Conference 7.286::digital

    Yes, thanks go to Steve and also to others such as Matt Thomas who
    I see posting good info in some of the technical groups, i.e. 
    comp.unix.ultrix, comp.unix.osf.osf1, etc..
    
    I agree with others who have suggested the DELL method where it is
    someones job to peruse the newsgroups, put out fires where needed,
    point people in the proper direction or answer questions, etc.
    
    Jim C.
    
    

So what's your point? Steve has been doing this for years.
I'm glad someone's finally given him a kudo for it. Now
maybe Digital management will see how inportant this kind of
presense can be. Yea, Steve, atta boy.
liesl ( a long time admirer)

Not only is no one funded to read USENET, the infrastructure that's supports
USENET internally doesn't even really exist.  It's all done on the USENET
newskeeper's own time and energy.  USENET server are typically obsolete and
under configured hardware that was idle or borrowed which is running at or
above capacity.  

I'd like to see some PTB cough some bucks for some decent servers that
actually handle the load that USENET puts on a system (send me mail if
you want to know what I would configure).

Never ever make the USENET infrastructure a corporate function.  That would
kill it.

The current USENET server for ZK is now owned by Oracle.  Hopefully, someone
will volunteer to bring another one once it disappears.

    Thanks, Liesl.  You're right - I have been doing this for a long
    time, and I periodically receive nice "ataboys" such as was in the
    base note.  My immediate management is very supportive of my work
    here, but I think there's the more global issue that more Digital
    engineers (and managers) need to follow newsgroups relevant to their
    products.  We had a discussion of this in an earlier note.
    
    Matt's comments about USENET being a "grass roots" effort is on
    target, NOTES started that way and is still pretty much uncontrolled
    at the corporate level (goodness!)  Unfortunately, USENET servers
    require more concentrated resources than do most NOTES servers.
    
    					Steve

    
    Re: Couple of phone calls I got.
    
    I believe the UWis issue is a done deal. Seems there was a problem
    getting a response from the guy that was complaining. I didn't
    enter this note as an issue wrt to the UWis, but as a note to
    get Steve a raise, or at least a promotion to at least a VP.
    
    Re: Others
    
    Didn't mean to slight others that are doing the same sorta support. I
    know there are others, just that Steve seemed the most vocal.
    
    Please, lets all keep it up, in particular the engineers/managers that
    can talk to our customers directly. They indeed like that.
    
    Regards,
    Randy
    
     

    No, please, anything but a VP!
    
    			Steve

    I agree that more Digital Employees should actively read the Usenet. 
    Personally, I have just activated an internet account, and read through
    my first Usenet files today.  As a Digital manager, I believe we could
    do a lot more in the way of responding and following up on requests. 
    At least we can channel the information or the requests, perhaps even
    gain some "leads" incentive money.
    
    However, the key is in the responsiness and the channeling to the
    proper people, which may very well be our Channel Partners.  I plan on
    staying active if I can make a difference.

Here are a couple of recent posts in comp.sys.dec which I feel are worthy
of some follow up. These issues have been looked at within the digital
notes file many times. I guess my point is that it's nice that we here in
this notes file seem to be aware of a problem which is also quite visible 
to our customers but are the "powers that be" aware of them and are they 
doing something about it?

Jim C.

In article <3bnq6s$e2n@uk-usenet.uk.sun.com>, smckinty@sunicnc.France.Sun.COM (Steve McKinty - SunSoft ICNC Grenoble) writes:
Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!mrnews.mro.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decuac.dec.com!haven.umd.edu!news.umbc.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.moneng.mei.com!uwm.edu!lll-winken.llnl.gov!koriel!newsworthy.West.Sun.COM!cronkite.Central.Sun.COM!koppel.Ea
From: smckinty@sunicnc.France.Sun.COM (Steve McKinty - SunSoft ICNC Grenoble)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: [gripe] ready to buy, but dec won't return calls
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 94 13:49:00 EST
Organization: SunConnect
Lines: 26
Sender: smckinty@hardy (Steve McKinty - SunSoft ICNC Grenoble)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <3bnq6s$e2n@uk-usenet.uk.sun.com>
References: <BEACOM.94Nov29131553@wisnuf.physics.wisc.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: hardy.france.sun.com

In article <BEACOM.94Nov29131553@wisnuf.physics.wisc.edu>, beacom@wisnuf.physics.wisc.edu (John Beacom) writes:

> 
> can anybody at dec rattle his cage for me?  anybody have any ideas
> about how to get a response from dec?

I now work for a rival company to DEC (and my comments here are
purely my own opinion), but in times past I was a DEC customer.
I still prefer VMS to Unix (heresy in this office!).

I've heard it said that buying from DEC is like getting a divorce,
you have to prove you really want it.  That was certainly my
experience in the past, while most companies would happly bring new 
hardware to us (a very large company), DEC always insisted we went
to them. They would never quote prices over the phone, even ballpark
numbers, but insisted in formal quotes (fortunately the receptionist
could usually be talked into checking the price book...)

It was sad for a DEC fan like me to see HP and Sun kit slowly
displacing the VAXes, while DEC salesmen made no attempt to redress
the balance.  I still have a great deal of respect for DEC hardware
& software, and the ever-pleasant support people, but sales? never.

Steve
(If it isn't already obvious, these views have nothing to do with my
current employer!)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
In article <D06wII.1Cs@world.std.com>, shannon@world.std.com (Terry C Shannon) writes:
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!mrnews.mro.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decuac.dec.com!haven.umd.edu!news.umbc.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!world!shannon
From: shannon@world.std.com (Terry C Shannon)
Subject: Re: [gripe] ready to buy, but dec won't return calls
Message-ID: <D06wII.1Cs@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
References: <BEACOM.94Nov29131553@wisnuf.physics.wisc.edu> <1994Nov30.145408.19594@dxcern.cern.ch> <1994Dec1.081719.793@batman> <1994Dec2.003238.1@segate.sunet.se>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 94 10:32:42 EST
Lines: 17

In article <1994Dec2.003238.1@segate.sunet.se>,
Eric Thomas <ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE> wrote:

>One more
>sale, one less, who cares? It wasn't a 9000, so it's not like the company lost
>a lot of money.

A sale here, a sale there... pretty soon you're talking about some real 
money.  DEC ***still*** needs to get its sales act together.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry C. Shannon               For a sample of The Newsletter That Takes
Editor, Shannon Knows DEC      No Prisoners, email your snailmail address
shannon@illuminata.com         to newsletter@illuminata.com.  Do it today.       



-- 
    

    Well, not to worry.  It's not as if Terry Shannon is anyone important.
    

I'd love to be able to figure out whom I can direct such complaints to,
as I'm collecting a pile of them, but I can't figure it out.  Who might
be receptive to such a thing?

					Steve

    
    Many issues are often (IMHO) needlessly escalated to the Senior Management
    Team in the hope that they can do something that others can't.
    
    However I believe this issue rightly belongs at the highest level 
    because it really affects the entire corporation and directly
    impinges on the corporations image which is of course the
    particular responsibility of the Office of the President. 
    
    There are two separate issues:
    (1) How do you get _these_ particular complaints solved. This
    _is_ an issue but I believe it counterproductive to try to
    get senior people involved in trying to solve these 
    particular complaints directly.
    
    and 
    
    (2) What is Digital's position with providing support to and
    interacting with the Internet News groups? 
    
    With respect to this last Intel and its Pentium FDIV problem has done 
    the believers in maintaining a strong presence on the Internet a 
    great service since CEO's of other corporations (including our
    own) will definitely sit up and listen. 
    
    The Intel problem has shown:
    	-  The power of the news groups, the discussion on comp.sys.intel
    has provably caused Intel stock price to drop and has forced the
    corporation to about face on its Pentium problem positioning.
        - For the first time ever, a CEO (Andy Grove) of a large corporation 
    (Intel) has directly addressed a news group (comp.sys.intel) with
    the CEO promising to personally monitor the group!
    
    (I will include the text of that message in the next reply).
    
    This new found power of the Internet, a new trend of a 
    CEO of a large corporation directly dialogues with an Internet news group
    and Digitals' professed closeness to Internet all point to Digitals' 
    need to take a corporate and clear position on Internet news group 
    support and interaction.
    
    My suggestion would be to draft a memo to the Senior Management
    Team including these points, Andy Grove's text, as well as the 
    complaints you've compiled due to lack of any Digital policy of 
    monitoring news groups and request the SMT to formulate a position in 
    this matter.
    
    Again, with Intel still in the throes of solving an issue which
    also includes how to interact with the Internet the timing of
    such a memo couldn't be better and I am pretty sure that it _will_ 
    get the SMT's attention at least.
    
    For these actual complaints themselves: the best hope IMO is to drop
    them by those people who will can and will interface with
    the customer (but you've certainly already done that) and hope 
    they are willing and able to do something about this...
    
    [If you want, you could also indicate that it is an open memo and 
    indicate that  a copy has been put in this conference under Note 
    such-and-such.]
    
    re roelof

 
 Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
 Subject: My Perspective on Pentium - AGS
 Date: 27 Nov 1994 19:31:21 GMT
 Organization: Netcom
 Lines: 102
 Distribution: world
 Message-ID: <3bamq9$avt@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>
 NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-pa3-16.ix.netcom.com
 
 Andy Grove has asked me to post the following for him. Since it is the
 weekend and we are out of the office, I am posting from my home system.
 
 Richard Wirt
 Director SW Technology
 Intel Corp
 
 
 This is Andy Grove, president of Intel.  I'd like to comment a bit on
 the conversations that have been taking place here.
 
 First of all, I am truly sorry for the anxiety created among you by
 our floating point issue.  I read thru some of the postings and it's
 clear that many of you have done a lot of work around it and
 that some of you are very angry at us.
 
 Let me give you my perspective on what has happened here.
 
 The Pentium processor was introduced into the market in May of '93
 after the most extensive testing program we at Intel have ever
 embarked on.  Because this chip is three times as complex as the 486,
 and because it includes a number of improved floating point
 algorithms, we geared up to do an array of tests, validation, and
 verification that far exceeded anything we had ever done. So did many
 of our OEM customers.  We held the introduction of the chip several
 months in order to give them more time to check out the chip and their
 systems.  We worked extensively with many software companies to this
 end as well.
 
 We were very pleased with the result.  We ramped the processor faster
 than any other in our history and encountered no significant problems
 in the user community.  Not that the chip was perfect; no chip ever
 is.  From time to time, we gathered up what problems we found and put
 into production a new "stepping"  -- a new set of masks that
 incorporated whatever we corrected.  Stepping N was better than
 stepping N minus 1, which was better than stepping N minus 2.  After
 almost 25 years in the microprocessor business, I have come to the the
 conclusion that no microprocessor is ever  perfect; they just come
 closer to perfection with each stepping.  In the life of a typical
 microprocessor, we go thru half a dozen or more such steppings.
 
 Then, in the summer of '94, in the process of further testing (which
 continued thru all this time and continues today), we came upon the
 floating point error.  We were puzzled as to why neither we nor anyone
 else had encountered this earlier.  We started a separate project,
 including mathematicians and scientists who work for us in areas other
 than the Pentium processor group to examine the nature of the problem
 and its impact.
 
 This group concluded after months of work that (1) an error is only
 likely to occur at a frequency of the order of once in nine billion
 random floating point divides, and that (2) this many divides in all
 the programs they evaluated (which included many scientific
 programs) would require elapsed times of use that would be longer than
 the mean time to failure of the physical computer subsystems.  In
 other words, the error rate a user might see due to the floating point
 problem would be swamped by other known computer failure mechanisms.
 This explained why nobody -- not us, not our OEM customers, not the
 software vendors we worked with and not the many individual users --
 had run into it.
 
 As some of you may recall, we had encountered thornier problems with
 early versions of the 386 and 486, so we breathed a sigh of relief
 that with the Pentium processor we had found what turned out to be a
 problem of far lesser magnitude.  We then incorporated the fix into
 the next stepping of both the 60 and 66 and the 75/90/100 MHz Pentium
 processor along with whatever else we were correcting in that next
 stepping.
 
 Then, last month Professor Nicely posted his observations about this
 problem and the hubbub started.  Interestingly, I understand from
 press reports that Prof. Nicely was attempting to show that
 Pentium-based computers can do the jobs of big time supercomputers in
 numbers analyses.  Many of you who posted comments are evidently also
 involved in pretty heavy duty mathematical work.
 
 That gets us to the present time and what we do about all this.
 
 We would like to find all users of the Pentium processor who are
 engaged in work involving heavy duty scientific/floating point
 calculations and resolve their problem in the most appropriate fashion
 including, if necessary, by replacing their chips with new ones.  We
 don't know how to set precise rules on this so we decided to do it
 thru individual discussions between each of you and a technically
 trained Intel person.  We set up 800# lines for that purpose. It is
 going to take us time to work thru the calls we are getting, but we
 will work thru them.  I would like to ask for your patience here.
 
 Meanwhile, please don't be concerned that the passing of time will
 deprive you of the opportunity to get your problem resolved  -- we
 will stand behind these chips for the life of your computer.
 
 Sorry to be so long-winded  --  and again please accept my apologies
 for the situation.  We appreciate your interest in the Pentium
 processor, and we remain dedicated to bringing it as close to
 perfection as possible.
 
 I will monitor your communications in the future -- forgive me if I
 can't answer each of you individually.
 
 Andy Grove
 
 
 
     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 

Re: .12

I disagree - what senior management needs to be aware of is the pattern of
problems which is driving customers away.  Individual problems can be
addressed individually, and I have been successful at doing so when I've
gotten involved.  A more formal commitment to newsgroups is another issue
entirely, and not one I'm keen on elevating (nor do I think that would be
a good idea.)

I would like to find someone to whom I can present a list of customer complaints
in the hope that they'll be motivated to try to fix the underlying causes.

					Steve

    Greetings all,
    
    I've been impressed with Steve and other's imput to the comp.dec.sys
    newsgroup. I've seen these problems for years and wholeheartedly 
    agree that some group somewhere should be watching these newsgroups for 
    the patterns. Also within DEC I've seen times where dec people will
    effortlessly insult significant customers (anyone who gives us money
    for a product being signicant in my eyes, though the incidents I speak
    of involved US-wide accounts) but would never dream of being late to 
    a meeting with his/her boss. I can't believe the loyalty DEC customers
    show this company and how cavalierly its treated. 
    
    My solution? (I have shared this before) Forward the stuff to the
    CEO's office.  Its never going to be parused through by BP himself but
    he should figure out what the pattern is and come up with some sort of
    solution. 
    
    The oddest part of our customer relations are that there is
    nothing gained by treating our customer's this badly. I'm certian Bob
    would realize that, us who work with customer's know that, its the
    people who say, "we aren't going to take a customer's word that they
    have maintenance that they have a contract and are paying Xthousands
    per year for it." I hear those remarks and want to cry because we
    usually find out that the customer wasn't lying. Oddly whenever I've
    seen (they used to call them KO calls) these things brought to the
    attention the problem gets resolved the correct way. 
    
    Fred Mudgett

RE: .4


>>The current USENET server for ZK is now owned by Oracle.  Hopefully, someone
>>will volunteer to bring another one once it disappears.


	I think our group will Matt. We've talked about it a few times,
	we're just up to our necks in prepping for SSB right now. See me
	after the first of the year.

	FWIW, we'll have an Alpha system as the newserver.

							mike

    Not to reduce an important topic to a slogan, but
       think globally
       act locally
    
    The action needs to come from each of us, not the CEO's office.  The
    place from which we act must be the one we would wish the company to
    have at all times: loving its products, loving its customers, caring
    about every problem, fixing every problem. 
    
    It is a real contribution each time that a Digital empoyee notices a
    usenet problem (or any other customer problem) and obtains help from 
    the lowest-level-person-with-sufficient-power-to-fix-it.
    
    Of course, the individual case should be leveraged to a more general 
    fix, such as telling the CSCs so they can advise the right customers
    if it's a product problem, or addressing the right VP if it is clear
    that s/he is the lowest-level-person who can change the process that
    led to the unhappy customer.
    
    But it all starts with cherishing the individual case.

I am particularly pleased to pass on this information.

re roelof

The following appeared on the front page of today's
edition (Thursday) of Update.Daily, the Decus daily
newspaper:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The DECUS U.S. Chapter President's Advocacy Award

The President's Advocacy Award has been established to recognize
excellence in bridging communications among and between Digital
employees and customers. The first award goes to Steve Lionel,
a Principal Engineer in the FORTRAN Development Group of Digital
Equipment Corporation.

Steve has long been associated with DECUS - making presentations,
staffing campgrounds and booths, and being pigeon-holed in hallways
to respond to an attendee's questions. On the Net, Steve's sage
commentary can be found in any number of newsgroups...answering
for the ump-teenth time where the FAQs are located and responding
to erstwhile queries from users and net surfers. And he douses
minor flame wars with his patient does of clarity and reason.
Steve's responses are timely and always informative.

In being chosen for this, Steve has set an example to be emulated
and admired by his peers. He receives the acknowledgement and thanks
from the DECUS U.S. Chapter on behalf of its members and all Digital
customers.

Congratulations, Steve!!!!

Award presented at DECUS'95 Washington D.C. by: Margaret H. Knox
DECUS U.S. Chapter President 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I can only add my congratulations!

(And Bob P. , if we have any dormant program lying around for recognizing
outstanding contributions from individual employees now is a good
a time to reactivate it!). 

re.18:

Congratulations Steve! 

Dave.

    Well done Steve!
    
    Laurie.

Steve, thank you for your contributions and for setting a standard I feel 
is worthy of attaining.

Jilly

Pigeon-holed?  I think they meant buttonholed.

    Well deserved! Congratulations, Steve.

    
    	From ALL of us in the field, Steve, congratulations and THANKS.
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

I can second the kudos for Steve's helpfulness, 
congratulations on well-deserved recognition!

   erik

    Thank you, all... This honor was a real stunner to me - made even more
    so by having it presented to me in front of ELEVEN Digital VPs!  What's
    more, later that same day I was accorded another honor, a "Job Well
    Done" certificate on behalf of the members of DECUSERVE (and I'm not
    even a DECUSERVE member!)
    
    I am grateful to my management - William Youngs, Becky Will and Bill
    Blake - for supporting the "advocacy" work I do.  But I want to
    especially thank two former managers who provided early encouragement
    and recognition to me - Beth Benoit, my former supervisor, and
    Leslie Klein, my former group manager.  Beth was active in guiding me
    in the direction of greater service to Digital and its customers and
    she was the first supervisor to make my customer consulting and
    Internet work a formal part of my job description and helped me strike
    the proper balance between that work and my engineering tasks.  For
    many years, Leslie fostered an environment in our group that allowed
    me to grow and gave me opportunities to reach out.  Through her DECUS
    work as Digital's liaison to the Languages and Tools SIG, she often
    put me in the spotlight, allowing me to gain recognition among
    DECUS members.  I feel privileged to have worked with and for both
    Beth and Leslie - shining examples of what GOOD managers should be.
    
    					Steve

Steve, what a great, and well deserved honor. And I can
even say I knew him when... liesl 

Another feather in Steve's cap -- one of his posts got chosen for
alt.humor.best-of-usenet:

From: lionel@quark.enet.dec.com (Steve Lionel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.os.vms,comp.unix.osf.osf1,vmsnet.alpha
Subject: Re: Announcing DEC Fortran 90 V2.0 for OpenVMS and Digital UNIX Alpha S
|ystems

In article <3oo0je$etf@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>,
shenkin@still3.chem.columbia.edu (Peter Shenkin) writes:
>Me too.  Since the very earliest days of usenet, product announcements
>(as distinct from commercials) have always been welcome.  And there's
>no doubt in my mind that this was a product announcement.

Hmm - I guess it would then have been inappropriate to write

  NEW DEC Fortran 90 with Extra Zesty Deluxe!  Makes all other Fortran
  compilers look dingy and gray!  MegaOptimization(TM) can run an
  infinite loop in 3 seconds!* (* Your values of infinity may vary.)