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Conference 7.286::digital

Title:	The Digital way of working

Moderator:	QUARK::LIONELON

Created:	Fri Feb 14 1986
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	5321
Total number of notes:	139771

3940.0. "June 19 Business Week on Digital" by ANGLIN::BJAMES (I feel the need, the need for SPEED) Wed Jun 14 1995 16:32

    Has anyone seen the latest Business Week article of June 19?  It's 
    a pretty interesting story on our turn around and what Bob and the
    team have been doing over the last year.
    
    In the article they mention he has been working with Bain and Co.,
    consultants on the restructuring and reengineering of Digital.  Anyone
    familar with Bain and Co.?
    
    Couple of quotes:
    
    From Gresham T. Brebach, former head of Digital's consluting unit:
    
    "There's a clear disconnect between the way they (Digtal) describe the
    strategy and the way they've arranged themselves to bring products and
    services tomarket."  If networking is truly the goal, he argues,
    Digital should ahve kept an earlier structure that offered "solutions"
    for specific industries.  "Connectivity is a historical core
    competency," he says.  "But a core competency is not a strategy."
    
    Phillip C. Anderson, professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business:
    
    "There is no way on the planet that Digital is the best at networking."
    They can do a good computer network, but theidea that they're better
    than the next 10 or 15 companies is ridiculous."
    
    On Digital being a high volume hardware company:
    
    Even in today's slimmed down Digital may not be ready for that.  DEC's
    revenues of $235,000 per employee looks downright inefficient next to
    IBM's $317,000. or Sun's $403,000.  "If all they want to be is a volume
    player, they still have too many people," warns Lynn Berg, a research
    director at Gartner Group.
    
    Palmer's response:
    
    "That would leave very little opportunity for  good margins or to grow
    the business,"  Digital already has many of the pieces to support their
    networking vision and promise to reveal more in coming months.  
    
    On Alpha:
    
    Alpha's speed is beginning to attract key software.  "The
    price-performance is impressive," says Ron Robbins, president of RTP
    Technology Corp., a Fairlawn NJ reseller.  "We're taking databases off
    mainframes and putting them on Alpha, and crunching data in 2 minutes
    vs 22."
    
    John B. Jones jr. an analyst at Salamon Brothers Inc., expects
    Digital's Alpha systems sales will soar 84% in FY95 to $1.7B and may
    rise another 55% by next June (96).  While that's impressive, many of
    the sales simply replace older Digital hardware
    
    Microsoft's Windows NT operating system will fuel Alpha sales.  In
    theory this will help eliminate Alpha's biggest handicap: lack of
    application software.  Then Alpha's superior performance will really
    stand out, says Ed Caldwell, chief of Digital's Semiconductor Division. 
    "We will be able to so outperform Intel and everybody else that we'll
    be able to take over the high-end desktop, period."
    
    "There's absolutely no history of things migrating toward the fastest
    chip available," says Gartner's Lynn Berg.  Comnputing power is
    advancing so rapidly, she says, that most customers will stick with a
    chip that's slower--as long as it runs popular software.  Her
    conclusion:  "There's a lot of wishful thinking going on" at Digital.
    
    If Palmer can't make DEC stand out with his networking strategy, the
    company risks following the path of another former industry No. 2,
    Unisys Corp., which no mostly serves its old base of customers and is
    watching its revenues slowly shrink.."We are not going to turn
    ourselves into a new Unisys," vows Enrico Pesatori.  "Digital is a
    company that's too proud, where people believe they will make a
    difference in information technology."  Once again, Digital's mission
    is to deliver on that promise.
    
    			## End of quotes ##
    
    Mav

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
3940.1	"Yeah, we've got that (advice)"	ATLANT::SCHMIDT	E&RT -- Embedded and RealTime Engineering	`Wed Jun 14 1995 18:47`	12
	Bain and Co. is the investment (and consulting) company run by Mitt Romney, of late a failed candidate for the U.S. Senate. His candidacy started failing when it became apparent that his strategy for all of his purchased businesses was to slash payrolls and reduce salaries and benefits for those employees that remained behind. (So it is likely that he HAS been consulting to Digital.) Bain also owns "Staples", the big stationery superstore chain. Atlant
3940.2	nice typo	WKRP::BRIDGES	Peter, in Cincinnati	`Wed Jun 14 1995 20:53`	8
	>> From Gresham T. Brebach, former head of Digital's consluting unit: ^^^^ \|\|\|\| --------------------------------------------------------------- \| \|--------- I represent that remark! Digital Consluting, Anything for a buck!
3940.3	Early morning humour	RINGSS::WALES	David from Down-Under	`Wed Jun 14 1995 21:33`	7
	G'Day, >Anything for a buck! I'm glad he got it right and said buck :-). David.
3940.4	when you need a plumber..	ANNECY::HOTCHKISS		`Thu Jun 15 1995 07:57`	9
	whats this new networking strategy? Its rather like having a building company with two plumbers.Once the plumbing market takes off,we do the equivalent of putting one plumber in the plumbing market and the other bricklaying. Sure,we have loads of networking experience but we have made sure that we do not have critical mass by having network competant resources doing other than networking. We could and should be a major player in networking but not with the current resource deployment
3940.5		NOTIME::SACKS	Gerald Sacks ZKO2-3/N30 DTN:381-2085	`Thu Jun 15 1995 13:32`	2
	re .1: Staples is publicly traded. I believe Bain provided venture capital and may still have a good chunk of the stock.
3940.6	go away Gresh...	ZIPLOK::PASQUALE		`Thu Jun 15 1995 17:13`	3
	Gresham Breback??? talk about being "disconnected".. his spew is simply sour grapes... Gresh couldn't get it done here .. he was largely ineffective and so he's gone...
3940.7	Anything to the + side as they say...	ANGLIN::BJAMES	I feel the need, the need for SPEED	`Thu Jun 15 1995 18:52`	4
	My humble apologies on the Consulting typo to all those fine folks still here who do consulting for a bunch of bucks! Mav
3940.8	What Digital Has Sold?	IVOSS1::VILLALOBO_GI		`Fri Jun 16 1995 20:19`	4
	In the article, it stated that digital was focusing on its core businesses. Hence, it had sold off disk manufacturing, database engineering, and its consulting businesses. I wonder what they mean. I work for the consulting (systems integration) business.
3940.9		MU::porter		`Fri Jun 16 1995 20:32`	6
	> In the article, it stated that digital was focusing on its core > businesses. Someone should tell the higher-ups that we build main memory out of silicon chips these days...
3940.10	Always believe what you read in error messages	HANNAH::BECK	Paul Beck, MicroPeripherals	`Sat Jun 17 1995 03:07`	10
	> <<< Note 3940.9 by MU::porter >>> > >> In the article, it stated that digital was focusing on its core >> businesses. > > Someone should tell the higher-ups that we build > main memory out of silicon chips these days... Didn't you know that we still manufacture core memories? They're used in Unix systems.
3940.11		MU::porter		`Mon Jun 19 1995 13:23`	7
	> Didn't you know that we still manufacture core memories? They're > used in Unix systems. Not on the systems I used to program. The system seemed to be really proud that it had replaced all its old core memory. Of course, this being Unix, it expressed those sentiments tersely: core dumped.
3940.12	non-event...	POBOX::CORSON	Higher, and a bit more to the right	`Mon Jun 19 1995 16:46`	11
	Mav - Read the article. Compared to other Business Week hatchet jobs on us, this was mild and basically said "the jury is still out". Which is true. Other than that, how's your last two weeks going? the Greyhawk
3940.13	It's show time!	MAIL2::HARRISON		`Mon Jun 19 1995 17:21`	17
	Re: 12 I agree, after all the inaccurate bashing from Business Week over the years, this was neutral to mild positive in my opinion. Order rates in the NJ/NY area are very strong. Though lack of UNIX apps is still an issue, straight DB and development projects are coming our way big time. Sold and will deliver 1 8400 and 2 7000's with 8400 Upgrades in Q4 in NJ ABU Accounts. It's show time and the momentum is building! Bill Harrison Accounts Sales Manager NJ District Accounts
3940.14	55k by 55	PCBUOA::KRATZ		`Mon Jun 19 1995 17:58`	2
	Ok, I'll bite... Psst, Bob, how far are you now?
3940.15		SCHOOL::NEWTON	Thomas Newton	`Mon Jun 19 1995 22:26`	3
	I agree the article was neutral based on what BusinessWeek knows. I also feel it was far too pessimistic on Alpha, speaking as a Digital partisan who thinks Alpha has a bright future.
3940.16	WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO	KIRKTN::GBRUCE		`Mon Jun 19 1995 22:39`	4
	No,I would say that you were speaking as someone who has Alpha on the brainboxer,icky icky doo. GB@666