Conference 7.286::digital

    
    I'm sure people would love to get on with things and focus on what is
    needed.  That said, let's get it (the layoffs) over and done with so we
    can move on and dedicate ourselves to the success of the corporation
    rather than updating our resumes, making contacts, etc.  I'm sure that
    this would make everyone happy, both those who will leave and those who
    will stay.
    
    
    Mike

me,too (reply)

Let's do the triage.

    While the music plays, let's dance. And if you're cool the music's in
    your head, so only you, can tell you when to stop. Opportunities bud,
    flower, then fade away, so enjoy the momentary beauty and think, isn't
    it too short a ride to get really wound up about it?
    
    Am I getting Existensial here or just confused?
    
    Think I'll stick to poetry and walking on the beach.....if that's OK
    with the beach?

    If I were the beach in these troubled times I would let ya walk on me.

    In ancient times they had the same cycle we're on...
    
    the Bible mentions 7 years of "fat cows" and 7 years of "thin cows" in
    ancient Egypt.
    
    We now are in "the thin cows" years... let's be patient, flexible and
    productive, and the "thin" years will pass! followed by... guess what?
    
    Better times will come for everyone!
    Cheers, Ana
    

If we're in the lean years now, we'd better have done the smart thing
in the fat years.  From the trenches, it certainly doesn't look that way.

    Hey! Even the rain feels good in the desert, or after 6 months of the
    hot stuff here...
    
    If there were no bad things how would we recognise the good?
    
    3 years ago I was travelling 3-4 hrs a day to the office and back,
    living in a grey and dismal town in the middle of the grey and dismal
    UK Midlands. Occasional trips abroad at extreme cost and much distance
    brought the beach, sun, and pleasant environment but two weeks a year.
    
    Then I volunteered for the first round of redundancy, with the package.
    Did some study to fill in time, took a programming position after the
    course - in case my bid for papers failed - and awaited papers for
    immigration. Year later with the money from the big R, paid to ship our
    belongings and ourselves out here, and now I live in a much nicer
    house, with a big garden, in which we can keep (and do) a pair of
    lovely dogs, 20 minutes from Cape Town, 20 minutes from forests, 20
    minutes from mountains, 25 minutes from the beach.
    
    And now I'm back on-board again in a burgeoning new subsidiary. Hell,
    the only problem is we can't fit the whole cow on our BBQ!
    
    Heads up guys, someone's having fun....may as well give in and join 'em!

    re:-1
    
    	Absolutely. Life is what YOU make it. Better times ahead, folks.
    It is back to the future for Digital. And I, for one, think it is
    about time. :-)
    
    		the Greyhawk

    Greyhawk,
    
    You were so pessimistic a couple of weeks ago. Now you're quite 
    optimistic, which is goodness.
    
    Could you share with us what made you take that U-turn ? 

    Fat cows?  Thin cows?  Good god man don't tell me you have cows!
    
    Regards,
    Farnsworth

>    Could you share with us what made you take that U-turn ? 

Looks like Prozac to me.

Well, in these 'bad times', I was turned into a 'home worker'. They closed 
the office. 

Comms was hard. Now, I have an ISDN line, DECnet and TCP to the house, 
Easynet here when I want it and I finally feel I'm back in the club.

I'm happy !

Alan

    
    	Ain't Prozac, nor the fact that the baby is finally sleeping thru
    the night, and it's not the SLT. It's the marketplace. Here is what I
    am discovering.
    
    	VMS users like VMS. Period. They will continue to buy as long as we
    are commited, and they feel OK about Digital in the long-run. And they
    don'y give a fig who they buy from. A broker, end-user rep, VAR or
    Distributor.
    
    	OSF/1 is finally "coming along". It still isn't AIX, but it is a
    whole lot closer than it was six months ago. So UNIX-types are now
    taking notice, and that helps gain Alpha marketshare (considering
    Chicago is the home of UNIX-this fact is a very big deal). And UNIX
    folks are used to buying boxes "on the black market", so they could
    care less who sells them what.
    
    	PCs are now very competitive, delievry has improved, quality is
    excellent, and pricing "is not all bad". We are gaining in PCs every
    month. My VARs are now buying these machines by the 100s. Finally.
    
    	We are now organizing to the market. I dislike the fact that many
    good people are leaving these four walls, but I didn't particularity
    like Vietnam either, that's life. Let's get on with today and tomorrow.
    Crying over spilled milk has never been my style.
    
    	I still think we have too many managers, and not enough resellers.
    But I'm working on that myself :-). Our admin systems (from OE to
    Credit to AR, etc) are still a mess, and make me crazy daily. But
    the implementation of SAP corporate-wide should really have a positive
    impact.
    
    	D & P likes the stock at $20. And so do I. The preferred maybe the
    best deal on the NYSE today for IRA accounts.
    
    	Is the SLT highly articulate with the troops. No. So what? We've
    all been just a little too emotional here. Time to get to work, and
    win. Especially since our competition is not a whole lot better. 
    
    	My belief is that we are going to what made us Big-Time in the
    first place - state of art engineering, quality manufacturing, and
    let somebody else sell the stuff (the old VARs, OEM, TOEM, and
    Distributors game). I am in complete agreement.
    
    	I know a lot of EU sales people don't feel this way quite yet.
    It is a new model for them. They will have to adjust. The good ones
    will, and I bet the'll love it. The customer really wins, and our
    margins will stabilize, etc.
    
    	Prozac, hell, what I need is Champagne.
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

re .13

Errr - That's around Chicago too, isn't it ...

    re .13
    
    I like what you said Greyhawk. After all the competition isn't ten feet
    tall. With a competitive cost structure and with a continuing stream of
    good products that the market needs, there is no excuse for us not to 
    start reclaiming significant market share gain in the next few years.
    
    

    Yes. YES. YES!!!!  Y E S ! ! !
    
    Now can we just roll out this positive vibe and spread it around a bit.
    
    A spring in the step, spring in the air. Then you go step in cowd.ng.
    What do you do? Sit down get depressed and wait for winter and ask
    Santa Claus to give you new shoes? No. You wipe it off, yourself, and 
    continue. So if we don't like something, we try and demonstrate the
    better or more relevant approach and see what happens. Even if we have
    to push from the bottom up, sideways, or at an angle with our left arm
    tied behind our backs.
    
    I've been out for three years, and there are worse companies, worse
    industries, and worse management strategies than those around here, and
    I'm glad, Yeay brother I say GLAD, to be back.
    
    Ho hum, off to work then......
    
    			Sorry, no smart moniker 
    (thinking - and where do I find the noters guide to smiling etc. :-} )
    
    

    
	Hi Greyhawk,
    
    	could you explain what you mean with SAP:
    
    >>the implementation of SAP corporate-wide should really have a positive
    >>impact.
    
    	Thanks
    		Stefan
    	

    Dear Greyhawk,
    
         Yet another interesting note.  I share your view of the changes 
    overall and in the face of all experience I am permitting myself a 
    (very) small measure of hope.  Some things can get you down, though.
         
         We have changed many times before and what I observe is that it 
    isn't one model or another that matters, it's the sheer inability to 
    make it happen.  ACTs, DCCs, CBUs and now divisions and units-- like 
    the Iranians said after the 1979 revolution, all that's changed is 
    the pictures on the wall ..... and the price of whisky.
         
         Two things seem to happen.  
         
         One: The boss says one thing, the gangers go off and do 
              another.  How do you feel, for example, about Damiani 
              saying, "Account executives (in the ABU) will receive 
              credit for all Digital products sold into their customer 
              accounts whether those products are sold directly or 
              through a channel partner" (Digital Today, special 
              edition, 18 July)?  Doesn't this sound like a measure to 
              add cost only?
         
         Two: We just don't have the systems to make any of it work.  
              We heard talk of the CBUs being "profit-based".  It soon 
              stopped when they realized no one had a clue how to make 
              it happen.  You talk about the implementation of SAP 
              making a difference.  Don't hold your breath (and I 
              thought this programme had been cancelled, postponed or 
              rightsized?)
         
         Our problem still remains what it was five years ago when I 
    joined and, for all I know, what it has always been.  We don't have 
    basic systems.  We are a company with lots of communications but very 
    little data.  We even encourage multiple counting of sales by 
    different marketing and sales groups and then we wonder why we can't 
    get our forecasts right.
         
         I'd like to repeat my suggestion of a week or so ago: find a CVC 
    system in our industry that works and then buy it, or outsource to it 
    or--and I think this would be best--ask them to buy us.  That might 
    cure our system problem at least.  As for the command and control 
    problem, maybe we need General Schwarzkopf in here somewhere.
         
         dave_P

    Re: .18
    
    > maybe we need General Schwarzkopf in here somewhere.
    
    He wouldn't take the job. We have too high a rate of attrition and too
    many levels of command between him and the troops :-)

    Let's see now, the Army:
    
    General
    Lt-General
    Major General
    Brigadier General
    Colonel
    Lt-Colonel
    Major
    Captain
    Lieutenant
    2nd-Lieutenant
    
    That's ten levels of management, not counting the NCO levels
    (another 5-6).
    
    Maybe Gen. Schwartzkopf would need a few more levels of management if he 
    was to join us ! :-)
    
    Paul

    Back to the 'systems' issue...
    
    Back in after 3 years, I don't see a great change, like a new Dynamism
    sweeping through energising the 'Universe'. I do see an adherence even
    in this 'new' subsidiary, to the old, the familiar, the comfortable.
    
    We have a chance to break and introduce new systems - wherever they may
    originate from - new systems based perhaps on the new technologies, the
    new operating systems - AND demonstrate that we have faith in these new
    areas, but no, we're going to wait, then go along with the pre-formed,
    pre-digested, proven systems. These are the systems proven only to have
    been in operation during the downfall, maybe contributing thereto.
    
    I would pray, were I religious, that someone with the ..... (how many
    letters in gumption?)would stand and say, that with logistics/supplies
    failing to deliver, thereby losing actual live customers, then the
    system is failing, and as suggested - buy in a real, up to date,
    working and working successfully, system. And that applies across the
    board, call handling, quote generation, whatever - everyone seems to
    have frustrations with 'The System'.
    
    Someone out there has some part of the answer working right, so let's
    buy it, swallow our pride and be seen to be adult about this. We are
    not a software house developing logistics packages, so let's not
    pretend. Find who it is that really knocks the customers' socks off
    when it comes to Call response, and adopt their approach. Plagiarism
    worked for the Japanese, if anything they made it a feature.
    
    Any references to Army or Armies unknown is purely irrelevant.

>>    General
>>    Lt-General
>>    Major General
>>    Brigadier General

 most of the time you only have one of those in field

as well as 

>>    Colonel
>>    Lt-Colonel

as well as 

>>    Lieutenant
>>    2nd-Lieutenant

which leave use to 5 level of management.....

In Note: 3300.20 from Decnote DIGITAL,
GVA05::STIFF (Paul Stiff EPSCC, DTN:821-4167) wrote:

 >     Let's see now, the Army:
 >     
 >     General
 >     Lt-General
 >     Major General
 >     Brigadier General
 >     Colonel
 >     Lt-Colonel
 >     Major
 >     Captain
 >     Lieutenant
 >     2nd-Lieutenant
 >     
 >     That's ten levels of management, not counting the NCO levels
 >     (another 5-6).

That's a complete list of ranks; reporting relationships often skip
ranks. If we were to follow this fallacy of reasoning in Digital, we'd
likewise assume that each Software Engineer II reported to a Software
Engineer I who reported to a Senior Software Engineer... 

When I was a newly commissioned Ensign in the Navy many years ago, my 
reporting relationship looked like: me, division officer, department head,
C.O. (our captain was a Captain), then a Rear Admiral, a Vice Admiral,
and an Admiral (4 stars, the Chief of Naval Operations). That's six
levels all the way up to the top of an organization *MUCH* bigger than
Digital. By comparison, there are 5 levels between me and Bob P.
Admittedly, I didn't enter the Navy at the bottom; only the bottom of the
commissioned officer corps. But then, after 12 years at DEC, I like to think
I'm not at the bottom here either. And the Navy is larger than Digital by
more than an order of magnitude.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Meyer A. Billmers                      Digital Equipment Corporation
billmers@mko.dec.com                    Multivendor Customer Service
(603) 884-0350                                Applied Research Group

    Hey I didn't mean to drive this topic down a foxhole, er, rathole :-)

More on .17 - SAP

See Business Week article dated August 8, 1994, page 46, "America's Latest
Software Success Story is German".

re: .26

I believe .17 wants to know what (from .13) "But the implementation of SAP 
corporate-wide should really have a positive impact..." means.  I.e. how/when/
where are we implementing SAP and what will/should/are_we_hoping it will do?

Anyway, that's what *I'd* like to know.

Bruce

Re .24 - So did the CNO report directly to the President? If so, then
you had only 7 levels all the way up to the top of the entire US 
military! Sort of makes you feel important, eh?

    
    	OK, OK, - Get the message. It ain't the levels of management, it's
    the ability of the levels to manage. Most mid-level managers at
    Digital, unlike the US Army, do not have responsibility to execute
    anything. They engage in action avoidance, moving the responsibility
    for execution somewhere else.
    	When I was a Branch Manager at Motorola, I had more power, and
    authority, and responsibility, than a Regional VP at Digital today.
    I could excute contracts, set salaries and budgets, hire and fire,
    collect funds, give credits, originate and run my own sales and
    marketing promotions and programs, etc. I was responsible for
    everything, not just some things. The Army is generally (no pun)
    the same, the local commander is the responsible party. Period.
    His call, his neck. But he is valued based on making those calls,
    not avoiding them.
    	Yes, people everywhere do try to avoid conflict, or decisions
    for a myriad of reasons. But that doesn't get you any farther ahead.
    It does not cause execution of mission to occur. This is my point
    preciously - if you have too many levels that hinder execution of
    mission, eliminate them; if you have too many levels that slow
    execution, eliminate them; if you have too many levels that change
    the nature of the execution, eliminate them.
    	It's a tough world, and we need to get tough. I'm happy that we
    have at least started down that path. Time will tell. In the inbetween
    I, for one, intend to kick some competitive butt.
    
    		the Greyhawk

    Re:  .29
    
    Phony managers 'work the issues';  Real managers issue the work.
    
    Dave

    
    	It has nothing to do with assignments. It has everything to do
    with seeing the execution of the assignments. Anybody can "schedule"
    work. Very few can do it on time, 100% completed, below cost.
    
    		the Greyhawk 

     Greyhawk -
    
    As an ex-Army, been to 'Nam too, been around here through 2-3 sets of
    good ole days, type; I've got to observe that the military in general is
    a prime example of large organizations tending towards mediocrity. The
    best and brightest usually couldn't wait to get out and the military
    did a fair job of weeding out the bottom...what does that leave.
    
    But, having said that, I certainly am hoping for the best after the dust
    settles on the fiasco that we've just been through. We get our
    Cooperman road show next week. I'm tempted to paraphrase a line from the 
    movie The Godfather, when Sonny is talking about setting up the shooting
    at the Resturant he tell's Claminza (sp) who is to hide the gun in the
    bathroom. "I want my brother to come out of that bathroom with more
    than his **** in his hand." I certainly hope Cooperman has more in his
    hand. So far what's missing is a real vision of where we are going and
    what we want to be when this is all over. 
    
    Right now there seems to be more clear info on what we're trying not to 
    be or what we're getting out of than there is about the markets, the 
    products and the strategies that are to carry us to future success. I
    don't disagree with what had to be done, maybe it could have been
    handled differently, but it had to happen. I agree that it's time to
    move on and help drag Digital out of this mess, I just wish I had more
    faith that the SLC had a real clue about the market that you and I face
    every day. I guess I'll get a better idea of where the SLC's head is next 
    week from Cooperman.
    
    OFWAMI 
    
    
    
    

>
>re: .26
>
>I believe .17 wants to know what (from .13) "But the implementation of SAP 
>corporate-wide should really have a positive impact..." means.  I.e. how/when/
>where are we implementing SAP and what will/should/are_we_hoping it will do?
>
>Anyway, that's what *I'd* like to know.
>
    
    A sizeable part ( 99% ? :-) of our business applications are homegrown.
    When there were few off-the-shelve solutions available this was excusable.
    Our own solutions were many, often inflexible, rarely 'state-of-the-art',
    often hardcoded to local needs. They require a big investement, are hard 
    to maintain and offer poor cross function, cross country data integration.
    
    Nowadays there are several aplication on the market that offer generic, 
    integrated, supported, taylorable, documented, certified, solutions.
    To name a few: Oracle Financials, Peoplesoft, Dunn&Bradstreet,...
    SAP /R3 is considered one of the better ones.
    
    We sell these packages as solutions for customers business data problems.
    Could it be possible that one could solve our own business data problems ?!
    
    Digital is not in the business of making businness applications but we 
    seem to have done them anyway, as a hobby, with matching results and costs.
    It is time to clean house and rationalize our internal data solutions.
    The results should be a drastic reduction in support costs and access to
    bussiness data with a completeness and timeliness we could only dream.
    
    Yes it will take money to make money. 
    Yes, requests for local customizations / special functions will 
     threaten to kill the project.
    Yes, this should replace that application you liked / hated so much.
    No, the new application will not exactly look like the old one.
    No, you can not have your cake and eat it too. 
    Yes, it will get the job done.
    Yes, there will be political battles.
    No, this is not 100% sure to happen.
    No, I am not involved this project, only relaying what I happen to
     hear around me. Yes, IMHO it would be desirable if it did happen.
    
    
>where are we implementing SAP 
    
    All over the globe if it works out!
    
>    and what will/should/are_we_hoping it will do?
    
    Just enough to run a tight, well informed, responsive, $10B business
    with room to grow volumes and features when a need for that is proven.
    
    
    Hope this helps some,
    
    	Hein.

    
    	Hein -
    
    		Couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks.
    
    		
    			the Greyhawk

 
re .16 

>    			Sorry, no smart moniker 
>    (thinking - and where do I find the noters guide to smiling etc. :-} )
    
Take a look at Note 12 Reply 20 in HUMANE::ETIQUETTE.

Steve

    <<< Note 3300.31 by POBOX::CORSON "Higher, and a bit more to the right" >>>
                                   -< Au Contreaur >-
                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                            |
    	What was this, an attempt at French?|  Mine is poor enough, but not
    that bad!  Or is it really French and mine is SO bad that I don't
    recognise it?
                                  ;^)
    
    	That wasn't the reason for this reply - I want to know - What is
    this SAP that is mentioned here and there in this Topic?
    
    				Malcolm.
    

    
    Re: information about SAP.
    
    Phil Gransewicz was intimately involved with SAP before his untimely
    demise at DEC over the DCU flap. Phil immediately landed a job with
    SAP, and seems to be about as happy as a pig in [whatever it is that
    pigs roll around in].
    
    I'm sure that Phil would be happy to share information about SAP and
    the potential benefits of its products to DEC. Phil can be reached on
    the net at Gransewicz@aol.com.
    

    
    	SAP is a german software company, they have two products, R/2 and R/3. 
    	R/2 runs on mainframes only.
    	R/3 is client/server SW which runs on nearly all Unix platforms,
    	on OpenVMS and on WNT. Below lies a Database of your choice (Oracle, 
    	Informix). 
    	What R/3 does is 'rebuild' your whole companystructure in the 
    	computer, you can run all your administration stuff with it and
    	more.
    
    	Btw, in Germany SAP is absolutely 'hype', their revenue grows 10+%
    	every quarter. It's hard to find a company that has _not_ yet
    	implemented R/3 or is a least planning to do so.
    
    	As to the positive impact for us, R/3 is the tool, not the solution.
    	
    	Stefan
    
    	PS: I didn't know Digital had planned to implement R/3.

It would be interesting to understand the reasons of SAP R/3 software success
in particular in the architectural choices to achieve integration. 

This could probably (still) help us in solving our middleware problems. 

For instance, Objectbroker features compliance to CORBA and sticks to the
static API (old and bad, whatever technical people might say !) 

In this critical area, this is just showing that we are somehow taking the
opposite direction and therefore SAP R/3 good ideas such as self describing
messages and dynamic API cannot unfortunately spring from Digital.

Cheers,
Jean
    

    Re: -many, SAP/R3 is being implemented as the backbone system for
    world-wide CVC (Customer Value Chain).  It's been in the
    testing/planning stages here in Merrimack for several months.  Enrico
    got impatient and took it over recently.  It's now known as project
    "Brisk"... I guess he wanted some results and fast...!  
    
    When implemented it will replace beloved systems such as FOCUS, AQS,
    BMS, etc...

    Re: .13
    
    >> VMS users like VMS.
    
    I'm glad to hear someone say this.  I suspected it, but I didn't
    know.
    
    Now, I've got a lot of questions...
    
    I understand how this relates to old revenue, but how does it relate
    to new revenue?
    
    Do we have a model for product retirement that's based on hardware
    products?  (PdP-11, 36-bit computers, etc.)  If we do, isn't that
    model likely to seriously mislead us when we start thinking of
    a software product as "mature"?
    
    What features of VMS add to consumer loyalty?  Are those features
    easily abstracted from the rest of VMS?  If so, how long before
    we start seeing those features in UNIX?  Windows-NT?  OS-2?
    
    Dave
    

    Re: .31
    
    >> Anybody can "schedule" work.
    
    Either you and I use the word "schedule" very differently, or
    we see this issue very differently.  
    
    {I was about to post a long note on "scheduling", but it's
     probably a rathole}
    
    Dave
    

Note that Jim Whalen is also with SAP now:)  The FABS Marketing relationship 
managers are Rich Luciano @MKO and Al Burroughs @MKO.

MS

                <<< MRKTNG::USERD:[NOTES$LIBRARY]FABS.NOTE;1 >>>
                                   -< FABS >-
================================================================================
Note 320.0                Digital buys SAP applications               No replies
MRKTNG::NORTH                                        68 lines   5-NOV-1993 11:48
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact: Jim Whalen
    	 Digital Equipment Corporation
    	 (603) 884-3120

 Digital and SAP Announce Extensions to Partnership for R/3 and Alpha AXP

             Digital signs letter of intent to implement R/3


    San Diego, 18 October 1993 --At SAP's North American user conference 
SAPphire '93, Digital Equipment Corporation today announced its intent to 
use SAP's R/3 applications for its customer administration and order 
fulfillment process.

    "Digital's three year goal is to replace the numerous applications 
presently supporting these processes with R/3 on a worldwide basis" said 
Ed McDonough, Digital's Vice President of Manufacturing & Logistics.  
"SAP's commitment to collaborate with Digital to further R/3's technology 
and functional capabilities was a critical factor in our decision."

R/3 availability for Alpha AXP

    As announced previously, SAP's R/3 family of integrated business 
applications is shipping on Digital's Alpha AXP platform for open 
client/server computing.  The solution, offered on DEC OSF/1 AXP and Open 
VMS AXP operating systems, combines 64-bit computing power with 
market-leading commercial applications.  In another area, SAP is now using 
Alpha AXP technology in its development labs in Germany.

    "Customers are looking to new technologies to replace mainframe 
processing, and R/3 on the Alpha AXP platform delivers the next generation 
of commercial open systems computing," said John Klein, Vice President of 
Digital's Consumer, Process, and Transportation Business Unit.

    According to Klein, the market acceptance for R/3 on Digital's Alpha 
AXP platform has been outstanding.  "Digital understands the requirements 
of our customers in implementing R/3, as illustrated by the establishment 
of European and North American R/3 Expertise Centers," he said.

    "The Alpha AXP family offers customers increased speed and the ability 
to cope with volumes of data that previously could only be dealt with 
using mainframe computers, and this is contributing to its market 
acceptance by our customers implementing R/3," said Klaus Besier, 
President of SAP America.

    Digital Equipment Corporation, headquartered in Maynard, MA, is the 
leading worldwide supplier of networked computer systems, software, and 
services.  Digital leads the industry in interactive, distributed, and 
multivendor computing.  Digital and its business partners deliver the 
power to use the best integrated solutions--from desktop to data 
center--in open information environments.

    Founded more than 20 years ago, SAP is the world's eighth largest 
software vendor.  SAP provides client/server and mainframe-based business 
applications software for a wide range of hardware and operating 
platforms.  More than 2,900 companies in 35 countries use SAP software for 
integrated human resources, financial and cost accounting, manufacturing 
and logistics, and sales distribution.  Headquartered in Walldorf, 
Germany, SAP employs a work force of over 3,300 and has more than 28 
subsidiaries, including SAP America and SAP Canada


The following are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation:
Alpha AXP, AXP, DEC, the Digital logo, and Open VMS

OSF/1 is a registered trademark of Open Software Foundation, Inc.

    
    	Re.37  We don't have access to "the Net" here yet.
    
    	Re.41  I can't see us ever doing anything with OS/2.  Isn't that
    IBMs answer to Windows?  I understand that some OpenVMS features are
    appearing on OSF/1 (the most UNIX UNIX), such as Clustering etc.  There
    may be many others too.  Who knows, UNIX may become slightly user
    friendly under the influence of OSF/1!
    
    	Re SAP and several replies.  So who exactly is using this software
    in DIGITAL?  I understand that DECdirect every where will use POINT,
    which sounds rather similar, but not altogether so.  Presently, POINT
    ONLY runs on DOS, but I understand that it is being re-written to run
    under Windows (NOT NT).  Does this mean that there are two rival
    systems running in DIGITAL?
    
    				Malcolm.

    RE: .44
    
    Malcolm, anyone with access to a VMS computer on the EASYNet has access
    to "the Net".
    
    Laurie.

re.44:

>    Does this mean that there are two rival
>    systems running in DIGITAL?

Malcolm, I do hope you asked that with tongue firmly in cheek! There have 
always been dozens of order processing systems in Digital. Even though the 
business processes and applications were available years ago for us to solve 
the problem, politics always got in the way.

Dave.