Conference 7.286::digital

    Figures --- I meet with a customer -- Application could run on
    4000/105a -- Customer is comfortable with the solution ---- Yours truly
    pushes sable (Hey -- I can be trained -- Just throw money my way.)  Now
    the customer thinks Sable is what they need.
    
    I had heard that Sables were out into to late september on deliveries 
    -- Wonder if we get the incentive payment if customer can take Sables
    and we can't ship before the end of the quarter.
    
    Also -- heard that Sables are being sold as a "Loss-leader"  --
    Supposedly Gartner published that statement.
    
    Oh well -- Life is fun in the fishbowl.
    
    Dennis

    Sable has a 6 week leadtime.
    
    There is an availability problem with a Sram.
    
    

    From the Product Leadtime Guide on August 8th:
    
     A.  All systems OSF/VMS Sable/Jensen orders are currently being held
         in float till further notice.  We are experiencing availabilty issues
         with the PB2GA-AA Q-vision card which is used with these systems.
    
        
    We got one hot selling system in Sable. I was hoping logistics and
    manufacturing won't pour cold water on it. However, the above paragraph
    is not reassuring.
    
    
        

    Bottom line is SABLE IS *NOT* *NOT* *NOT* on hold.  These rumors only
    hurt products.  Manufacturing is feverishly building Sables and
    shipping them as fast as possible.  Yes, the lead times are a little
    long, but thats due to the tremendous initial demand.  Manufacturing
    ramp up is more like a step function for this product.
    
    Please do not spread these wild and incorrect rumors and further.
    
    Thank-you,
    
    -Kurr Thaller
     Sable Engineering
    
    RE: .3
    
    The Q-vision card shortage is not yet affecting Sable.  A PCI card is being
    used as a replacement, to be phased in when the q-vision cards run out.
    
    RE: .1
    
    I'm not sure what is meant by "being sold as a 'loss leader' ", but sable
    is making tons of money for the corporation.  There is a good
    markup on both the base system, as well as the options.
    
    RE: .2
    
    SRAMS are *NOT* holding up building of Sables.  There was at one time a
    potential shortage of SRAMS, but was headed off and resolved with no impact
    to building CPU modules.  In addition, supply has been scheduled for
    the next two quarters gauranteeing future SRAM deliver.

    
    	Re:-1
    
    	Float means we backlog the systems with priority handling based on
    	first-in, first-out to "flush" the backlog. Of course, this is a 
    	policy - real-world works differently (the squeeky wheel syndrome).
    
    	But float is better than "Product Hold" which means you got heavy
    	explaning to do to your customers since something is broke as
    	opposed to missing.
    
    	I've been fighting shipping problems at Digital for three years
    	now. My kids can fix a Ferrari in less time.
    
    		the Greyhawk

The suggestion that Sable is sold as a loss-leader probably comes from someone
who can't believe that Digital can actually design a product that is cheap
to build and then sell it at a fair price.  We're finally breaking out of
the "price it at what we think it's worth" mold.

				Steve

    Sable is not on hold.  There WAS a short hold for versions shipping
    with field test WNT Server but this has been cleared and they're
    shipping again.  Enrico Pesatori is pushing us all very hard to get
    this system shipping in very high volumes.  Manufacturing are obtaining
    material to vastly increase supply and reduce leadtimes.
    
    Sable also makes good money.  Not only do we say we embrace the low
    cost culture of PCs, but we do it.  It's a great machine.    
    
    Ken
    
    

    
    Current Sable volumes may look good from historic Digital standards.
    But the real yardstick is the volume of servers being sold by Compaq
    etal. In the world tour meeting at Detroit today, Harry Kopperman was
    saying he is not happy with the US forecast for Sables in Q1! 

re: .8

>    Current Sable volumes may look good from historic Digital standards.
>    But the real yardstick is the volume of servers being sold by Compaq

Yeah.  Would you consider shipping 10,000 Sables per quarter 'high volume'?
What are the server volumes from other vendors?  Any hard facts available for
comparative purposes?

What is a SABLE???

We don't sell any sables

We have VAX XXXXXX and DEC XXXXXX

Plese use correct product designations

    
    	Compaq sold 98,000 "servers" last year (according to them) at an
    average price of $27,000. This represented $2.6Billion of their total
    sales. With an average margin of 40% per server, that supports a lot of
    PCs at 21%. They do not make any money at PCs worth shouting about,
    but the servers appear to generate over 80% of their reported profits.
    	So any volume approaching 15-20,000 Sables a quarter would be
    nothing short of great news!!
    
    		the Greyhawk

    
    Digital 2100 Server

Re: .10

> We have VAX XXXXXX and DEC XXXXXX

Hmm, then I guess Sable doesn't exist, as it's a:

	Digital 2100 Model A500MP  (or A600MP)

and pretty soon we'll have yet another naming scheme in use (though one which
at least isn't laughable and perhaps even useful.)

					Steve

    

    >>>What is a SABLE???

    SABLE is what most of my customers understand, rather than 2100.

    >>>Plese use correct product designations

    Wouldn't it be better to talk to customers about things that are
    familiar?  Customers seem to be more at ease when they don't have
    to talk in numbers.  (at least it appears that way to me)

    Jim Morton

    Call it the ALPHA 2100... 

Re: .15

We don't have that one quite yet.  Digital AlphaServer 4/190, maybe.

				Steve

    Friend of mine who does network installations said, "Sable?  You mean
    somebody finally gave a DEC product a classy name that's easy to
    remember and conveys a positive product image?"
    
    --bonnie

    Don't call a Sable a Sable...absurd!...every model DEC built has a
    'name' for it going back to Pelicans....oh, that's another
    topic...
    anyway, that's what the "customer" calls it - "give me 10
    Sables running NT"
    "I'm sorry sir, unless you give me the exact model #, you can't get
    it!"  

    I agree with the numbering system.  We in the field are inundated with
    classy names - flamingo, pelican or what ever.  At least the numbers
    point out where the product lies in our line of machines and the
    DEC/VAX annotation points out more info about the product.  Product
    names should be dropped when the product leaves the prototype phase.
    
    

    Fictious scenario to follow.
    
    Me going into the showroom of ANY computer store and asking the sales
    person "Can I see an IBM 2603-08N?"
    "Duh, excuse me sir, is that a pc, a thinkpad, a printer or a
    typewriter?"
    
    When are we, Digital employees, going to start focusing on the CUSTOMER 
    instead of our internal requirements, p&p's and latest re-org??? 
    
    Anyone EVER dealing with a customer says "I wanna see your <name>"  You
    never hear them say I wanna see your 6381-F30" 

    >Product names should be dropped when the product leaves the prototype
    >phase.
     
    So then, what do you do when your customer asks you about Sable
    configurations, or wants to order a few dozen Flamingos?
    
    I do marketing -- when I speak to a customer, I use the appropriate
    product name -- but in conversation with them, I need to be familiar
    with the names *they* use, and are comfortable with.
    
    The *only* time we used good sense, and carried a project name forward
    and made it a product name was: Alpha.
    
    					andrew

    re -1
    
    Maybe dropped was too strong a word, but customers who are used to our
    numbering scheme sometimes get confused with names like ruby, rose.
    etc.  It may be necessary for someone in marketing to be familiar with
    the what prototype name matches what box, but if the products were
    released to the field with just the numbers they would be sold as (VAX
    4000 mod 500A, DECstation 5000 model 240,...) the customers would not
    know the names. These should be held back at the factory and the
    confusion would not exist.  By the way I randomly pulled those model
    numbers out of the Systems and Option Catalogue and no where did I find
    the mention of any of these glamorous names that are being thrown
    around. The word "DEC" means something, the word "VAX" means something,
    the word "station", means something, the model number and even the "A"
    has meaning.  So, while ruby, flamingo, sable have internal broad
    meanings, they should be kept internal as much as possible.  
    
     
    
    

>    has meaning.  So, while ruby, flamingo, sable have internal broad
>    meanings, they should be kept internal as much as possible.  
 
But it gets ridiculous.  I've tried to talk to engineers about systems,
say an 8800 or a 6000-300, and they didn't have a clue as to what systems I was
talking about.  I've had to research what the 8 year old code names were before
the engineer would discuss the problem.

We confuse ourselves more than any industrial spies.

al
     
    
    

    Uh, folks, the customer is ALWAYS RIGHT!  If they want to call a
    DEC7000/610 a 'booger' and want to order a 5 'booger-cluster' then we 
    should sell it to them.  It is not the customer's fault that the trade
    press gets ahold of our internal codenames and makes them widely known.
    
    It's our fault.  We need to assign 'real' product names to a project
    as soon as possible and use those product names in any and all
    discussion of the product.
    
    Otherwise, we will continue to sell 'boogers' and 'sables' and
    'pelicans' and 'avantis' and 'nautilus's (I hope not) - and may 
    occasionally be asked - 'what ever happened to that Jupiter I ordered
    in 1981????'

    
    At my former company (a B$20+ company at last count), we grunts 
    in the field were "awed" whenever an internal codename slipped out 
    from the "factories", aka HQ divisions; we were literally the last 
    to know products by codenames. When products were announced, they were 
    and still are refered to by the model names/numbers, not internal 
    engineering names.  Then again that works for them because their product 
    names/numbers are not as mind-boggling as ours!
    
    IMO an issue at hand is discipline, plus cultural. 
    
    Why not make it a business practice to use product models (simplified
    first, of course) when products are announced? Why not make it a 
    business practice for engineers to know the ultimate product designations;
    afterall in the new Digital we do want engineering to be closer to the 
    market, right? 
    
    For a company that continually insists (reduced now, maybe??) on PIDs,
    it is amazing how about leakage there is! Customers, Digital Review etc
    does not need to know internal codenames, do they? 
    
     
    
    
    

    That's why we should sell Noname

    	Traditionally the product name is about the last thing decided.
    Some of you may remember a product codenamed "Star" with an operating
    system called "Starlet". Fairly late in the development, in fact only a
    few months before announcement and ship to field test customers, the
    name PDP-11/570 was decided on. I still have the document describing
    RMS-500 which would be the record management system for the PDP-11/500
    series of computers (we planned on going both up and down from "570").
    
    	At the last moment, someone pointed out that the commercial product
    line was selling a PDP-11/70, RSTS/E based package called the
    DECsystem-570, and it was felt there might be some confusion between
    the two products. The PDP-11/570 was hastily renamed to VAX-11/780, and
    RMS-500 was renamed to RMS-32.

    The ***customer*** is calling me daily requesting various information
    about the sable or pelican or flamingo NOT the DN-251A9-**,etc.  
    
    ***WE*** need to adapt to the customer, not visa versa.  If we tell the
    customer "it's a Sable" then we live with it.  If they know it by Alpha
    2100 AXP fine, but WE adapt to what they call it!

    I don`t want to sound outta line here but could someone take the time
    to explain to me, a lay man who doesn`t own a PC, exactly what a Sable
    is in the computer industry and what is its function and as, say a
    customer, why should I buy it.
    
    I am looking forward to an honest answer because there will be no funny
    face here.
    
    Thank you in advance.

    
     i do NOT give a rats buttocks as to what they call it when they want
    it, as long as they call to want it.
    
     they can call me for a computer for all i care, i'll spec it for them
    and rescue them from the name/number pain of it all.
    
     course I'll probably be on EasyNet for the next hour trying to get the
    pieces together and finding out what Digital "really calls it".
    
    End_of_story.
    Many smiley faces for those who cannot turn their heads. '^)
    -Mike Z.

    -2
    
    A sable or Alpha 2100 AXP MP is our new server...sales is lighting up
    the board with orders and apparently, there are a few technical
    glitches getting them shipped.
    
    -1
    
    I agree with you, if the customer calls it {name}, I'll get them the
    requested info on it....I'm not going to be heartless like a few in
    here suggest and say,"duh, i don't know what a {name} is, find me a
    part number and call back."
    
    Ron

    re: .26
    
    >>>     IMO an issue at hand is discipline, plus cultural. 
    >>>     Why not make it a business practice to use product models
    >>>     (simplified first, of course) when products are announced? 
    >>>     Why not make it a  business practice for engineers to know 
    >>>     the ultimate product designations; afterall in the new Digital 
    >>>     we do want engineering to be closer to the  market, right? 
    
    A good point, but the problem can be solved from the other direction,
    too -- if we gave our products more interesting and memorable names,
    instead of strings of numbers, the code names wouldn't matter so much.  
    
    We can keep track of complicated model numbers internally if we have to
    for manufacturing and inventory purposes (I notice that my Millennium
    RapidCharger battery charger is in fact a "model ch2aa," for instance)
    but there isn't any reason to inflict our internal inventory and
    manufacturing processes on the customers.  
    
    Interesting product names for key products would also provide an
    advertising focus.  If something's called a Sable, that's got
    connotations of class, elegance, sleekness, and luxury that marketing
    can play with.  (Picture a 2100 box sitting on a background of faintly
    gleaming black fur, for instance.)  
    
    It's hard to produce a market identity for something called a "2100."
    
    --bonnie

    Sable is a registered trademark of a division of Ford Motor Company. 
    If we're going to use flashy, image provoking names for systems instead 
    of numbers, then marketing ought to contract with the Auto companies
    for use of the names they have already locked in for the next two
    decades.

    With a member of Ford on the BoT do ya think we got verbal approval to
    use the name "Sable"?

    	We are probably too small a company to be able to make full use of
    computer technology, like artificial intelligence, or relational
    databases, but maybe if we could get some computer vendor to sell us
    something at cut price???
    
    	The name should be no more than a clue. The user should be able to
    specify things that are important to him (minimum SpecFP, minimum user
    disk space, minimum number of users, ...) and anything else that he
    thinks might help the salesman to find something that meets his needs.
    This might include some DEC code name. The salesman should be able to
    get (on his laptop PC at the customer site) a complete list of
    configurations that meet the requirements.
    
    	It wouldn't matter if the information was incomplete - 70%
    information is better than none. It wouldn't matter if there were
    ambiguities - I was recently confused between "Coral" (a language for
    which DEC has compilers for VAX and RSX operating systems) and "Coral"
    (a code name for a recent version of VMS), but more detailed
    descriptions in the database would resolve such problems.

Re: .34

Irrelevant.  Ford's Sable is a car, not a computer.  There's Cadillac
dog food.  Trademarks are only protected for similar products.

However, Sable is not an official name for any Digital product.  Call it
a nickname, if you will.  It pays to know both the project name (by which
all the customers learn about it before it is released) and the official
name (which, as I hinted, is about to change...)

				Steve

    Names are really the _last_ thing assigned...
    
    I have heard another code to the "PDP-11/570" story.  It became the
    "VAX-11/770" but when they put the 11 over the 770 it looked _real_
    ugly, and I don't mean in a pure aesthetic sense.  So it became 780.
    
    Jensen still doesn't have a name, long after its release as the 
    "DECpc AXP 150" or some such.  Remember the long "name the Jensen"
    thread in MARKETING?  It is sold as the DEC 2100 model 300 into some
    markets too.  Of couse like Sable, it's a car company's name.  The chip
    maker S3 got around that with its video chips, though:  They named
    their chips 924, 928, 911, and 805.  They're all Porsche's, of course,
    but like "486", a pure number can't be declared a trademark.  (AMD will
    probably make "586" chips in our foundries, but they can't make
    "Pentium" since Intel learned its lesson the hard way with "486".)
    
    Since Sable is only a code name, and we don't advertise it as such, we
    can't be held liable for trademark infringement -- this may not be an
    issue with cars but remember that other computer companies own "Alpha",
    not us.  ("Alpha Generation" must be different enough.)
    
    IBM did well with non-trademark nicknames:  How many people ever called
    up a store and ordered an IBM 5150, 5160 or 5170 by its formal name?
    But lots did order the "PC", "PC/XT" and "PC/AT".  I think only the
    latter two were valid trademarks.

Here's an email that came around.  In my opinion, 266 systems does NOT 
constitute VOLUME shipments.  If I went to AST or Compaq and mentioned
266 units shipped for the quarter - they would NOT be too please with 
these VOLUMES!!!  

And then we're going to DOUBLE these VOLUME shipments???!! 532 units
still does NOT constitute VOLUME.  When I hear the term VOLUME my mind
conjures up THOUSANDS of units.

                  A MESSAGE FROM DIGITAL - LOGISTICS SERVICES

                      **********************************

                               ADMIN ADVISOR #77

                      **********************************

                                August 12, 1994

                               SABLE Scheduling

    Digital 2100 Servers ( Sable ) are currently shipping in volume in U.S.
    In this quarter alone, we have shipped 266 systems so far in U.S. Q1 
    ship plan remains aggressive and the plan is to attain revenue 
    shipment more than double of that in the last quarter.
    

    
    	Isn't SABLE the name of an animal or at least a type of FUR?  How
    can anyone Trademark a proper name like Sable if it *is* the name of
    something already?
    
    				Malcolm.

Sable is a very expensive fur, and a somewhat expensive kind of smoked fish.

    I don't see why we shouldn't have names for our products which people
    can remember.   I have a Chrysler product.   It probably has an umpteen
    digit model number (not the VIN #) somewhere in Chrysler's accounting
    system, but I know it as a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo.   I like its name, 
    it's easy to remember and still differentiates it from all the other
    Chrysler products.   I probably wouldn't remember its name if it were a
    DV-251A9-AA, or AB, or AD or whatever, and from its name I certainly
    would not be able to differentiate it from any other DV-xxxxx-xx.
    
    How many products can you think of that you order by model number only and
    not by name? :-)                                                      

    
re: .33

>...  (Picture a 2100 box sitting on a background of faintly
>    gleaming black fur, for instance.)  
              ^^^^^^^^^
Better make that fake fur.

    re: .40
    
    "Sable" isn't a proper name, it's a common name.  Such names can often
    though not always be trademarked within a specific sphere -- for
    instance, there's a car named Sable.  Mary Kay Cosmetics used to 
    market a line of cosmetics named Sable.  Nonoverlapping trade areas, so
    that's okay.  
    
    Not all trade names are trade*marks*.  The degree of protection offered
    is different, but so is the amount of work you have to go to to protect
    the name you're using.  Something that's not trademarked will
    frequently be used by the general public, so if you can get yourself
    associated with the term you can get most of the benefits (for
    instance, IBM's association with PC, which I don't think is a
    trademark). 
    
    The trend right now is to trademark everything.  Individuals who
    consider themselves marketable commodities have trademarked their own
    names.  
    
    --bonnie

    
      There was a 2 page add in yesterday's USA TODAY telling the world 
    about the " NEW " Digital with emphasis on our Sable product. I thought
    it was a terrific add. It looks like our marketing people are FINALLY
    getting on the ball. The add was in section A. Now we need some TV 
    exposure on FOX on sunday afternoons!
    
    Peter

    Re: .44
    
>   The trend right now is to trademark everything.  Individuals who consider
>   themselves marketable commodities have trademarked their own names.  
    
    Yeah, I had a glass of fresh squeezed Simpson this morning for breakfast.

    Some assorted comments.
    
    The Sabel is an animal.  It is an endangered species of antelope living
    in Africa.  We might want to re-consider associating ourselves with
    such a name at this point.
    
    There is a vacum cleaner here called the VAX.  While there has been
    some humour around the ability/propensity of a VAX to suck (Nothing
    sucks like a VAX) on the internet, I don't think there has been much
    brand confussion.  Digital has granted written permission to the vacum
    cleaner mob to use this name.  This was done to actually protect the
    trademark we have on the VAX computer.  You must show reasonable
    efforts to protect your trademarks in order to retain them.
    
    There is a bank account here called All-in-One.  I think Digital had
    something to do with the spelling of this in order to protect our
    trademark on ALL-IN-1.

    
    re .-1
    
    I don't know what a sabel is, but a sable is in the mink family
    and makes wonderful coats that folks like us cannot afford to 
    buy our wives.  Also, you got the story backwards on VAX.  Digital
    had to pay a British vacuum cleaner company to sign an agreement
    to allow Digital to use the trademark name "VAX" for a computer
    system.  Rather embarassing actually, seems we anounced it in
    the US without doing international research.  If you've ever
    seen a sable coat, you'll know why letting our customers call
    the 2100 by its internal code name envokes such a favorable
    image (animal rights advocates aside, of course).
    

    Re: -.1
    
    You may be right about the vacuum cleaner mob.  Either way, we agree on
    the effort required in selecting proper product names.
    
    As a rathole, I think you may be wrong about the sabel being in the
    mink family.  But that doesn't matter anyway.  It's been over 10 years
    since I lived in Africa and I may be confusing the name of the animal
    I'm thinking of with sabel.
    
    I'm always glad to be told I'm wrong by someone who doesn't know what
    something is, but knows that someone else can't be right.  :-)

    
    Actually, there is a sable, fur-bearing member of the Mustelid
    family (and related to fishers, martens, wolverines, skunks,
    raccoons, weasels, etc.), and a sable, antelope with spectacular
    corkscrew horns.
    
    The fur bearing sables live in Siberia, the anterlopes in 
    Africa.

    	A quick check of my dictionary confirms the two different types of
    animal, though it gives American and European subspecies with no
    mention of Siberia for the mustellidae (Martes zibellina for the
    European and Martes americana for the american).
    
    	It also gives its use as a term for the colour black, where it is
    the standard term in heraldry, and gives quotations from both
    Shakespeare and Milton using it in this way. In the same sense it gives
    "his sable Majesty" as a synonym for the Devil.

    how come noone has commented on the previous reply (forget the number)
    about so-called VOLUME shipments (266 so far)
    
    tony

    the 266 figure sounds bogus...we have about 100 just in the sales unit
    I support on order....

    Maybe there in units of 1000
    
    Alan

>    I don't know what a sabel is, but a sable is in the mink family
>    and makes wonderful coats that folks like us cannot afford to 
>    buy our wives.  
    
    Across here wives are (still?) free. Of course, once you've
    got one they do cost an incredible amount to operate :-)

    There was some note after the close of Q4 that about ~1766 sables were
    shipped in Q4. So if the plan is to double sable shipments in Q1FY95,
    we could be talking about ~3,500 sables.   

Didn't Apple ship 100000 PowerMacs in the same period?  This doesn't look good
from an "architecture wars" standpoint!
								- paul

Computerworld August 15, issue on page 66, analyst Chris
Christiansen of International Data Corp in Framingham, Mass
estimates 3,000 to 3,500 have shipped since April- three times 
what was forecast

re: .57

Well, it's not really "apples-to-apples" (no pun intended) to compare
sables to powermacs, because they are different class machines.  It might
be valid to compare all Alpha desktop machines to all powermacs shipped --
at least the price range is more similar.

	Steve

    US Product Leadtime Guide has good news for SABLES not employing the
    MS451-CA.  Those models will not be scheduled till wk4 Oct, but all the
    others are being scheduled in September and should ship in Q1!

We've been offering customers a substitute of 3 MS450-CA for the 
MS451-CA.

daryll

    How do you buy a car?

    You do not go into the show room and start quoting its specs do and
    expect the salesman to recognise it.  Can you imagine ....

    " I would like the xm34523443 "

    You go in and ask for a Land Rover discovery or a Scorpio Ghia. 
    Customers over here know exactly what the trailing letters mean ( More
    or Less "

    L = Luxury, XL = Extra Luxury, S = Sport, SR = Sport Rally , i =
    injection, Ghia = top of the range luxury....

    When you buy a car you ask for an Astra then specify the Spec, say SRi. 
    You can then specify any other options you want to customise the car to
    your requirements.

    Digital should adopt the approach, Naming there products for brand
    awareness.  
    Give Letters to options that will come as extras after the basic
    purchase.... for example calling a 486 with a 200 meg hard disk, a
    floppy drive, colour monitor, mouse, keyboard and 20 Mb of Ram a
    BURGUNDY, then if the customer wants the Graphics enhanced options we
    should sell one package with a Graphics card and any other bits as 
    Burgundy G

    Do you follow?  SO customers would realise that they are always buying
    a Burgundy and they can get it at different specs, then if the want a
    Vaxstation and Digital had the common sense to give it a notable name
    such as umm... Sausage, then if the customer want a graphics enhanced
    Sausage he knows all he has to ask for is a Sausage G.

    this would remove the difficulties customers have when buying
    equipment.

    Our laptops have started this line and I feel that it should be
    progressed to other products.

    Paul

    Re. .-1
    
    Yes, I have a DECpc450D2LP.
    What I can make out of it is:
    DEC means that the brand is Digital
    pc means that it is my personal computer
    4 means that the processor is type 80486
    50 means that it runs on 50MHz
    and LP means that it is ..... uuuh ...... hmmmm ..... Low Performance
    ..... I guess.
    
    Statement: Brandnames YES, but it must make sense and IMHO DECpc450D2LP
    does not make sense. It looks too much like xm34523443 booha.
    
    Ronald

    re: .62
    	Actually, when I go to buy a car I *do* specify what I want. When
    my wife needed a car a couple of years ago we worked out what we wanted
    - must have 4 doors since she carries business passengers, mustn't be
    too long for parking in towns, must have sufficient power for the hills
    (1 in 4 gradients are fairly common here), radio undesirable since it
    leads to the car being burgled and my wife needs to talk to her clients
    while she is driving anyway, etc...
    
    	Then we went round to garages and told them this. I could tell you
    the model name we eventually bought, but it is unimportant. It meets
    the above specifications at the best price we could find.
    
    	Of course you never get everything right. There are always some
    compromises. With a front-engine diesel and the narrow twisting roads
    here she would have liked power steering, but it wasn't available in
    any car short enough for town parking. We would also have liked to
    specify "no ashtrays" since she has a tendancy to asthma and the lack
    of ashtrays would have been an additional hint to her clients beyond
    the notice she displays anyway.
    
    	I would do exactly the same for a computer purchase - prioritise a
    list of requirements and after I had been round every likely supplier 
    decide where on the list of requirements I would compromise. The key is
    "likely supplier". We didn't visit Rolls Royce or sports car
    specialists, nor even vintage car specialists.

      I think 'LP' means 'Low Profile'. Bit like DEC's PC advertising in
    the past.
    
    Ken

    ...could be `long pause' as well.... where lpv stands for Very long
    pause... .... Right ??????

    What everyone is talking about is product branding.  Giving a product a
    catchy name that customers will call and remember the product by.
    
    The PCBU understands this and is now going to brand all of their
    systems.  Note the announcement of Celebris.  There are actually 5
    models here Celebris 466, 4100, 560, 590 and 590FP (Full Profile). On
    the enclosure it says Celebris xxxx.
    
    Just go into any PC store.  The systems ALL have names.
    
    Jeff

    
    <<< Note the announcement of Celebris.
    
    What announcement, is it in IR, I checked yesterday. Where is the
    information and why did I miss out?
    
    What is Celebris? A new line of low cost PCs for retail?
    - Mike Z.
    

It's in LiveWire, and I saw it in the newspaper.  I haven't seen anything
else about it.

			Steve

    Celebris is a family of PC that fit in the mid range PC spectrum.  So
    of the advanced features are:
    
    	Plug and Play Ready
    	ECP/EPP Parallel Port
    	Enhanced IDE
    	64 bit graphics
    	Energy Star
    	...
    
    Jeff