin

    Not to mention what became of any information that was stored on the
    system.

    
    Ref .49
            I agree that the equiptment is sold in such a manner; but I
    would think professional courtesy of letting the individual know that 
    their equipment is going away would have been in order, so other plans
    could be made to get their work done. This is Sort of burning your bridges 
    behind you. You should never do that to a administative person, they can 
    make your life miserable if they want to.
    
    bc
                                         

    It's more likely that we will lose individual telephones before access
    to employee-interest VAX Notes Conferences is curbed.
    
    As I written before, the best thing to happen to collaborative work
    might be a formal "ban" of these ascii buggy-wip groupware anachronisms
    called notesfiles so was can get a new tool created that's 1993 not
    1983 in conception.

    re: .54  ... losing individual telephones ...
    
    Many companies do attempt to save money by sharing telephones, but
    these cases usually arise from employee expansion, where the existing
    telecom equipment can't be upgraded easily.  We are in a somewhat
    different mode, where we have lots of installed equipment, and fewer
    people left to service.  Our office has been cut in half, and we have
    lots of single-line and multiline phone sets left over.  Our PBX is
    paid for, and we've already reduced the number of incoming trunks.
    There's not much money left to squeeze out of this stone.
    
    re:  ... ascii buggy-whip groupware anachronisms ...
    
    I agree with you that Digital (once a technology leader) has fallen
    drastically behind in office support systems. It is directly because
    of the NIH syndrome, and it has hurt us. Every day, I watch my main
    customer do things with his Macintosh network that astounds me, both
    from a functionality and an ease-of-use standpoint. Then I go back to
    our office and watch people wrestle with ALL-IN-1 from $50,000 work
    stations and $500 terminals.  It's not that we spend less money on
    our equipment, we just get less for our money.
    
    Geoff Unland in Austin

    re: .55
    
    $ SET MODE/ENABLE=SARCASM
    
    NIH syndrome?  At Digital?  Poppycock!
    
    We've grown passed that!  We're in Systems Integration now!  We do it
    all, anywhere, with anything!
    
    $ SET MODE/ENABLE=DEPRESSION
    
    I wish I could believe it, but of course, the recent memo from a VP
    stating that we have to stop selling 3rd party products that are "a
    little better" than ours, because the margin isn't as good.
    
    We'll have great margins when we stop selling all this 3rd party stuff. 
    Great margins... just no sales...
    
    -- Russ

>    We've grown passed that!  We're in Systems Integration now!  We do it
>    all, anywhere, with anything!

Well, in that case, you should have said

	% setmode -e sarcasm