Conference 7.286::digital

Sunil,

You are absolutely correct. If we use are own products, we can do our jobs better.
Using our own products also helps make those products more successful in the
market. 

Of course, I am very partial to the product suite that you are talking about. I use it
for all of my work. I'm using that suite from home now through an ASYNC
connection.

I am frustrated on a daily basis at the time people waste copying EXCEL or WORD
files to a service and then having to copy them over the network. Using TeamLinks,
they could either mail the file or put it in a shared drawer with easy access by
all who need it. The more technical diehards even use VMS MAIL to SEND/FOREIGN
a Powerpoint file. The gyrations it takes on the other end to make it usable again are
very time consuming.

And, the people who want to copy the files (or get them out of VMS MAIL) don't 
remember how to do it, and bring in another person to help, wasting even more time.

Our time would be better spent getting people who need to work with MS-Windows 
applications in a wide-area group set up with TeamLinks connected to their ALL-IN-1
or DECmailworks server and letting them  use the easy way of moving and sharing
PC application files.

Our customers love and use our products. Why don't we?

Signe

>    namely networking, 64 bit computing, client/server etc.  I would say in
>    my unbiase opinion the best in the market, this company has the
    
    The day Sethi has an unbiased opinion is the day I shave my head and
    sell flowers at the airport!
    
    On the other hand, I totally agree.  My group has made it a standard to
    use MS-Word instead of DecWrite, which has resulted in a lot of
    additional overhead.  Our internal systems *are* a potpourri of
    3rd-party products, old junk, etc.
    
    Don't most major companies have standards on this?
    
    							Tex

Sunil,

I talked to OMS about our use of Teamlinks here in Hull.  Although they do allow
it and it works, they will not officially support us because they're still not
sure about how they're going to support *PC things*.

Teamroute?  Dream on...

LinkWorks?  In your wildest dreams especially now that there's no more RDB
support and RDB has been sold.

/Mario

    Hi Tex,
    
    >The day Sethi has an unbiased opinion is the day I shave my head and
    >sell flowers at the airport!
    
    See you in Boston on the 21st April !!!  This may well happen and you
    could end up enjoying it.
    
    Going back to the subject matter.  Even here in Sydney TeamLinks is not
    supported by our IS department, because of many reasons and one is lack
    of support staff !!!  They try their best and have given us good
    service dispite the problems.
    
    What's worse is that our people haven't got a clue about TeamLinks. 
    Many times I here people say how the hell are we going to run the
    applications we have written that are integrated into ALL-IN-1 IOS ? 
    They *DO NOT* understand the basic point that TeamLinks can be
    customised and buttons (small and large) cab be added that will execute
    "commands" on the server to run the applications.  I feel quite
    frustrated at times working for DEC because we could do a lot better. 
    Why don't we setup a technical committee to look into this and put
    forward recommendations to make us the best company in the industry. 
    We have the technology today to achive that goal we need someone with
    vision.
    
    Regards,
    
    Sunil

Today I watched serious gyrations in engineering to ship a GZ
(documentation-only) paper manuals kit for my product that was planned for
online-only books. Documentation was on the critical path today as they
re-engineered the documentation for this obsolete medium.  In one day.
"Whatever it takes."

It turns out that service revenues are computed off of doc kit sales and that
some cows are sacred.  Really!  We can't change????  I wanted to make the kit
contain only the same set of floppies that you get as the "product" kit, but
they decided to go with shipping printed copies of standard laser printer
output.  Gee, the floppy solution would have been better because it would have
prevented the firedrill and additional work, but the whole problem is with our
systems of doing business.

Eirikur

    Re:     <<< Note 3799.6 by RANGER::EIRIKUR "Eirikur Hallgrimsson, usually" >>>

    What would  we  prefer,  be efficient and leave money on the table by
    giving away the  manuals or put some more needed cash in our coffers?
    If it hadn't been  for  "obsolete business practices" in MCS we would
    have run out of cash moons ago.
    

    Tree-hugging around that old cash cow All-IN-1 tm???   I remember so
    well when ALL-IN-1 tm was new and IM&T was tree-hugging DECmail
    (Mumps) as the only corporate/robust/supportable mail system.
    
    Over and over, we watched outside consultants telling how to attack the
    IBM (FUD driven) shops, only to look inside and see that 
        " I have seen the enemy and it is us".   POGO
    

    So, POGO, who knows all, please tell us what is the corporate/robust/
    supportable mail system. I mentioned the DECmailworks and ALL-IN-1
    servers as being the two choices I think we have. Is there another
    choice that we don't know about?
    
    Signe

    I predict that Digital will suffer thru another MAIL WAR and that the
    winner will be... Microsoft MAIL
    
    Mark

RE: .10

	Probably Microsoft Exchange. Ask me in 6 months how it's working.


							mike

    RE -1
    
    	Mike,
    
    Shouldn't that be :-
    
    	Ask me in 6 months if it is working?
    
    ;-)
    

RE: .12

	I was talking months represented in the Gatesian calendar :) :)

	Seriously, I should be getting a beta in the not too distant
	future to beat up on.

							mike

	We could significantly reduce our cost-of-ownership of E-Mail
	systems if we would "downsize" to MAILworks for UNIX, with
	TeamLinks, MS Mail, cc:Mail and MOTIF clients.  We would also
	be showing initiative to our customers by following/setting
	the market trend.

	We need to do this now!  This is our last window of opportunity
	before Microsoft eat up the market with MS-Exchange.  If they
	do, we'll be out of the mail server market forever and have to
	retrench in the backbone (X.400/X.500) market.

	We used to have a saying: "Use what we sell - Sell what we use!"

	Regards,  Geoff (E-Mail veteran).

The beauty of the TeamLinks client is that it lets you connect 
to multiple servers at the same time.

If you want to use the UNIX server for all of your mail,
 but have lots of documents in an ALL-IN-1 file cabinet
 somewhere on the network, you can have both connect to
 both and exchange information between them.

For people who only do mail, with very little need for document
 storage or integration, using DECmailworks is the most efficient
 solution. For people who have jobs that are document intensive,
 and where sharing of documents is an important part of their job,
 a connection to an A1 file cab server will provide the best 
capability.

The ALL-IN-1 server components are new code and do an 
excellent job. The only legacy part of ALL-IN-1 is the VT 
user interface. A server-only version is planned that will eliminate
the VT interface and the massive overhead of installation
and maintenance.

The additional client capabilities mentioned for the DECmailworks
servers on VMS and UNIX, particularly the MS-MAIL and CCmail
are very attractive to customers and for users with mail-only needs.
We have any number of mixed environments with some users on
TeamLinks and others on MS-Mail clients. All can work together
and each user gets their mail client of choice.

Digital has excellent enterprise mail capabilities today.

We had the strategy many years ago and have the products today.

The other companys have the strategy today and are trying to figure
out how they are going to deliver on it.

Use what we sell and we'll sell lots more!

Signe

P.S. Information in this reply concerning plans came from the
ALL-IN-1 PID  and should be treated as Digital Proprietary 
Information. 

>>P.S. Information in this reply concerning plans came from the
>>ALL-IN-1 PID  and should be treated as Digital Proprietary 
>>Information. 
  
  and therefore will never be implemented within Digital!
  
  I guess its all part of the NWE - No Work Environment

Yes, Mailworks for UNIX, go go go !!

Seriously, we also have MAPI V1 integrationm in the works (Wiondows 3.1,
Windows'95 and Windows NT) as well as a CC:mail connection in Field test. A SUN
MOTIF client is also in FT.

And I bet we're the only 64-bit mail system around. Imagine the possibilities.
You can now have more than 4 billion messages in your inbox.


	Per Hamnqvist
	Mailworks engineering.

	Switching to MAILworks from ALL-IN-1 is no mean feat,
	but the benefits are quite large.  You'd need to
	implement a native X.400, plus X.500 directory, there's
	a lot of planning and specialist training needed.

	X.500 means not having the same information in more
	than one place, so subscriber maintenance becomes far
	more rational than what we have now.

	The savings are not just in systems, space, electricity,
	maintenance, etc., it is also in people's time to keep
	the MTS monster alive.  In Europe we have very few
	people to do the upkeep, so now's the time to switch to
	something modern.

	It can be done, it just needs leadership...

	Regards,  Geoff.

    Hi All,

    This company is doomed as far as I am concerned because we do not use
    our technology to improve our business and it's as simple as that.

    Here is a fact of life and it is that MicroSoft *DO NOT USE* MS-Mail
    as their enterprise mail system but Xerox mail system that was written
    for them.

    No one has mention LinkWorks in the discussion and they seem to think
    that MailWorks for Unix is the way to go.  If people took time to think
    they would realise that different Mail enabled applications will
    satisfy different needs.  There seems to be a lot of self interest and
    not enough thought behind the discussion no wonder we are not getting
    anywhere.  It also show the customer how confused and directionless we
    are in our office strategy.
    
    We need to take a long hard look at things before we jump in and to be
    quite honest with you all, I feel our office strategy needs to be
    revisited.  We are falling way behind and sooner or later we are going
    to be bitten.
    
    My customers are very suprised to hear that DEC do not use TeamLinks,
    TeamRoute, LinkWorks or any of the other products.  I only go to site
    every now and then and there have been times when they have asked my if
    it's true that we do not use the above products.  I tell them that we
    are looking into it and that we have a very large user base, trying my
    best not to answer the question.  In the worst case I come across
    ex-DECies and that's when it's hard to cover up.
    
    Regards,
    
    Sunil

    This is a real rathole discussion ..... quite frankly the scope and
    reliability of the mail system within this company is incredible, yet
    we whine because it's not the latest and greatest.  The grass always
    seems greener on the other side of the fence.
    
    Yes the TeamLinks front-end to A1 would improve the look and feel
    dramatically.   MailWorks is touted as the solution .... well what
    exactly is the problem?  I can send and receive mail reliably to anyone
    in this corporation and most places outside.  Note that reliably is as
    important to me as all the sexy GUI stuff.
    
    I happen to like A1 because it let's me do my job.  Quite frankly I
    don't care what the back-end is as long as it gives me what I need to
    do the job.
    

    Microsoft DO use MS-Mail as their mail system.... but not the standard
    one....
    
    Instead they have a driver out of the back-end of MS-Mail Client to
    another mail system (running on XENIX). This is the same type of
    arrangement as we can do with DEC MailWorks, and AT&T can do with their
    system.
    
    MS are currently planning on how to upgrade to Exchange -  their new
    Client / server mail and information access utility...
    
    Cheers, Chris

    Hi,
    
    Re: .20
    
    I tend to agree with you and I feel that you have a valid point in that
    we should not just jump into the deep end, if it works then don't try
    to fix it.
    
    But I do feel if we can make use of TeamRoute and other products that
    will add value to the existing solutions we could benefit.  ALL-IN-1 is
    a damn good product and MailWorks is maturing all these solutions we
    offer have to fit the environment and not the other way around.  You
    have made a good point, perhaps people can look at their working
    environment to see if the new products will help them to be more
    productive, that's all I ask.
    
    Regards,
    
    Sunil

	True that the current solution is not broken and therefore
	doesn't need fixing - even if it is a little expensive
	compared to new technology.

	But the real problem is, how do you explain to customers
	why you are not using what you are trying to sell them?

	By using what you sell, you have an excellent reference
	which all of Digital's mail-users are aware of.

	Regards,  Geoff.

    I plan to migrate to a TeamLinks front-end to my mail system and use it
    when it makes sense.  Quite frankly I sometimes like the VT option for
    quick and uncluttered mail access.Most people who whine about our
    "aged" mail systems have never seen TeamLinks front-end to A1.  If it
    makes financial sense as a corporation to migrate to another mail
    back-end then let's do it.  

re: .23

The trouble with "use what you sell", as our IT organization has found
out several times when it got enthusiastic about the concept, is that
the software strategy in the last few years has kept changing and it's
been extremely difficult to find out whether a given product will still
be supported X months out.  There was an attempt under David Stone to
coordinate Engineering strategies with the needs of IT, but that pretty
much ended when he left.

- paul

    I'll echo the sentiment in .25.
    
    I was once charged with constructing a prototype service which would
    have software running at over 100 customer sites for 5 years.
    
    People were saying, "Use the POLYCENTER products!  We're fully
    committed to them.  They've been acknowledged as a critical direction
    in our software.  Don't roll your own code!".
    
    I've been here long enough not to believe that message.  I rolled my own
    code (and caught flack for it).  Before the prototype was done, we got
    the message:  "The original POLYCENTER is dead.  We have new POLYCENTER
    products now."
    
    You can't use what you sell when you aren't committed to KEEPING THE
    PRODUCT AROUND.  As we have seen numerous times in the past few years
    alone, many products heralded as our "strategic direction" have died
    silent deaths or been sold off like unwanted scrap metal.
    
    And we wonder why we have a hard time convincing some customers to base
    their entire corporate welfare on our latest software offerings...
    
    -- Russ

	As I said in a previous reply, all you need is leadership.

	Regards,  Geoff.

>        We used to have a saying: "Use what we sell - Sell what we use!"

Personally, I go with "use what you write, write what you use"    :-)