Conference 7.286::digital

    Nothing significant, most just a review of the quarterly results,
    statements that the majority of the downsizing is over but each quarter
    will be evaluated and adjustments in headcount made as necessary, etc.
    They did show the new HiNote commercial...very nice.
    
    Debbie
    

    Hmm ...  seems logical that most of the downsizing would be over when
    the company is down to about half of what it used to be ...  
    
    Steve

    Mr. Palmer showed a slide that had year to year sales comparisons.  It
    showed a dramatic slide until April of last year, then it shot up
    and showed major year to year gains.
    
    I believe that was the quarter when we finally began to deliver
    production grade operating systems on Alpha.
    
    Sales get better when we deliver something that the customers can use.
    

    I heard (3rd party, of course) that Palmer said that he expects us to
    loose money in Q3 because - traditionally - that's our weakest quarter. 
    Funny, Jan-Mar is every other company's strongest quarter.  Here's my
    questions:
    
    1.  Did Bob say that?
    2.  Is Q3 our weakest just since he's been in charge? 

re: .3

Isn't that when the Alpha 2100 Server was turned loose on the market?

Bob

    .4
    I always thought Q 4 was our waekest!

    re: last few
    
    Historically, it's been Q1.
    
    Ken....
    

    Q1 and Q3 are normally unglamourous.  Compared to Q3FY94, I'd expect
    this quarter to look fantastic (even if it's a small loss).
    
    Mark

    Dunno if it's historically been the weakest, but DEC stock has
    seriously tanked after the last two Q3 April (i.e. '93 and '94)
    earnings announcements.  kb
      

  I too missed the broadcast. What about Q & A? That's usually the most inter-
esting part.

    As I recall, Digital's performance is (from worst to best) Q1,Q3,Q2,Q4.
    
    I always figured that a lot of companies run a Jan-Dec FY, and want to
    spend their budgets before the end of their fiscal; that explains Q2,
    and our customers traditionally knew that they could negotiate
    excellent deals in Digital's Q4, due to our end of year hysteria...look
    at the great software giveaway in Q4 last year.
    

    re .3
    
    We may have had production grade operating systems in April,
    but many systems rely on layered products. These come out latter...
    
    
    Malcolm 
    

    Hi,
    
    Bob also mentioned about the EV5 chip coming out in April.
    One of the configurations can fit 12 cpu's and 12 Gigabyte off
    main memory.
    Bob postioned this configuration as a Supercomputer at the cost of 10% of
    the traditional Supercomputers.
    
    Ronald
    

    I didn't see the dvn, but isn't it 12 CPUs OR 12 GB.
    
    Mark

	12 CPU's, 14GB.

							mike

    I though his comments about HP's transition from 16-bit to 32-bit
    (PA-RISC) was very informative.  Also his statement that it took 5
    years before VAX sales were greater that PDP sales and the fact that
    Alpha sales are twice VAX sales after 2+ years.  Facts like these give
    you a better perspective that just quarterly result numbers.
    

  I thought his comparison was way off base.  *MANY* factors were
  different when H/P introduced PA/RISC.  For one, I think they
  still had a pretty good business with their 3000 family.  But
  more importantly, RISC itself was an emerging technology and
  PA/RISC was one of the very first commercial RISC announcements.

  The transition to Alpha is taking place in a much different
  age of the computer industry. Bob would have been *A LOT*
  more candid to compare our transition from VAX to Alpha
  to Apple's transition from MC68K to PowerPC.  I'd characterize
  their approach (*BINARY COMPATIBILITY THROUGH EMULATION!*) as
  much more useful to their customer base and the transition,
  except for the low end of their market, is essentially complete
  and wildly succesful.
                                   Atlant

    The DVN and Q&A transcripts are on Livewire

>
>	12 CPU's, 14GB.
>

Just not all at the same time.....

    OK, How about
                  " OPPORTUNITY "   When I hear this I want to head for the
    hills.