Conference 7.286::digital

3511.0. "These are the days of our field office lives" by BIGUN::JRSVM::BAKER (Confusion will be my epitaph) Tue Nov 15 1994 02:37

Diary of a Field Office - A Soap Opera and Modern Polemic
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Monday
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A very profitable stationery shop is across the road.

We discover our local Channels Partner, the only one with any SI capability 
and who we are currently passing most of our customers to, is sabotaging 
our remaining ABU accounts by recommending they get rid of their current 
systems and install Microsoft product instead. Oh, they are also a 
Microsoft Solutions Partner.

Quotes of late:
"They told us Teamlinks is being decommitted"
"Mailbus 400 doesnt have the robustness of Microsoft Information Exchange"
"Digital is getting out of Office"
From customer:
"These people are not here in your interest, watch it"
The Channel:
"Its an easier sell than selling your stuff"
"Yes, we know its inferior"
"They advertise their software"

I go across the road to buy a pen.

One of our consultants, with 6 years UNIX security consulting, is making a 
killing on selling Internet Consulting. He get a call from someone in 
another state telling him to stay away from "his turf". This person is a 
manager, with no staff that have experience in this business.

I get a call from the Regional Customer Support Centre asking what we 
should be supporting in the Document Management, Workflow and Imaging 
space:
"Dont forget that in Government, Linkworks can provide a good basis for 
general document control, particularly when some integration is done to 
incorporate archival disposal schedules and will be even better once 
Caseplan is available,...
also dont forget, Objectflow, Megadoc,... "


Tuesday
-------
I throw an all-nighter to get a consulting for an analysis and design 
proposal in, propose the front-end of a Framework Based Environment 
consultancy, CORBA, CORBA and more CORBA, put pooh on 2-tiered methods...etc.etc. 

We have to stamp one copy "COPY" according to the terms of the RFQ, we go across the 
road to buy a "COPY" stamp.

But hold on, this is consulting and your in ABU pre-sales, right? Why are 
you doing this?
Because if we dont get the consulting we wont get the systems business, or 
the client-server infrastructure or...

The Linkworks for OSF with Oracle kit arrives. Our demo centre has been 
gutted by sales of kit at the end of the year and we dont have a system to 
run it on.

I borrow a copy of the sales update announcing the latest Alphastations 
from someone in Consulting because mine have miraculously stopped coming.

Wednesday
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An opportunity to replace 3000 Intel servers with 100 Alphas arrives...
"We've known about this for 10 weeks, didnt we throw it at 3rd party X?"
"What did they do with it?"
"I dont know, we retrenched our channels sales rep the week she got back 
from DECathlon in Hawaii (a 14hr a day person with 100% customer loyalty) 
and no one has been appointed yet to follow-up on it" 
"But this Opportunity would become an ABU Account real quick!"

Totally unbeknownst to me, the client-server pre-sales specialist for this 
branch, Digital announces agreement to resell 2-tier Powerbuilder product. 
Some Affinity group I've never heard of announces that consulting now 
splits the market into "naive and sophisticated" (this will go down well). 

I have trouble classifying my Smalltalk customer with expertise in Jacobson 
according to the  trite and simplistic classifications that the 
"Application Development and Integration Practice" seems to split the base 
by. They are running DECmessageQ currently with DNS (and the IMS API) in a 
trial. I'm going to love the positioning funtime I will have with this one. 

I go across the road to buy a highlight marker.

Thursday
--------
I get a call from a Consultant friend, an ex-Digit, who has been talking 
about Caseplan against IBM's Flowmark product at a BIG all-IBM shop that we 
have been unable to get into ever and they are starting to get interested. 
The approach of communicating with the independent consulting community 
seems to be working.

I run out of Colour ribbons for the laser printer. I ring our contracts 
administrator (400km away and a long-distance call since they decided not 
to replace our one) to get some more. Sorry, the office has been closed and 
all staff retrenched, you'll have to phone person Y in such-and-such. 

Our front desk receptionist resigns. There is now no one to order 
stationery (even if they ignore the stationery freeze).

Friday
------
I discover that Caseplan, a product that looks the perfect compliment to 
Linkworks for production level workflow is canned. I now have to contact a 
person who has carried our flag despite being retrenched and tell him that 
we cant do it. This is a person who has, like me, lived through about ten 
changes in document management strategy over the last three years. 

A side discussion breaks out about why I am talking to independent 
consultants when that is a channels function and why would we follow-on 
with this "opportunity", its non-ABU business.

A customer laughs in my face when I tell him that Forte costs $100K for 5 
seats. I say, well maybe you should consider Powerbuilder 8^), which we now 
resell.

I send my resume out to yet another Software company...after buying an envelope from 
"across the road".

    If it is any consolation....I hear this every day from somebody with
    thankless task of having to make the machine run in the field.
    Send it to BP or Damiani and forget sending the CV outside-send that too
    and INSIST they give you the job to fix the problems.
    How much do you bet?
    

    
    Or else resign,and start a chain of stationery shops across the road
    from every Digital location ?
    
    Every problem is an opportunity .Yuk,did I really say that ? Time to
    leave..
    
    				Mick

So sad.  So close to home.  So ignored.  So sorry.  So long.

The reason that we are moving toward re-sellers is that people with your
(do the right thing) attitude, Beth, cost Digital money that many other vendors 
and third parties don't spend.

Doing the right thing costs money.  In a commodity product market, many 
customers don't think there's any more value to be added.  What we're giving up 
by going to a channels-(almost)only strategy is one of our few real values
added: the ability and desire to do the right thing for our customers.

I'm reminded of a story I heard about a company that's trying to buy one of our
more profitable software product lines.  What we're telling our customers now
is that our product will be merged with the purchaser's and the process, several
years down the line, will be relatively painless.

What it seems they'll really be doing is selling the customers on buying their
product ASAP and going through an expensive conversion, "rather than putting off
the inevitable."  When someone from Digital suggested to a senior executive from
the purchasing company that convincing a customer to buy before they have to
might not be "doing the right thing," the senior executive's reported to have 
said something like, "So what, the customer can buy whatever they want.  Our 
reps make their goals and get their commissions. What's the big deal?"


Digital could afford to do the right things for our customers if we could figure
out how to sell the value added.  That's what "Whatever it takes." is supposed 
to do.

Bruce

    DCO is up for sale