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-< The Digital way of working >-
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Note 3006.57 What We Need To Do, given losses... 57 of 145
CADSYS::CADSYS::BENOIT 55 lines 22-APR-1994 09:37:33.38
-< I'm looking for some help >-
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Hello,
I'm looking for some help. My wife works for a software company in Cambridge.
Her company has a collective marketing agreement with Digital. The company
has a proprietary software suite that is sold to financial institutions. The
software runs on both Digital and IBM platforms. They don't really influence
which platform to run on, but configure the system once the choice is made.
They will be holding the annual user's meeting at the end of May. There will
be five hardware vendors there to present their equipment. Digital, IBM,
Kodak, and two optical disk storage companies will be given booths to
demonstrate hardware, as well as, a half hour slot to give a presentation to
customers. Digital and IBM are the CPU vendors, the others sell peripheral
products for the software.
IBM will be presenting it's RS6000 UNIX boxes. Digital will feature a couple
of ALPHA AXP systems in their booth, but has chosen to present some
re-engineering software that runs on INTEL based 486 Digital PCs. My wife's
company was very surprised to hear what the Digital representative chose to
present to their customers. There are a few reasons for their surprise. First;
the software we are presenting is commercially available for a fraction of the
cost that Digital sells it for. Second; my wife's company sells a similar
product (they don't really care that the software overlaps, just surprised).
The third and most surprising thing is; there will be representatives from over
100 banks in the United States and Europe, include the ten largest banks in
the U.S. in attendance...WHY ARE WE NOT PUSHING ALPHA, ALPHA, ALPHA!!!!!
My wife's company has already planned to port to ALPHA AXP by the end of the
year; so this is not the problem. There are only five vendors to show products
(ie. plenty of time for each potential customer to visit); is this too few a
number of vendors to make it interesting to us as a company? There won't be
a direct opportunity to sell equipment at the show; is this the problem?
There are a number of other interesting facts that are not for this public
forum, but I would be able to share off-line. So where do I get help with this?
Give me a name. Give me a phone number. I've already spent far too much time
with this problem, this is not my job (but I feel it is my responsibility). I
walked around Hudson for a day talking with everyone I knew to get the name of
someone to help me. I either got: I don't know, or a false lead. I came close
once. I had my old cost center manager call someone he knew in marketing and
sales. He left a message, the sales and marketing person's secretary said the
person to talk to was in a meeting, but would call me at 4:00 last Thursday,
April 14th. I left a meeting early to be by my phone to take the call....it's
Friday the 22nd....I'm still waiting.
Maybe I don't know all the facts. If I don't, I sure would like to be
enlightened.
So...is there anyone out there that can help me? I can be reached at DTN
225-5050. I will be here most of the day. I can be reached with mail on
CADSYS::BENOIT. If you send mail, and I don't have time to talk today, I will
send you my home phone number. We can talk this weekend. I didn't put 12 years
into this job to watch it slip away.
Michael T. Benoit
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