Conference 7.286::digital

    I believe the DELTA group was started for such ideas.  I'm not sure
    what's happened to the group, but I believe it's still around.
    
    ..Larry

My experience of DELTA had been singularly unimpressive.

Seemed like if you found a way to use 1 less sheet of toilet paper
they knew what to do with it (the suggestion), otherwise, it usually
went into the too hard bin.

I had an idea which would attempt to ensure that during hiring freezes
a group would not fall below their minimum effective capacity (the resource 
level at which they could do their chartered function). This one bounced 
around forever, from finance to personnel, to finance to personnel. The 
idea was global but it ended up with US personnel, I am in Australia. The 
end result, after much pushing "you make some thoughtful points".

I felt the process actually did not encourage the active development of
an idea. You had to get your first note to DELTA just right to have any
hope of it no falling on the floor.

In retrospect, I probably should have taken my idea and tried it out on
more people before submitting it. I am an economist by training but not
by practice, so I tend to be tentative about walking into the human 
resource or finance area. If I had been able to get my idea put across
in a forum that supported these people prior to submitting to DELTA then
I suggest that I may have had a better chance with the concept I was trying 
to put across to them. It may also have been received by the right people 
sooner.

This knowledge would have certainly been useful to me then. Perhaps others 
have ways that they use to ensure that their ideas are more robust and in 
helping to ensure that they go to the right people.

- John


 

    DELTA was canned some time ago.
    
    Laurie.

    My take on this is that Digital cannot afford another program like
    Delta.  Too much administration and too little payback.
    
    Jim

    DELTA was *the* suggestion box for the company.  If anything, my
    impression was that it was *too* successful at getting good ideas out.
    The basis for this is that when a good idea came in, DELTA folks were
    on the phone with the right people to get the idea around.  It was
    effective.  Changes happened.  And, this (from what I have gathered)
    really irked some folks.  When DELTA was canned, word was that
    "something else" would replace it, probably from Personnel.  I haven't
    heard anything about any such system being set up.  But have been in 
    touch over time with a portion of the old DELTA crowd since.
    
    I know that folks have complained that DELTA didn't help any as far as
    getting ideas out.  But, my personal experience has been that DELTA
    helped me get in touch with the folks whose bailiwicks fit the ideas.
    After that, DELTA kept in touch to see how things went.  Usually, 
    ideas died in someone's IN basket.  But, at least they were considered.
    
    As it is now, ideas are either implemented locally if you push them
    locally.  Or, you can suggest things in notes and get some reaction.
    But, I am unaware of any formal way to get ideas distributed to the
    right people inside Digital and outside of notes or local contacts.
    For me, the most valuable service DELTA offered was quickly helping me
    to figure out who ideas should go to.
    
    Steve

For better or worse, I think we are debating the issue in the best
available forum right this second. One might hope to presume that
those in positions to consider ideas have some means of capturing
them from this and other notes conferences. Or am I being hopelessly
naive?

> them from this and other notes conferences. Or am I being hopelessly
> naive?
   Yes. Reading this notesfile is very time-consuming. In general, movers and
shakers don't have time to. 
   Not having a corporate suggestion program such as DELTA is IMO one of several
steps we have taken toward self-destruction. I didn't really expect Human Re-
sources to establish a replacement for DELTA_IDEAS, and I don't think they are
the right group to do so. I don't know who is the right group.

OK,

so in the absence of DELTA, under the new leaner, meaner Digital how do we
become more successful as a company at fostering the ideas that we all
have? How do we do this as individuals?

As I said in my last note, I thought part of the failure of my idea was
my inability to pitch to the right forum. How do I go about ensuring that
when I propose, it hits the mark in our corporate culture? I would have
had the same problem whether the idea went through a DELTA or I had
made the contacts myself.

How do you conceive of getting the next great idea across to those who 
matter to its adoption?

- John

re:    <<< Note 3143.0 by BIGUN::JRSVM::BAKER "Confusion will be my epitaph" >>>
                  -< Ensuring ideas get appraised in Digital >-

>We should have a culture that alows ALL ideas to receive fair and proper
>appraisal, no matter where they come from or how left of field they are
>from our own knowledge.

	Just the other day I was thinking that it is too bad for Digital that
	it's founder, Ken Olsen, lost his own perspective in this area.  He
	dismissed PCs as just toys and of no concern.  I wonder what people
	thought of the PDP-1 back in the late 1950's?  The PDP-8 (that is 
	'straight' 8) in the 1960's was probably similarly dismissed, but I 
	can remember servicing some of those in places where an IBM 360 was 
	replaced.  Oh, sure it took longer, but it did the job for a whole
	lot less money.

	My, how things have changed since those early days.  A "big" system
	might have 8-16K (that's thousand not meg!), DECtape, and one or two
	64k disks. Now go and look at that little PC on your desk and see what
	it has!  I remeber it was a big deal (back then) when they put 9-track
	magtape on PDP-8s.  You can get a 9-track magtape for the PC today.

	If Digital could have taken the same concepts and principles it used
	with the PDP-8 and PDP-11 to the PC, then things might have turned out
	a little different.  Digital pioneered the mini-computer but lost out
	with the personal-computer (I only installed 1 PDP-8L in a home).

    My theory on when the vision got lost:
    
    Ken Olsen had a vision to bring the power of information closer to the
    user.  This was specifically targeted at the developers.  Imagine being
    a programmer back in the days of IBM machines taking up the room of a
    large glass-housed cooled room with little more (or less) power than
    todays calculator.  You slave over your pad of notebook paper making
    sure your program used the memory as efficiently as possible, careful
    not to exceed the limits of technology.  You create a stack of a
    hundred or so cards and hand them to the high priest in white lab coats
    that were among the priveledged few allowed within the glass house and
    actually touch the switches that produced those wonderful blinking
    lights.  "You should have your results in about a week or so," explains
    the high priest.  You wait your turn and ten days later you receive a
    memo with your cards explaining there was a bug in your code that
    resulted in a cryptic error.  You go back to your pad and paper and
    spend the night with some stale coffee trying to improve your code. 
    You think you've finally solved the riddle and turn in your cards just
    to be told another week or two.  You go through this process maybe two
    more times before you reach the desired result.
    
    The PDP allowed the information to be closer to the user.  Workgroups
    purchased a machine that allowed several to receive instant answers
    with a new technology called timesharing and later a brilliant device
    called a terminal.  For the first time ever, you could get some sense
    as to how your program ran and how the mystical machine actually
    operated.  Knowledge is power and everyone knows information is but
    documented knowledge;  Hence information is power.  Ken Olsen brought
    the power of information closer to the users.
    
    Later came the VAX with an operating system that was simple to use. 
    Better yet, one could tie these new computers together to act as a much
    larger system as your organization grew.  Digital called this
    clustering, and it appealed to the corporate executives concerned about
    how powerful a system needed to be purchased with scarce capital
    dollars.
    
    Digital grew with its found popularity of the VAX on top of the
    successful PDP.  Those within the Corporation started dreaming of how
    great they could be.  Shoot for the stars and overtake IBM as the
    computing leader.  Digital kept making better technology with faster
    and bigger machines in the undocumented and never admitted multitude of
    strategies to replace IBM.
    
    Just as the users and programmers were trying to remind us that they
    wanted the power of information even closer to them, we began the
    project that would once and for all bring us ahead of IBM.  The project
    was our first and noble attempt at a mainframe class computer which
    would be called the VAX 9000.
    
    All the time while we were throwing dollars at this machine that had
    all the I/O to satisfy even the pickiest of mainframe high priests,
    users and developers were accusing us of abandonment.  The developers
    wanted a new operating system that broke down the instructions to the
    chip allowing for more control.  The users were salivating at the
    thought of computing power all to themselves (without timesharing)
    right on their desk.  
    
    In my opinion, this is where we lost the vision, or more accurately
    forgot it.  Those that made us wanted Unix Workstations and PCs, but
    instead we continued chasing IBM into a hole.  IBM came back with the
    PS/2, and by the time we figured out our mistakes we had missed the
    market boom.  Finally, with Alpha we are playing catch-up in these
    markets by leapfrogging the technology.  
    
    Without the market boom, we are merely holding our own and some would
    say poorly.  We used to be the darling of the industry and we can again
    with the next market.  The trick is guessing where that is.  There is a
    market for clean-up of the mess all of the workstations and PCs of the
    world have created.  Integrating these systems to work together in a
    "pseudo-clustering" fashion brings a market we call today client/server
    and open computing.  
    
    If we go back to our original vision of bringing the power of
    information closer to the users rather than just adding more power, we
    may have hit on the next boom market.  This may mean bringing the
    information to the user no matter where the user is on the planet.  We
    already see this taking shape in related industries with cellular
    phones and pagers being purchased by the truck-load.  Laptops and home
    computers continue to grow in popularity, but this is only an
    indication of where the market will be. 
    
    Computer-type information through the television or like devices, pocket 
    computers, wireless technology and some we haven't even thought of
    coupled with the excitement of multi-medias are probably the direction
    to be headed.  Digital is well poised to hit this window of opportunity
    hard, we just have to recognize and once again become familiar with
    that fogotten vision.
    
    ..Larry Rose 

    
    	Hold on there a touch Larry Rose!!!!
    
    	Your history is a little (only a little) amiss!
    
    	The WORLD's first Timesharing system was the PDP 10, later to
    become the DECsystem 10 and its' offspring, the DECsystem 20.  The PDP
    10 was also DIGITAL's FIRST mainframe, LLLOOONNNGGG before the 9000
    range were even dreamed of!!!  The DECsystem 2020 had its price doubled
    when the VAX11/780 was introduced because it was the same power and a
    little over half the price and would have killed the VAX stone dead.
    
    	The DECsystem 10 had the KA10, KI10 and finally, the KL10
    processors (KA for first, KI for Integrated circuits and KL for ECL
    logic).  The Jupiter project, which was killed off because they
    couldn't get it to run reliably at full speed, was to be approximately
    the equivilant of 70 VUPs.  The Jupiter was killed off around the
    mid-80s and the design team went off to design the 8600 (I think it
    was).
    
    	So yes, the PDP11 was a wonderfull machine (when I grow up, I want
    to be a success like the PDP11) and so is the VAX, I'm certainly not
    knocking either of them, but first timesharing or first mainframe -
    neither of them were!
    
    				Malcolm.

    RE: .12  ...KA because it was the first
    
    Actually, I've always thought it stood for Alan Kotok.
    
    .../ken

re Note 3143.11 by DPDMAI::ROSE:

>     Ken Olsen had a vision to bring the power of information closer to the
>     user.  

        "From the beginning we have believed that  computers should
        be tools that can be used  by people who need information to
        do  their jobs.  We have promoted the design  of interactive
        computer systems that can be  placed where they are needed. 
        We see  the trend toward the increased use of  interactive,
        distributed computer systems as  confirmation of our basic
        philosophy."

        		Kenneth H. Olsen,
        		"Distributed Systems Handbook", March 1978


        ". . .we believe that we're taking part  in changing the way
        organizations work.   From our point of view, the companies
        that  will survive are going to move from an  environment of
        management control to one  that allows a large number of
        people, all  using their creative ability, their education, 
        and their motivation to take part.
	
		        Ken Olsen, Digital Equipment Quarterly Report 	
			       1987


        ". . .the greatest need is to tie  together all parts of an 
        organization to allow them to work  together.  This means
        that work  groups, as we call them, can be  expanded and
        contracted  spontaneously, as the need  develops. They can
        share  computing software and transmit  pictures,  documents
        and data.  It's  just common sense."

			Kenneth H. Olsen. High Technology, 	
			January, 1988


        "The free flow of information creates excitement, motivation
        and enthusiasm and helps unify the company... it is a strong
        internal catalyst and a powerful competitive tool"

        		Ken Olsen, Digital Equipment Corporation,
        		Annual Report 1986

        >So yes, the PDP11 was a wonderfull machine (when I grow up, I want

	I do agree with this. Years ago, I moved to a group, which developed
	a real-time application for a PDP11 based network, because I wanted 
	to learn more about the computer, not because of the application.

	To my opinion, PDP11 was also closest to an open system Digital has
	ever had. Lots of information was delivered freely with the HW
	and software sources were typically available so everybody and
	his neighbour could do add-on development. Later, Digital started
	to believe, that it can make more money by restricting access to
	information and started to be hostile towards people who tried
	to do something below and sometimes at the application layer.

	They were right?

	--Ritva

    re -1
<						Later, Digital started
<	to believe, that it can make more money by restricting access to
<	information and started to be hostile towards people who tried
<	to do something below and sometimes at the application layer.
    
    remember the hoopla over the proprietary BI chip?
    
    remember the PC100?
    
    remember the SBI?
    
    remember DSSI?
    
    remember CI?
    
    others come to mind
    
    tony

	..or remember how difficult it was for OEMs to get internals 
	info from any of the software.

	DECs attitude was (is?): We do it to our platforms ourselves
	and nobody should try to do compatible things to other platforms and
	don't even talk about free licensies to universities....

	People, who are closed out usually try to do something 
	meaningful anyway, because they don't want to stop working
	and eating. We got UNIX and TCP/IP and...

	--Ritva

RE: <<< Note 3143.12 by SUBURB::POWELLM "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be!" >>
              -<     Whoa up a little there Mr Rose!    ;-)     >-
    
>    	The WORLD's first Timesharing system was the PDP 10, later to
>    become the DECsystem 10 and its' offspring, the DECsystem 20.  

	The PDP-6 was the first 36-bit machine - built with "system modules."

	The PDP-10 was the next 36-bit machine - built with "flip-chip modules."
	The processor name was KA because of Alan Kotok (he also had some
	mnomonics in the prints with his children's initials).

	The only reason DEC survived the PDP-10 era of "big" machines losing
	so much money was because of the highly successful PDP-8.  This is
	what set the standard.  Acually, there was a time when the "flip-chip"
	module sales was higher than the computer sales...

	The PDP-11 blasted the mini-computer industry wide open.  The PDP-8
	was like a cottage market where the PDP-11 was an industrial revolution.
	(Don't forget that the VAX is a PDP-11.)

	Once the success of the PDP-11 hit home - that is where the rat-hole 
	of going after IBM started.  DEC was, however, hitting IBM with the
	PDP-10 because it was a *timesharing* environment and IBM had none of
	those.  I remember one company in California that took PDP-8L's in a
	front end to give the _impression_ of timesharing on IBM machines.

> So yes, the PDP11 was a wonderfull machine ...

	You bet your sweet a## it was.  It was what made DEC go from small to 
	big.  The problem was that maybe DEC was better off small than big.
	And no matter what one wants to call the 36-bit machines, this company
	survived off the PDP-8 and PDP-11.

    
    There was something called CALLOS that ran on IBM 360s. It was a batch
    job that communicated with remote terminals to provide something like a
    timesharing environment (this was back in 1974-76 or so at UNH).
    
    I always found it amusing that the DECsystem 1077 (and later 1099) that
    UNH used to replace the 360 turned this model upside down -- TOPS-10
    provided pseudo-teletypes so you could fool the machine into believing
    your batch job was running from a terminal.
    
    JP

         I was using an IBM time-sharing system as early as 1968
         or 1969.  It ran on an IBM 360/67 and the operating
         system was called CMS (for Cambridge Monitoring System,
         the Cambridge because it came out of research done at
         MIT). IBM offered this commercially on all it's large
         mainframes as an alternative to the batch processing
         systems.  Several time-sharing bureaus in the early
         seventies used it to provide services to their
         customers--Compuserv, Interactive Data Corporation, NCSS
         (part of NCR as I recall) are three that come to mind. 
         I'm well acquainted with IDC because that's where I
         worked for 15 years.  I don't know when the PDP-10 came
         out, so I don't know who wins in the "first offered"
         sweepstakes.  As far as I know, IBM still offers CMS
         under it's VM operating system umbrella.  

         Interestingly, I once saw a piece of marketing
         literature from Wang which went through a history
         similar to the one in the previous note, but this time
         it was Wang that was given as the inventor of
         time-sharing, the one who saved us all from those
         horrible, huge, batch environments the literature
         claimed that IBM made us use.  Proving, I guess, that
         rewriting history is a common occurrence (or at least
         that marketing literature is not a reliable historical
         reference.)  
    

    Re. .12:
    
>     	The WORLD's first Timesharing system was the PDP 10, later to
                    -----

    Well, I have to qualify that just a bit.  Naturally, I'm pleased
    to have the various successes of the 10/20 line recounted, but
    actually, the PDP-1 was the worlds **first** timesharing system.

    A PDP-1 at BBN around 1962 had some hardware modifications made to it
    to support trapping of privileged instructions and the like, and a
    rudimentary timesharing scheduler was implemented that allowed several
    users to interact with the machine simultaneously.  That experiment led
    to more ambitious timesharing systems on PDP-1s at BBN in the middle
    1960s, and it also fed into the development of the 36-bit timesharing
    system for the PDP-6 in 1964-65, known from the early days as TOPS
    (later TOPS-10.)

    And it should also be noted that there was a timesharing system called
    CTSS running at MIT on IBM 7094 hardware in 1964 or 65.

    However, it is undeniable that DEC gave timesharing to the computing
    world, and, with it, interactive computing for many more people.  There
    is a clear line from those systems to virtually everything that people
    use today.


    dlm

    So why is it that so many of these people are not using DIGITAL
    machines?
    
    People, you have to stop living in the past.

    >>So why is it that so many of these people are not using DIGITAL   
    >>machines?
    
    I believe it is for the reasons I explained in .11...  They believe we
    abandoned them.  
    
    I think that we are experiencing to some lesser degree the same
    backlash from the many users that purchased Ultrix.  With the advent of
    OSF, they feel we have tricked them somehow.  BTW, we had a new version
    released of Ultrix just two months ago.
    
    ..Larry

    
    
    is it really a question in anyone's mind as to whether we (Digital)
    abandoned our ULTRIX customers?  believe me, and believe them when they
    say that we have.  if you find my word questionable take a look at
    some of the newsgroups on usenet like, for example 'comp.unix.ultrix'
    
    mark
    

    
    
    re .12
    
    
    PDP-10... KA10
    
    Brings back memories.... I think I built most of them when I got hired
    as an Assembler.
    
    
    Lou

 >   Brings back memories.... I think I built most of them when I got hired
 >  as an Assembler.

	I once had a summer job as a librarian.  I hoped to work
	my way up to a position as a link editor, but I became ill
	with a nasty coff.

>     I believe it is for the reasons I explained in .11...  They believe we
>     abandoned them.  

    One of the biggest problems of this industry is that technology
    produces rapid change, and many companies, DEC included, have been
    caught in the dilemma of support for the old vs. moving to the new.

    But must it be a binary choice?

    It was, I believe, the CEO of HP (probably among others) who said
    recently, "you have to eat your own lunch, or some competitor will eat
    it for you".  In other words, you have to agressively obsolete your own
    products, or someone else will do it and leave you in the dust.

    DEC's long-standing problem seems to be an inability to move a group of
    products out of mainstream focus without dropping them on the floor and
    creating terrible customer perception problems.  The first example of
    this, or at least the biggest up to the time, was the cancellation of
    the 36-bit line in 1984.   Talk about abandonment!  Because 10's and
    20's were the largest machines DEC made at the time, the customers were
    big companies -- the Fortune 500 IS departments and the like.  And
    then, after having given all kinds of rosy, confidential presentations
    on hardware and software futures, DEC suddenly announced the complete
    cancellation of the line, specifically including NO futher hardware
    products at all.

    Many of those customers, even those who later bought VAXes, never fully
    trusted DEC again.  Do you even wonder why "proprietary" products (at
    least from some companies) got such a bad name?  If the sole vendor
    decides to flush that business, then you the customer are hosed.

    If times then were like they are today, DEC would probably have sold
    off the product line and it could have become a thriving business in
    its own right.  However, the attitude then was "kill it so it doesn't
    compete with VAX".  I don't see how anyone could ever make the case
    that DEC "did the right thing" for the customers in that situation.

    On the other hand, I believe that customers understand that technology
    changes, and they do not expect agressive support of every product
    forever. Customers do NOT expect a company never to bring out a new
    product that obsoletes a current one, and they surely realize that
    declining revenues for an aging product will result in a reduced level
    of development.  However, customers ought to be able to believe that
    their products won't be abandoned or killed while there is still
    sufficient revenue to support them.  Some customers may be happy being
    behind the technology curve or may just want to advance at THEIR pace,
    not as dictated by some vendor.

    Consequently, I believe the way to handle this dilemma is actually
    simple to state -- not always easy to judge, but easy to state.

    1. Develop compatible products for as long as you can, but...
    2. Introduce new technology when it represents a significant leap
        in performance, functionality, or industry direction.
    3. Allow your old and new products to compete on their merits. 
        Scale down investment in the old products based on realistic
        revenue projections, neither faster (trying to push customers
        to new products) nor slower (tree-hugging).

    The way this is most likely to happen is via the approach suggested
    frequently in this conference and elsewhere: many independent product
    lines which can make the best business judgements for their products
    and customers and are not forced into one exclusive centrally-directed
    strategy.

    And, getting back to the title of this topic, that's also the best kind
    of environment for good ideas to be recognized. 


    dlm

    You obsolete your own products by creating new, better products -- not
    by throwing the old ones on the rubbish heap without a replacement.
    
    \dave

    I firmly believe that we (Digital) are paying a very large price for
    not supporting the university environment in the 70's and 80's. By
    "support", I mean cheap/free access to DEC operating systems and
    heavily discounted/free hardware. The students of those era's are now
    in the real world (well, SOME of them anyway }-) ) and are influencing
    the direction of today's business purchasing. ("I used UNIX in college,
    therefore it MUST be good...")
    
    Colleges got the Berkley flavor of UNIX for free/real cheap, DEC stuff
    was big-bucks. We should learn something from that.
    
    .mike.

    re: .30
    
    we attempted it in the 60's and 70's but we were over-run when
    AT&T saw it was a good idea and they gave unix away to the universites
    for a number of years...
    
    AT&T saw it was a good idea and did it better than us...

re: .31:
  
>    we attempted it in the 60's and 70's but we were over-run when
>    AT&T saw it was a good idea and they gave unix away to the universites
>    for a number of years...
>    
>    AT&T saw it was a good idea and did it better than us...

Lets see... AT&T saw what we were doing, recognized it as a good idea,
and upped the ante on us.  Instead of competing in an acknowleged "good idea",
DEC folded.  What's wrong with this picture?

Actually, I see this all as symptomatic of one of the guiding misconceptions
of Digital marketing:

o Digital Marketing, and the resulting advertising (if any) is targeted at
    "the decision makers", who are presumed to be the same folks who sign
     P.O.s and other authorizations, i.e. VPs and other corporate officers.

What this misses is the fact that in EVERY corporation that I have worked at
(either as a direct employee or as a contractor), including internally at
Digital, decisions are INFLUENCED and MADE by the grunts who actually understand
this stuff.  The upper levels will ratify the decision (or not, depending on
bugeting, etc.) but the will very rarely contradict the technical advice
given to them.  

i.e. 
Techie: "We should really have a dozen Digital frazzmatazz units. They're the
best!"
Manager: "I'll take your word, but we've only got budget for four, so you'll
have to live with that."

We need to market to those who REALLY influence the decisions, and that's NOT
upper-level VPs etc.  (at least not exclusively).

The college programs are a perfect example of this.

re.32:

I can't speak for where you are based but I happen to know that many Digital UK 
campaigns over the past year have been aimed at the I.T. Manager/System 
Manager/I.T. Worker level. DECUS is also firmly focused in that area and
continues to enjoy the highest levels of support within the company. That does
not mean we should not target decision makers, because if it's a major
purchase, it's important that the person signing has heard of the supplier or
they might not sign...

Dave.

    	Before I joined DEC, I worked for another multinational company
    that had just bought a minicomputer manufacturer. There was a directive
    that we were only allowed to use products from that manufacturer.
    
    	Somehow, us grunts never managed to agree on a hardware
    configuration from that manufacturer that would do the job, and senior
    management didn't know enough about either computers or the details of
    the project to specify a computer system on their own. Eventually, when
    the project was already a year late they gave in and let us specify a
    DEC configuration.

re: .31

AT&T, before the breakup, was enjoined from entering the
business of selling computers or operating systems.  Thus
they had to give it away, probably for the tax benefits,
and not any long term plan to make Unix viable.  At one 
point, they even tried to sell the rights to us (but we
refused).  

I believe that AT&T's contribution to the market success
of Unix is serendipitous at best.  

   Gary

    
    I Agree totally that we should advertise towards and - in selected 
    cases - provide free samples to the techies. In most cases you can talk
    to the guy at the top (even the IT directory or IT manager) about
    technology until you are blue in the face, but he'll go straight back
    to the ranch and talk with his tame techie advisors - and they
    effectively yay or nay the buying decision. Only in a very few cases
    does the person who signs off the order have any independent view.
    
    Most of all Digital needs to be FAMOUS. If we attain that status, then
    you dont really need to spend a long time courting company directors,
    cos they already know you. It all seems so obvious..... but not, I
    guess, to those who have made advertising and marketing decisions at
    DEC in the last few years.
    
    Alan T.
    UK Multimedia Servers Group.