Conference 7.286::digital

    Since I've been recently criticized for pointing to something
    mentioned in an "obscure web page" you might want to look at the
    Microsoft Press Release:
    
    http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1997/May97/scldaypr.htm
    
    I'll highlight the three demonstrations during the Microsoft Executive
    Keynotes of interest here:
    
    Terra-Server:			DIGITAL AlphaServer 4100
    1.8 Million Messages Per Day:	DIGITAL Celebris GL &
    					DIGITAL AlphaServer 4100 &
    					DIGITAL AlphaServer 800
    SQL Server "Sphynx" VLM:		DIGITAL AlphaServer 8400
    
    								-mr. bill

    .0 - Why the Microsoft envey?    They are a big company and
    can do it with whatever company on whatever hardware 
    platform.... Our announcement was made years ago wasn't it?
    
    Microsoft wants to conquere the world - big deal - which
    alliance was announced first?  Digital?  Who does it 
    the fastest?  Digital?  
    
    
    

    
    We did manage to sneak in here.  8-)
    
    
    From PC Week on scalability:
    
    http://www8.zdnet.com/pcweek/news/0519/19scal.html
    
    "Much of Microsoft's Scalability Day, to be held May 20 in New
    York, will focus on demonstrations of power. The Redmond, Wash.,
    company plans to show Digital Equipment Corp. eight-processor
    systems running NT 5.0 with 64-bit memory addressing, a 1-terabyte
    SQL Server database with satellite photos. The systems also will
    run a clustered automated teller machine application servicing 100
    million Internet Information Server hits per day."
    
    
    Kevin
    
    
    

    Re .0, did you see the DVN broadcast?
    
    Did you listen to the Bill Gates' keynote talk and see the demos?
    
    Did you listen to the Paul Maritz's talk and see the demos?
    
    Why were you so quick to quote or point out something so obscure and to
    make a bfd out of it?  Please give the folks who worked very hard on
    this event all of the deserving credits they've earned before cranking
    the gripes!
    
    --svb

>    Why were you so quick to quote or point out something so obscure and to
>    make a bfd out of it?  Please give the folks who worked very hard on
>    this event all of the deserving credits they've earned before cranking
>    the gripes!
    
    I saw no criticism implied or expressed by .0 of anyone from DIGITAL
    who was involved in this event.  The criticism was directed at
    Microsoft for not making DIGITAL more prominent on their web site. 
    Microsoft, of course, is entitled to place whatever they want on their
    site, but it doesn't speak well of our relationship when they don't
    promote us as much as we promote them.

    Re .6, i'll let the author of .0 speak his mind...
    
    But, if it were indeed as you pointed out, let's stop the venting,
    let's stop the lamenting,  let's not direct criticism (intended for
    Microsoft) in a self-inflicting manner.  It does no one no good here.
    
    Let's start at the individual level and voice our objections to the
    ones who can change it (the Microsoft web masters, content authors, et
    al.) when anyone of us catches any type of omissions or misleading
    information.  Let's not wait for some mythical marketing person to do
    something because it is griped here.
    
    If one does something often, one will be very good at it.  I'd hate to
    see griping to become one of our core competencies.
    
    --svb

    RE: DECWET::VOBA
    
    We send them off to be retrained, but they still gripe sometimes.  :-)

I suspect that our criticisms of Microsoft should be directed at our Microsoft 
alliance manager, who is presumably in a position to collate them and do 
something official with them.

PJDM

    It was a great programme, where the Digital Logo appeared many times as
    did Storage Works & lots of good words were said about our systems. So
    much so that our SBU marketing gurus in Geneva were surprised at the
    amount of visibility given to our products or that some of the NT
    customers were using Digital Services, etc...
    
    If you missed the programme, in Europe, you can get a PAL/VHS video by
    contacting  Patricia Murphy @ILO & requesting EY-W385E-SO.
    
    In case of doubt, give me a buzz.
    					:o)
    

    The point I wanted to make was we developed this nice web page and then
    we put a pointer to something that is a key element in the content of
    the same web page but the Microsoft page that was pointed to makes
    absolutely no mention of Digital - not even once.  I can understand us
    not being prominent but if you go to the trouble of making up a web
    page and coordinating a page that's hyperlinked in, how about at the
    very least get our name mentioned?
    
    							Michael

    
    
    	The world's biggest software company chooses DIGITAL products
    
    	for a demonstration of state of the art computer systems?
    
    		  Sounds like good news to me!

    re: .-(a few back)
    
    Who cares how hard people work?  (Andrew Carnegie sure as hell didn't
    and it gave birth to USSteel on the backs of lots of sub-standard
    working conditions etc..  It strikes me that if folks knew history
    a bit better they'd realize that there is not much difference between
    slaving away at manual labor for 6 12-hour days versus being a techno
    geek for 6 12-hour days.  The key difference is that back in the old
    days you at least has better cardio-pulmonary functions because you
    were doing real work - you didn't have to buy a Nordic Track to
    get up your metabolism...)
    
    I'd venture to say that, with the publicity that we do get jointly
    with Digital/Microsoft, we don't have an alliance manager.  Alliance
    managers are in charge of things like the web pages, joint PR,
    announcements etc.  
    
    Again, with the Digital mind set we direct 80% of our PR effort
    internally to convince our own organization that we're working.
    
    WHO CARES if we're working or not.  
    
    It only matters if folks are buying our stuff as a result of our
    work.  THAT's our real job.
    
    Now, how is all of this stuff seen on the MicroSoft web pages and
    announcements, etc.?  Not by much eh?  Then somebody isn't doing
    their job....period.
    
    Aarugh,
    j

    Ah yes...as far as Scalability, we could cite Exchange as
    a wonderful example...but that's in ANOTHER notes topic or
    few...

|              -< point was no Digital->Microsoft communication >-
    
    If that's your point, I'm sorry, you're wrong.
    
    It is indeed unfortunate that Microsoft did not put DIGITAL's name on a
    web page.  It belonged there.
    
    BUT!
    
    DIGITAL is prominent in Microsoft's press release.  Take a look at our
    press release (we even managed to mention OpenVMS and Digital UNIX
    in our press release, along with Intel and DIGITAL processors).
    DIGITAL is mentioned in many of Microsoft's Scalability Day web pages.
    And DIGITAL was highly prominent during the event itself.
    
    
    Should we lose sleep over the half-a-dozen people who read no press
    releases or newspapers, did not attend the event, visited
    Microsoft's Scalability Day homepage, and STOPPED THERE?  Clearly,
    those six customers showed huge interest, and they won't be buying from
    us.  (Nor evidently, Compaq, who also wasn't mentioned on that page.)
    
    
    The point is there *IS* *INDEED* lots of evidence of
    Digital<--->Microsoft Communication.
    
    
    Spend a few moments, look at the PR, look at *MORE* of the web pages,
    read some of the transcripts, and be proud.  Looks to me like we done
    good.
    
    								-mr. bill

    As I suspected, I am already receiving questions about NT on
    TurboLaser.  In that regard, I'd say it was all very positive for
    Digital.
    
    On a more somber note, Digital went through the expense of having the
    traveling Road Show van parked around the corner from the building
    (Equitable?) with a variety of demos.  The idea was to give attendees a
    chance to see our stuff close and up front and talk to Digital
    representatives.  Apparently, Microsoft refused to let us use the van,
    stating that it would be unfair (?) since none of its other partners
    had anything to show.  I thought this was kind of odd and, frankly,
    petty.

    Re .13, boy... life must be tough in Pittsburgh 8^).
    
    Again, did you watch the DVN?
    
    --svb

    No, I do about 1,500-1,800 miles of either driving or flying for field
    technical support.  DVN = no time for such stuff, send me the stuff in
    a paragraph.  If I want to see TV I go to WQED and watch it being made.
    
    Life is tough - most of the Fortune 500s have written us off as
    dead, PPG said "we (Digital) have shown no commitment to a serious
    business presence in the city",  ALCOA buys all HP because we could
    never get an executive to talk with their CEO - however HP's
    CEO would talk with ALCOA's (Paul O'Neil) so Paul buys all HP
    now, and since we fired all of the education people, C-MU and
    Pitt only buy in drips/drabs now because we've de-focused from
    'em.  Considering that the PTO facility was about 3 floors and
    350 people at one point and is now about 90 people and 1/2 of a 
    floor plus 1/4 of a floor logistics - yep...it's tough.
    
    Most Fortune 500s here consider computing as IBM, HP, SUN, COMPAQ. 
    Digital is a distant "also ran".  Oh, yah, they do some fast chip and
    some networking - are they still in business?
    
    Consider that in a city of 2.5 million, 11 Fortune 500s headquartered
    in a 5 block area of each other (in a vertical area populated more
    densely than Manhattan on the business day) we drew an impressive 150
    to the Digital/Microsoft solutions tour.
    
    The HJHeinz rep just quit - she got tired of NOT being paid by the
    OMEGA system and having to fight for every SIMPLE thing.  Doing battle
    with the DIGITAL way of doing things - when they serve only
    administrivia - really can wear you down - especially when you can't
    get 'em to pay you.  (Of course, we lost the US Steel rep ages ago
    for a lot of the same reasons..)
    
    Not to say that we don't have good products - we do.  It's just that
    they're not documented well, not easy to sell because the engineers
    really don't understand how the products get to the customers, take 
    a bit to long to come to market, aren't advertized (because we don't
    consider ads essential to sales) etc.
    
    Great products, built by engineers for the engineers who built 'em.
    
    NOT built with sales in mind.
    
    Yes, life is tough in lots of places outside the 3M area or near
    the Gates manor.

    Re .18, let's try some of your own medicine...  if don't tell us how
    far/much you have to fly/drive, we won't tell you how many meetings we
    have to go to 8^).

    Sounds like you are one of our field people who are coming into daily   
    contact with the major enterprise customers and supporting their
    account teams.  If that is not the case, ignore what i have to say
    next.

    But, if you are indeed supporting these enterprise customers, i found
    it incredible that you have not found the time to bother with the
    Scalability Day DVN.  I sure hope that is not a prevailing attitude for
    our sake.
    
    --svb

    re .-1
    
    Of course I deal with customers, that is the only reason that I'm 
    in the field.  Regarding our enterprise stuff etc., I only deal with
    networking, other folks deal with storage, others with intel stuff,
    others with software, others with services, and others with
    alfer.  We've long ago fired/downsized most of the 'general' account
    people who only cared about people buying Digital stuff in accounts.
    
    Digital sells point products to meet point needs.  It does NOT sell
    solutions.  At it's best it barely did because Digital always kept
    telling the customer "you have to understand...".
    
    As computing got more commodity oriented the consumer "had" to
    understand less and just voted with their feet...leaving us in the
    dust.
    
    So, no, I'd venture to say that the only people who really watch DVNs a
    lot are folks who don't deal with the customers or are in-between
    crisis du-jour.
    
    Yes, you should care how much field folks fly/drive/etc.  It's called
    staff retention and it's a major problem.  My estimates is that we're
    turning over about 1/3 of the staff regularly now because of stupid
    things like that.
    

    Re .20, you do need a break.  Your view of things/events and your
    outlook toward others inside Digital is disturbing.
    
    --svb

> you do need a break.

No, I think he has it mostly right.  I can't imagine a salesperson busy selling
to customers has time to watch a useless DVN even if it was possible.

Paul

    re. 22
    
    I think the term "useless DVN" is a more than a little over the top. 
    This was not a DIGITAL DVN, but rather a broadcast of a major Microsoft
    event, so maybe if that is important to your job you might want to have
    look at it on video.
    
    The reality of today's sales force is that getting to a DVN site is
    something we do VERY rarely with the home office program.  Personally I
    will try to get a videotape of the event to peruse, but what I really
    care about is that customers and analysts saw the event and its gives
    us positive press.  So to those that worked hard to give DIGITAL the
    presence it had... thanks!
    

    RE: DVN's - I personally have never seen one, and doubt very much if I
    ever will. My job is to be on Customer Sites, Doing things, not sitting
    in some conference room watching poor quality video, and listening to
    audio that doesn't match the words (Ok, so I've seen a couple minutes
    worth). 
    
    I still figure that the puzzle palace is overstaffed, and if you havn't
    been on a customer site and still work for this company, there is
    something wrong. Danzak may be ascerbic at times, but that's his
    nature, he never did pull any punches, and politically correct he
    ain't. But like he says, the emperor isn't wearing much these days, and
    someone really should tell him so.
    
    And as various entries have pointed out, pessimism won't fix much, but
    someone really should address the fact that the Field was decimated.
    and the Field is where the Customers are. Maybe some companies can do
    mail-order well, but we don't. We used to, but it got successful enough
    to get noticed, therefore qualifying for the axe. We need to refill the
    field and pay attention to what is being said out here, and make it
    easy and profitable for the few Sales types to sell and get credit for
    anything we make or sell. Until THAT happens we will contiue the
    flaming downward spiral. Ok, maybe it's not flaming anymore, but we
    sure as hell aren't gaining any altitude are we?
    
    .mike.

    re: .-21
    
    About 5 years ago, I analyzed the situation and decided it's prudent to
    execute a 'disaster plan' and not count on anything. The 'disaster
    plan' is to assume no financial continuity from Digital because at any
    time the character of the job could radically change.
    
    If you look at our folks in the Database group, DECnet group, Printer
    group, Polycenter group - well - it appears on the mark - their
    situations have changed radically and are not under their control.
    
    I know of *FEW* people in the field who do NOT need a break.  This
    week, which was supposed to be vacation has one "mandatory" show in
    Cincinnati and a client (Lycos) doing a major network reconfig which I
    need to help 'em with.  So, the 'vacation week' gets broken up by two
    days or so.  
    
    RE: Tapes.
    
    I have a seven foot stack of tapes that I have NEVER had time to look
    at. When you get up at 5:00am, get a 7:00am flight, work until 6-7pm,
    get an 8PM flight in another timezone and get back at 10 or 11pm, the
    idea of watching the stuff that YOU've videotaped on TV doesn't even
    hit you until around the end of the week when you've realized that
    those "strangers" next door are really your neighbors who you haven't
    seen in the past 3-4 weeks...
    
    Tapes...pfft, need some blanks?
    
    ----
    I keep going back to what Chris Sardegna, Network Manager, at Roadway
    Package Systems (RPS) said to me....she said: "Gee, Digital does a
    really great job on stuff, they just never finish it...."
    
    And, regarding Mike Foley's comment - it would be interesting if
    somebody who created those gawd-awful things (i.e. products) in
    corporate came out to the field and found out that:
    
       - MOST customers don't have the WEB nor do they buy from it
       - MOST of our distributions who are our customer "support" have
         a difficult problem spelling "electricity" let along "computer"
         and "configuration"
       - If it's not a commodity, installable with an "A:\SETUP" prompt,
         it's NOT going to be used by the customer
       - Most DIGITAL stuff is configured with rules more complex than
         3-dimensional chess and is NOT customer/user oriented
    
    The fact that we build good stuff, survives earthquakes, have a
    dedicated service group that will go to the end of the earth to fix
    thing, etc., doesn't really matter because the MARKETING and SALES of
    it is so screwed up.
    
    Aside from that, it's wonderful out here.  Now come and join me for a
    week.  Better yet, shadow Mike up in the great north (Syracurse) where
    resources are even more scarce.
    
    We could easily loose about 1/4 the folks in the 3M area and it wouldn
    effect us at all.  Period.

    oh, by the way, what part of:
    
     "We're consistently loosing about 1/3 of our staff because we can not
    yet pay them for what they sell.."
    
    Did you NOT understand.  No, it's NOT a disturbing view of Digital, it
    IS the way it IS in the field.  If you're at "DECWET" and in
    "Engineering" you're NOT paid on things that you sell.
    
    Now, I ask you this...would YOU sign up to sell $20 million of our
    product?  And, if you don't, you'd get only 60% of your salary?
    
    Being in technical support, I do get 100% of salary PLUS - a possible
    percentage if my reps are 'on target'.  But, since we can't tell if the
    reps are really 'on target', I get 100%, and they get 60%.  Any
    question as to why sales reps quit?
    
    I support 2.(something) reps, combined budget of about $20 million.  
    
    Go back to the lab, add up the pieces parts of all the stuff that you
    make, and calculate how high a pile of the stuff it would be for you to
    sell $20 million with the GREAT marketing support and sales-oriented
    resources that Digital provides.
    
    It takes a LOT of boxes to make that number it does....DVN..pfft..it's
    NOT in the sale
    

RE: from .19 on

>    But, if you are indeed supporting these enterprise customers, i found
>    it incredible that you have not found the time to bother with the
>    Scalability Day DVN.  I sure hope that is not a prevailing attitude for
>    our sake.

I am not one of Jon Danzak's biggest fans, but in this case I am forced
to agree with him all the way.  You may find it incredible that we don't
find the time to attend DVNs, and you may hope that this is not the
prevailing attitude.  But I can tell you flat out that the successful
Sales Reps and Sales Support people, and those who are working hard
in accounts where they are handicapped by some of Digital's past and
current actions, simply don't have the time to attend DVNs.  We wish
we could, we want to stay current, we try to get some information about
our company so that we are not continually surprised when customers
tell us things about Digital that we didn't know, but in many cases we
simply don't have the time to travel the long distances to attend DVNs.

It is *not* a case of us not being interested: the good Sales Reps
and Sales Support people in the field are desperate for solid information
about what we are doing with the 500lb gorilla of our industry.

It is *not* a case of us being lazy and not bothering to re-arrange
our schedules for something important: at the time of the DVN I was
meeting with the customer Program Manager VP of our $30M project to 
close about $0.5M worth of business for Q4, and the reason I was
closing this business was because the Sales Rep was in the middle of
serious contract negotiations with my guy's boss and could not work
the Q4 business herself.

It is *not* a case of us not working hard: the Sales Rep I work with has
had 1 day off in the last 5 weeks, and you may notice when I have time to 
write in notesfiles... :-(

It is *not* a case of us simply wandering down from our cube to the
DVN room in our Digital facility: to my knowledge the closest DVN site
to me is over 45 miles from my house, and over an hour away by car from
the customer site where I spend 90% of my time.  So a 1 hour DVN means
that I spend 2 hours in the car just getting there and back, plus the
time for the DVN itself.  Serious investment in time.
    
It *is* a case of there simply not being enough hours in the week to
do everything we truly need to do, so we prioritize: Q4 business comes
first, the pipeline comes second, customer sat wanders up and down
depending on the crisis du jour, and actually gathering information
to allow us to do our jobs is squeezed in somewhere.  Sometimes our
spouses and children make a bid for our attention as well.  I am sorry,
but DVNs almost never make the cut: sleep is often more important...

And the other thing is that Sales Reps and Sales Support people have
learned, often to our dismay, that DVNs are rarely worth the time if
we do manage to squeeze them in.  The last DVN I personally attended
was to learn about the AlphaServer 4100, and to put it politely, it
was a disappointment.  I learned more just from reading the PID, then
I did from any of the speakers.  I *LOVE* the 4100, and part of the 
$0.5M deal was to sell some of them, but the DVN was not worth my time.


RE: .20

>    Digital sells point products to meet point needs.  It does NOT sell
>    solutions.  At it's best it barely did because Digital always kept
>    telling the customer "you have to understand...".
 
*BZZZT* Wrong answer, thank you for playing our game.

Digital *does* sell solutions.  You may not, but that is your choice
and your failure.  Digital sells quite nice solutions.  The fact that
these solutions do not come pre-packaged and already tailored to your
customer situation, does not mean that Digital has failed, it means
that every customer situation is different, and that Engineering's job
is to build excellent flexible products that Sales can combine to solve
the *exact* customer situation.  Engineering is doing it's job, and many
of us in the Field are doing ours, and we are frequently beating IBM 
and HP and Sun and Compaq and Bay Networks and Cisco and ...  Sometimes
we lose, of course, because too often the customer doesn't want a Digital
solution (for many of the reasons you state, Jon), but we win enough to
make budget and Digital-100 and DECathalon consistently.  If you, Jon,
choose not to sell solutions, then so be it.  But don't you *dare* say
that Digital does not sell solutions, because I will make you a list of
Sales Reps who sell solutions every day, and are making lots of money for
Digital and themselves doing so.

>    Yes, you should care how much field folks fly/drive/etc.  It's called
>    staff retention and it's a major problem.  My estimates is that we're
>    turning over about 1/3 of the staff regularly now because of stupid
>    things like that.

I can't speak for your area of the world, but that is overstated by many
times from what I see in the SouthEast Region.  In Sales Support, the 
SouthEast Region has a turn-over of about 6%, which is less than the 
industry average.  Further, I think that Bruce Claflin is making all the
right moves to stop some of the retention problems which do exist.  I
know of several people who were thinking of leaving, but are staying
to give Claflin's initiatives time to work, because they are heartened
by what they are hearing.


RE: .25
    
>       - MOST customers don't have the WEB nor do they buy from it
>       - MOST of our distributions who are our customer "support" have
>         a difficult problem spelling "electricity" let along "computer"
>         and "configuration"
>       - If it's not a commodity, installable with an "A:\SETUP" prompt,
>         it's NOT going to be used by the customer
>       - Most DIGITAL stuff is configured with rules more complex than
>         3-dimensional chess and is NOT customer/user oriented

I am forced to completely disagree with every single point there (ok,
maybe the last one is about 1/2 right).

I don't know of a single customer in my district who has not done some
preliminary investigation of our products before I walk in there.  I
now regularly go to www.digital.com/Alphaserver just to make sure I
have read the documents that my customers are going to have in their
hands when I walk in the room for the first sales call.  Customers are
getting *very* sophisticated, and they are using our WWW sites regularly.

Our distributors technical support people are often not stellar, but I
have found that it is due to ignorance about Digital products, not a
lack of talent.  They frequently do a better job contrasting Digital
products against HP/Sun/IBM/Compaq/Bay/Cisco/etc that I am capable of
doing, so I learn as much from them as they learn from me.

Customers are capable of learning as much as you or I, and are often
eager to get our stuff working properly.  I have found that if you
approach them properly ("Here, let me show you a few tricks to make
this system really perform" as opposed to "I know I sold it to you, but
you should realize that stupid Digital can't do anything right, so this
stuff is way too complex for you to deal with, as opposed to every other
vendor's stuff which is really easy to work with" which is the way I
fear that Jon works with customers), they respond well and succeed 
quite nicely with our products.

Yeah, the stuff is complex to configure.  But come on, it is not *that* 
difficult once you figure out a few rules and make a few friends in 
Engineering and learn who the good people are in DEC-SALE and learn the 
right notes files to peruse.  But, hey, if it was easy it wouldn't be
nearly as much fun!

-- Ken Moreau

    Re .22, did you watch the Scalability Day DVN?  If not, you remain
    unqualified to have any of your comments on the subject taken
    seriously.

    Re .25 & .26, the pissing contest, at least in this string, is not how
    hard you or anyone else works, or how pissed-poor some of us gets paid,
    or how miserable the working condition is for some of us.

    I'm taking issues when someone makes sweeping generalizations without
    first-hand information on the subject matter.  I really don't care if
    you never watch a DVN during your career at Digital.  But, if that's
    your choice, do not dismiss it, do not trivialize it, and most of all -
    do not belittle it.

    BTW, be nice to us at "DECWET" and "Engineering", you'll never know who
    may answer the phone when you call 8^).

    --svb

        Re .28:
      I can't believe that you have determined who is and who isn't
    qualified to be taken seriously.  You sure are darned arrogant.

      Concerning you attitude about .25 and .26:  I find it amazing that
    someone could be so insensitive about other peoples working conditions
    and their concern about what is more important.  I don't think any of
    them have trivialized it.  It seems more to me that they are trying to
    put the DVN in perspective on what is more important.  From what they
    have described, I tend to agree with them.  I find you attitude again
    quite arrogant.

      Concerning being nice to "DECWET" and "Engineering":  Is that suppose
    to be a threat, or were you trying to be funny?  It wasn't funny!  I
    find that not only arrogant, but a great example of what is wrong with
    this company.

    Jim Morton

RE: last series, including my entry

Let's all take a deep breath and calm down, ok?

I don't think anyone is stating that people don't work hard in Digital
today.  The Field works hard, Engineering works hard, the support people
work hard, everybody is over their heads with work because of the lack
of people to do the work (keep in mind that we are doing the same volume
of revenue with 60K people that we did some years back with 125K people,
and the products cost a lot less).  I think that Paul Anderson, M
Schneider, Mike Foley, Jim Morton and even Jon Danzak (in his own unique
way) are trying to give a realistic view of how things are in the Field,
and showing *WHY* we frequently don't attend DVNs.  I believe we all
accept that things are the same in all segments of Digital, and are not
trying to state that Engineering (for example) has it easy or relaxed.

RE: .28

>    I'm taking issues when someone makes sweeping generalizations without
>    first-hand information on the subject matter.  I really don't care if
>    you never watch a DVN during your career at Digital.  But, if that's
>    your choice, do not dismiss it, do not trivialize it, and most of all -
>    do not belittle it.

I (and I believe most of the people in the Field) would *LOVE* to have
watched the DVN, because it relates to something near and dear to our 
hearts and wallets: Digital's relationship with Microsoft and what 
Microsoft is saying and doing around the use of their and our products
in the enterprise space.  The fact that we did not watch it, for what
seem to us to be good and sound reasons, should concern the people who
are setting our goals and budgets.

I believe that we are more frustrated than you are by our not having 
seen the DVN.  To you it is theoretical and does not affect your day
to day life, or even your paycheck in the short term.  To us it has
extremely direct and short term impact on our paychecks.  But we share
the goal of having the Field be fully knowledgeable about what is going
on with Digital and our business partners.  The fact that we are not
accomplishing this goal should be of concern to us all.

-- Ken Moreau

    I'll still say that we do NOT sell solutions.  We don't because it too
    frequently takes acts-of-god to get them completed, configured, etc.. 
    As a case in point, easily get consulting packaged in to complete
    things like mail integration, polycenter network manager, etc.  
    
    We spend so much time 'being successful' as per our metrics that we
    forget about that wonderful installed base that are switching their
    base to others. 
    
    Recently I was at Brush-Wellman - they quit buying Digital products
    because when they wanted to buy, they could not get Digital to call
    them back.  They moved from all DEC PCs to COMPAq, VAX servers to
    COMPAq servers etc.  The only thing that they did keep was their
    network stuff because their distributor (Anixter) *did* keep them in
    touch and up to date.  (Phew...thank god THAT one worked at least)
    However, over at CompUserve...the same story.  CompUserve wrote us off
    when they wanted to buy AXP and we wouldn't call them back.
    
    Remember, I deal mostly with our distributors and major end-users on a
    particular product line.  Given that, as I look at our Distributors Ken
    is ABSOLUTELY WRONG.  They do NOT have access to the WEB, etc.  And, as
    you travel thru the mid-west, beyond Western PA, folks in Ohio, KY, IN,
    etc., don't have lots of easy web access as part of their business
    model. (Note that it's nearly impossible on the west side of Cleveland
    to get a reliable 28.8 connection to the east side of Cleveland...)
    
    Ken- go to your local ANIXTER office or PIONEER office and check out
    their web access.  Then check out how broken and non-indexed some of
    our pages are! Aarugh!
    
    And, finally, shame on Voba or whomever for not realizing that we are
    their customers.  If I were building a product, I sure as hell would
    want to know how it was sold and where I fit into the food chain so I
    could engineer in things to help sell the product better.  After all,
    more product sales means everybody is happier...that is TQM...where
    even the guy or gal on the loading dock understands how their part (and
    packaging) makes the product work better for the customer.
    
    I was talking to the fellow in charge of ads for the eastern section of
    the local paper.  He is technically up on things.  I asked him about
    "Alfa" (yes, I pronounced it without the new angleland accent.).  And,
    he said that when he asks folks about it they say "Oh, you mean a
    Pentium-Pro.".   Yep, engineering forgot that fast was NOT the game,
    that doing what the customer wanted (i.e. showing the customer that it
    ran the apps they needed and working with third parties to get apps on
    it...) were important.  Every article in Forbes or Fortune that you
    read about it says "has yet to prove itself in the market", "has only
    1% of market".  They're NOT debating the TECHNICAL merits of it -
    they're debating the MARKET acceptance and meeting MARKET needs.
    Nice chip - who cares if it's not in a market segment.
    
    The point of anybody "working hard" is WHO CARES!  THe question is, are
    we WORKING SMART to earn the MOST PROFIT with the LEAST WORK.  If we're
    not - then something is wrong.  We're sure not going to get that way by
    playing functional one-upsmanship.
    
    

    Re .29, i'm sorry we disagree.

    As i see it, being arrogant is dismissing off-handedly the fruit of
    someone's labor as being "useless" (as expressed in .22), especially
    without the bother to even find out what it's all about.  I contended
    such remarks cannot be taken seriously.

    As i was taught, it's not nice to belittle others and their roles (as
    the final remark in .25).  I contended such remarks are offensive.

    I believe we are all basically nice folks who want to do the right
    things.  I just don't want anyone of us to suddenly feel awkward,
    realizing that the person on the other end of the phone is someone we
    have been pissing off with our careless remarks in a public forum.

    My challenge to some of the noters of this thread is not about how
    one's work and life should be prioritized; nor is it about the merit of
    their concerns expressed thus far; nor is it about how one corporate
    function is any more important than another.

    It is about applying certain basic level of rigor and focus to our
    styles of communication.  If the way this thread has wandered is
    representative of the way we conduct ourselves and our business, we
    have a long way to go.

    --svb

Comming back to the basenote .0 and the reply .6:

Only focus on the bad impact the NOTmentioning of DIGITAL had:
     (and not on the discussion should who is working hard in what)

Headline from COMPUTERWOCHE 16/05/97 (German issue of COMPUTERWEEK)

	"64bit Version of NT on the MERCED-CPU"

"T.B., Speaker of Microsoft today confirmed that the Gates-Company
will demonstrate at the Scalability Day Windows-NT 64bit-Version
runninig on a multi processor system based on MERCED, the 64-bit
processor jointly developed by Intel and HP..."

Some people (including journalists) only read the first lines and act
on that. That's the reason why it's important to be mentioned! Hard

It seems rather apparent that there continues to be a rift
between the field and engineering.  This isn't new.  We have
a fundamental flaw in our organization, namely that there
is no mechanism in place to provide feedback from the field
into our product development machine.  Engineering is, by and
large, unaware of what goes on in our field offices, much less
with our customers themselves.

In the mean time, the market has shifted radically toward an
environment in which vendors like us must react quickly, often 
changing product strategy to meet a rapidly changing, 
commodity-based demand from customers.  We are not organized 
nor equipped to do so, and it probably has a lot to do with 
why we fail.  Instead of having organizations that remain stable
enough by being flexible to change product strategy with 
rapidly changing market demands, we have stable product 
strategies with rapidly changing organizations attempting 
to implement them.

This has always been our Achilles Heel.  In general, Marketing
doesn't even do market research - so there's nobody listening.
Even if there was, they'd be reorganized out of that position
within a few months.  This may be why it doesn't seem to matter
to the market how good our products are, because they don't
meet anyone's strategic needs anymore.

tim

    And my point is that while we, Digital, are all good at convincing
    ourselves that we're doing our job, self-adulating about how each of
    our individual groups is working hard, etc., we have held rock solid at
    $13 billion in sales, slipped from #2 computer company to #4, and
    watched HP and COMPAQ (or Sun-I forget which) pass us up.
    
    And, it's been five years while we keep talking about stupid chips,
    feeds, alliances where we're the only partner talking about it, and
    point success stories (which are the EXCEPTION and not the RULE because
    if they were the RULE to our way of doing biz our business would not be
    so flat!).
    
    So, instead of asking "Wasn't the DVN wonderful..." let's ask how it
    CONNECTS with the CUSTOMER who has money and will want to make them BUY
    something from us.  Without that...forget it.
    
    Survival, profitability, growth.  We've got #1, we've barely got #2 and
    we sure as hell don't have #3. (ONE out of three business maxims is not
    a score to brag about.)
    
    On the other hand, if you look at where our business has declined -
    that is - VAXen etc., we've done a GREAT job of taking a declining
    segment and holding our own and generating growth to stay at
    $13billion.  So kudos are in order there.  But it is a bit too much of
    a 'patchwork' and too many folks have strained to do it.
    
    And, there is STILL the field reality of 60% of the folks in the past 5
    years flat out gone, nuked, fired, laid off.  I still need the flack
    jacket (as I did at Brush-Wellman last week) when I had to put up with
    them complaining about "Digital just writing them off..."  Great and
    wonderful products with no field presence is not helping us.
    
    Every one of us in every function should be able to point to SOMETHING
    that they did and some customer that it touched and KNOW that it made a
    difference.  If not..the picture is scarey.

    
    Wrt DVN's:
    
    Is there any reason highlights of the DVN can't be placed on the
    intranet and made available to the masses via a streaming video
    product such as VivoActive? (http://www.vivo.com)
    
    bill

    Bandwidth. Response is awful enough today. Save it for stuff that needs
    it.
    
    I will however reiterate an earlier suggestion: CDs. CDs have more
    than enough bandwidth, are cheap to produce (in volume), and can be
    used as drinks mats when no longer needed :-)
    
    If these DVNs are that important, they should be AVI'd or MPEG'd or
    whatever and shipped out e.g. with Digital Toady, Customer Update, or
    whatever...
    
    Or maybe with Sales Source. Anybody seen a Sales Source CD lately ?
    
    regards
    john

    Re .33, how about this...  In addition to calling all of us to these
    misinformations, can you also tell all of us how to contact the editor
    of such a publication, the journalist's name, and what you've done
    since seeing it and what else we all can do?
    
    --svb

    Re: Most of Jon Danzak's comments
    
    Jon, perhaps you should consider changing jobs from a product group to
    a solutions-oriented group such as NSIS. This way you won't be tied to
    selling the inferior Digital products (your words) that don't meet
    customers' needs, and you can sell industry-leading products as part of
    a total solution. NSIS is hiring big time, if you have the right
    skills. Sometimes it really helps to change perspective. I'm not saying
    that NSIS has no problems, but a change of scenery usually has at least
    a 3 month positive effect on attitude!
    
    Debbie
    

    Re .35, thanks for trying to understand...
    
    "So, instead of asking "Wasn't the DVN wonderful..." let's ask how it
     CONNECTS with the CUSTOMER who has money and will want to make them BUY
     something from us.  Without that...forget it."
    
    No one should/can disagree with you on that point.  I also contended
    one could only form an informed answer/opinion to that basic question
    having viewed the Scalability Day DVN (taped or broadcasted).  If one
    happens to feel good or to have other questions answered, so be it.
    
    --svb

    re: .39
    
    Deb - Changing perspectives every 3 months is why we have soooo many
    folks in corporate who are always 'on their way' to the 'next' job
    without ever finishing the one they started.
    
    I get beaten up, mostly, because of OTHER Digital products.  I'm quite
    happy and comfortable in the network space but frustrated as hell by
    folks like Brush-Wellman saying "the ONLY thing that we buy is your
    network gear...".  I have to bite my tongue every day with situations
    like that.  Or, watching customers convert AWAY from us because we've
    provided no migration path etc.
    
    We build great stuff.  HOWEVER, we have a fatal flaw in 'demand
    creation' - (i.e. can't sell it for anything as Business Week pointed
    out for the past several issues), it suffers from systemic
    implementation flaws (it is NOT easy to order the junk, get it right,
    and get quick help in many cases), and in some cases we SWEAT the small
    stuff which does NOT matter when we don't implement critical design
    features up front (i.e. perhaps making it easier for our chips to run
    DOS as WELL AS UNIX, VMS, etc.).
    
    Scalability doesn't matter.  Commit, deliver, do what the customer
    needs.  We still focus too much on our navels.

    
    re: .37
    
   > I will however reiterate an earlier suggestion: CDs.
   
    It seems likely that by the time CD's are manufactured and
    distributed, interest will have waned.
    
    bill
    

RE: .42
   
>    It seems likely that by the time CD's are manufactured and
>    distributed, interest will have waned.

I disagree.  I just heard a speaker state that he could send a file 
over the Internet to a company which would then produce CDs, for $3/CD, 
minimum order 1000 CDs, turnaround time 48 hours.  This is available to 
any private individual, so Digital ought to be able to get a similar deal.  
Add in 2 day turn-around for shipping (average cost $6 for 2-day ground
transportation), and for less than $10/CD you have every Field person
with a copy in their hand in less than 4 days.  And now they can view
it at their leisure on their HiNote PC with the multi-media docking
bay, and even show the video to customers who didn't see the original.

And of course it will become obsolete, but so does the hardcopy Price
books, and we still ship those out every quarter, and probably for a
higher price than $3/book (I am guessing, but that is a *lot* of paper).

RE: .31

>    Remember, I deal mostly with our distributors and major end-users on a
>    particular product line.  Given that, as I look at our Distributors Ken
>    is ABSOLUTELY WRONG.  They do NOT have access to the WEB, etc.  And, as
>    you travel thru the mid-west, beyond Western PA, folks in Ohio, KY, IN,
>    etc., don't have lots of easy web access as part of their business
>    model. (Note that it's nearly impossible on the west side of Cleveland
>    to get a reliable 28.8 connection to the east side of Cleveland...)
>    
>    Ken- go to your local ANIXTER office or PIONEER office and check out
>    their web access.  Then check out how broken and non-indexed some of
>    our pages are! Aarugh!

I deal mostly with SunData and Anixter and Wyle, so I can't speak about
the Pioneer folks.  I can tell you absolutely that here in Florida every
SunData and Anixter and Wyle person uses the Web on a frequent basis (the
Wyle rep's wife runs an ISP, which gives you a clue there).  I am sorry
your experience is different, but that is how it is in my area.

-- Ken Moreau

    
    <--- Thanks for the input...I had no idea a service like
    this existed.  My mistake.
    
    bill

If you can get a CD to the backblocks of Australia (or any of several other 
countries that aren't assumed to exist) in < 4 days for < $10 (that's $US10, 
presumably), and send the HiNote PC with the multimedia docking bay for the same 
price in the same time, you've got a deal.

PJDM

re .38

Send your personal protest note to the source of this:

	Microsoft GmbH
	c/o Thomas Baumgaertner FAX +49 89 3176 5390
	c/c Walter Seemayer	e-mail walterse@microsoft.com

Looking forward to your replies.

The editors of COMPUTERWOCHE are appoched by local Communications. 

Btw, as you see from this, it costs a lot effort to correct things 
post mortem. It's better to spend a fraction of it in advance.


Bernhard

    re: .37
    
    What the Anixter rep hacks from home or the office is VASTLY different
    than the corporate supported network.  Their corporate network is an
    IBM system (and they mostly use 3270/5250 desktops).  Most Anixter
    folks who 'use the web' hack at it - it is NOT available at their
    desks.
    
    There is a great difference between an organization officially
    supporting something and people finding ways through the back door to
    use tools.  When you go to a distributor who has a call meter up on the
    wall, measured in calls-per minute on a crammed small desk, you realize
    that sporadic on-line access does not help 'em.  And, when you try to
    quickly thub back and forth between 3-4 pages you realize the value of
    good print done well.
    
    Most of our distributors say that the web is nice, but a good, well
    indexed, compelte catalog with actual 'how to order' would be a vast
    improvement and save them hours of technical support time.
    
    But we're too in love with form (i.e. web/electronic etc.) NOT
    substance.  We'd rather it look pretty and technocute than actually
    have people be able to easily order things.  Try a step-by-step order
    for something in the Digital catalogue, note that we NEVER tell you how
    to order the little things like software, updates, service add-ons etc. 
    Wonder why that biz doesn't do well? Pfft.

    > Most of our distributors say that the web is nice, but a good, well
    > indexed, compelte catalog with actual 'how to order' would be a vast
     [I disagree with "complete"; that would be a nightmare, but...]
    > improvement and save them hours of technical support time.
    
    The UK had that, several years ago. It was called the DECdirect
    catalogue, and together with its telesales organisation it worked well
    enough to keep a lot of customers happy. 
    
    The UK DECdirect catalogue bore no relation to the US catalogue of the
    same name. Pick the volume products, put enough info in to make a
    buying decision, with colour pictures and PRICES, include "how to buy"
    info, include "what's new", occasionally include "special features".
    
    Update it quarterly (with supplements in between on special occasions)
    and use the mailing list (yes, mailing list) for other related
    promotions. Eventually the catalogue was translated for use in several
    European countries.
    
    Back it with a telesales organisation that was capable of handling 95+%
    of routine enquiries and orders, and with enough bright folks to know
    what to do next with the other 5%.
    
    So what happened ? Der Management closed DECdirect UK, and the people
    who set it up and made it work mostly moved on. Customers I deal with
    were in general less than impressed by this. Not to mention the
    Digital-internal sales+support folks whose first point of reference had
    become the DECdirect catalogue.
    
    Meanwhile, (some of) our esteemed business partners who have taken over
    this business are out there competing against each other on price...
    

    re:.43
    
    We can do this TODAY from inside digital.  SES will help you set it all
    up, burn the master and send it off for duplication.  We turn-around
    cd's in about 4 days.  Thats from handoff to master to duplication to
    delivery.
    
    Jeff

    Well, I just read a few articles in this week's PC WEEK about the MS
    Scalability Day affair.
    
    Any customer who did not attend/view the event would probably come to
    the conclusion that Digital was not a major player in the event, based
    on these articles.  In fact, the article which one would regard as our
    showplace ("MS & Co. Push for Service, Support". p. 10, 5/26/97) has
    exactly one (1) sentence and two (2) bullets in a side box about us
    offering migration services and OpenVMS/NT integration support
    packages.
    
    There is more info on HP's support of Wolfpack than there is on us. 
    This includes a quote from the NT group product manager saying how HP
    and others will provide the expertise to set up clusters.
    
    The only other mention of note is in the Spencer Katt column, where it
    is noted that Digital invited the press to a comedy night before the MS
    event.  One act was apparently so chock full of "bathroom and sexual
    humor" that "even some of the more jaded reporters were offended."
    
    PC WEEK also made it rather clear that they consider "Microsoft
    Scalability" to be a future, rather than present, condition for NT.
    They deem it to be at least a year away.
    
    Was any other media coverage more substantial for us?
    
    -- Russ

    
    Boy, there sure is one lot of depressed folks here ..
    
    First, I am a field type who has spent time in MCS, MIS and the last
    few years in NSIS, so I have seen a few different sides of the various
    issues over the years.
    
    My $.02 - 
    
    Yep, Digital has made mistakes over the years and gosh darn it sure
    would be nice if we could retract some of them. Better marketing, less
    downsizing, more efficient internal systems .. yep, gosh darn why cant
    we have state of the art systems ..
    
    OK, now lets move on. 
    
    Instead of griping about issues we know are problems, lets start to make
    some constructive idea's for improvements. Does anyone really think 
    they are making earth shattering statements or announcements here that 
    upper mgmt is somehow not aware of?
    
    re; a few comments about "Digital doesn't do solutions". Boy, what an
    outrageous statement. It reeks of someone so focussed on their part of
    the world that they have no idea what is going on in the resat of the
    world.
    
    To substantiate this, services (MCS, NSIS, OMS) was approx slightly 
    over $1B to the company's pockets. I also like to substantiate
    statements, so reference these Microsoft press releases:
    
    http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1996/sept96/decmspr.htm
    http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/gcn.htm
    http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/bt.htm
    
    Re:scalability days reviews: reference PC Week review for not bad
    review http://www8.zdnet.com/pcweek/news/0519/20ewrap.html
    
    re: industry reviews all favour Intel, not Alpha .. WRONG. It's only
    that we have people posting the negative reviews. How about some
    +ve reviews like:
    
    http://www8.zdnet.com/pcweek/opinion/0414/14chip.html (PC Week says x86
    architecture is peaking out !)
    http://www.heise.de/ct/english/9705154/
    http://www8.zdnet.com/pcweek/news/0421/21pent.html (PC Week says Intel
    in for a bumpy path)
    http://www.borland.com/about/press/1997/digital.html (Borland porting
    to Alpha)
    http://www.oracle.com:/corporate/press/html/PR120996.111314.html
    (Oracle stating that all of it's core products will be delivered on
    Alpha)
    
    re: beating up on Engineering folks .. The reality is that they have
    been through just as bad, if not worse, times as all of us in the
    field. Stating otherwise only shows a complete lack of understanding of
    the facts.
    
    Yes, we all have scars, and yes we all feel that we have been hurt more
    than anyone else, but lets move on.
    
    Lets have a few more :-)
    
    Regards,
    
    / Kerry
    
    

    re: .51
    
    Kerry,
    
    Your PC WEEK non-negative review has probably been seen by very few
    people, since it never made it into the paper edition of the
    publication.  Instead, this week's edition is filled with doubt
    regarding MS Scalability.
    
    I'd like to know what our customers are seeing in the trade press.  PC
    WEEK seems to be saying "It's not here right now".  What are the other
    trade rags saying?  Any of them have any significant mention of Digital?
    
    -- Russ

    NT scalability isnt.
    
    But that's irrelevant to much of the marketplace. I went to an SAP
    Microsoft partners briefing the other day and they pushed the fact that
    NT is getting a little better each day and that its still not ready to
    take SAP off the big multiprocessor UNIX systems for an NT box. But,
    they now support 8 processors. The word was that big SAP installs would
    constitute only about 10% of the marketplace. The midrange is now a
    toss up for NT vs UNIX where it wasnt before the recent announcements.
    
    Some numbers, installed base:
    1994 7.3% on NT
    1995 15.7% on NT
    1996 25% on NT
    In the last quarter, 42% of R/3 installs were on NT.
    
    So, its not real clustering and its failover is minimal. Its still an
    improvement over what was there last year, and a little bit more of the
    objections go away for the sweeter part of the market. Some people know
    that no redundancy is a bad idea but maybe just a little redundancy
    will be enough.
    
    So, the biggest number of users on NT is around 2000 seats. Most are
    much much smaller. But there is an awful lot of them and a lot more to
    come.
    
    Some things:
    We were mentioned consistently, but in terms of: 
    		"on Digital and Intel"
    This ignores that we made leading edge intel servers as well as Alpha
    
    The biggest reference sites were all on Compaq
    	- is anyone working to turn Microsoft and the German Post Office
    	  over to our systems?
    The benchmarks were only given for Intel Pentium NT, not Alpha NT, WHY?????
    	- Why are there NO Alpha NT SAP Benchmarks?
    They did refer to the Scalability Day website for further info many
       times, and of course we arnt represented there.
    	- Attendance at the Scalability Day is being leveraged well beyond
    the day by reference to Web materials and White papers, which we are
    absent from.
    
    Two vendors at the briefing only, Compaq and DIGITAL
    	- This was good news
    
    We have no one targeting the other non-hardware partners. Compaq people
    seemed to have firm relationships with them.
    	- This is bad news. Our local market has no focus, and corporate
         relationship dudes are not enough when these guys are not big 5.
    O
    

Let me begin by saying that Jon is a little rough around the edges when 
it comes to blasting the DIGITAL Corporate stuff, however he is making 
valid points about the issues and problems many of us are seeing every 
day in the field.

I agree with Jon in that DIGITAL's PR effort is directed internally 
because the majority of our customers never hear/read these amazing 
stories of DIGITAL successes, DIGITAL's willingness to work with 
customers, DIGITAL wanting to grow the business...

Like many field people, I would have enjoyed the opportunity to view the 
DVN mentioned in this note. But it was not to be!  I drove 154 miles 
to meet with a customer (very early), wrapped up the meeting as quickly 
as possible, then drove 14 miles to the Columbus office only to find 
that during their latest downsizing the DVN equipment was broken and the 
facility manager said "Sorry. But you must understand we couldn't get it 
fixed by today."  So I hopped into my car and drove the 138 miles to my 
home office.  Therefore the next time that you are walking down the hall 
to enjoy a DVN--- think about the challenge it can be for us and why we 
get p***ed when it turns out to be a waste of time.

And like many field people have pointed out, I agree that the Fortune 
500 companies have written us off: DANA Corporation, Owens-Illinois, 
Owens Corning Fiberglas (Pink Panther), Cooper Tire & Rubber, Marathon 
Oil Company, Libbey-Owens-Ford, TRINOVA Corporation... and I could go 
on....  Why?  They lost their DIGITAL Sales Rep before the distributors 
and VAR's could ramp up.  Now I see turn over in the distributors sales 
force.  In fact at this time neither Wyle nor AVNET have a local 
presence.  Main reason for the loss: was lack of support from DIGITAL.

As a side note, an information manager from one of the seven listed 
above called me about a licensing problem because she was told by CSC to 
talk with her local DIGITAL sales rep. She said "Who is my local DIGITAL 
rep?"  I answered Mr _____ from *a distributor*. She replied "I do not 
consider him my local DIGITAL sales rep!"  So I took on the problem and 
made a bunch (I repeat a bunch) of telephone calls to find the answer.
Oh by the way, they will be replacing their VAXs with IBM PCs running 
Windows NT.  Reason: they were told VMS is dead and her upper management 
no longer trusts DIGITAL.  They used to buy $2-3 Million per year, since 
omega isn't working I can't tell what they bought this year... probably 
less that $100K!

I am only hoping that Bruce Claflin can make the right moves and 
decisions to stop the hemorraging, eliminate the spread sheet managers, 
and return the bean counters to doing the receivables and payables and 
stop trying to run the company into the ground.


Ken Moreau made an interesting point that DIGITAL is "doing the same volume
of revenue with 60K people that we did some years back with 125K people,
and the products cost a lot less."  Think what it could be if we had a 
full strength field organization!  Maybe we would need a greater 
manufacturing and engineering force to meet the demand!

Speaking of Engineering, how about coming up with a solution for us to 
watch a delayed broadcast of the DVN on our laptops with a Courier 
V.Everything modem?  Then we too could understand our Corporate 
Direction, Strategies, Wishes, Hopes and Dreams.

Regards.
    

    
    .54 -
    
    While I agree we have some problems with marketing, we in the field
    cannot continue to always blame corporate for every problem in the
    universe. 
    
    They do have some real issues, but what about the field? 
    
    As an example, do we not all have some responsibility that when faced 
    with "VMS is dead" type statements to correct them with the official 
    position which is that it is very much alive in the tier 3 space. The 
    tier 3 space does not advertise like off-the-shelf products like NT, 
    but when was the last time you saw a MVS ad ? 
    
    Does anyone in their right minds actually think MVS is dead ?
    
    The bottom line is that yes, NT is starting to scale up, but is that
    not to be expected ? However, what about OpenVMS, HP-UX and MVS ? Does
    anyone expect the tier3 players to stand still ?
    
    How many field types have pointed their customers to the
    www.openvms.digital.com home page for updates on things like IPV6
    support ? 64bit Java support ? If Java clients really take off, will
    not a fully clusterable 64 bit JAVA server not sound attractive?
    
    How many field types have talked to their Customers about "GALAXY" - 
    announced at DECUS and is targeted to deliver at least 3 times the
    performance of Merced ?
    
    The tier 1/2/3 environments are shifting upwards, but this has been
    happening ever since the first PC was invented and the notion of a
    x86 PC replacing the tier3 systems was born many, many years ago.
    
    Now, having said that, you are right that there are problems that we 
    (DIGITAL) need to fix. The sales model sounds like it may (?) be a step
    closer to being fixed with the single sales force coming on July 1. Our
    corporate marketing is getting better - anyone seen the "Alphaservers
    have powerful friends.." ads ?
    
    However, another item requiring fixing is all of our internal negativity 
    and start to take ownership of at least fixing Customer perceptions with 
    the ones that we can on a daily basis.
    
    Regards,
    
    / Kerry

    re .55, .54
    
    > As an example, do we not all have some responsibility that when faced 
    > with "VMS is dead" type statements to correct them with the official 
    > position which is that it is very much alive in the tier 3 space. The 
    
     ...
    > How many field types have pointed their customers to the
    > www.openvms.digital.com home page for updates on things like IPV6
    > support ? 64bit Java support ? If Java clients really take off, will
    
    I believe his point is there are NO field types left to tell these
    things to these customers - either there is no rep (distributor or
    Digital), or if there is a distributor, how do we get them to be as
    fired up as we are?
    
                       

    Sorry Kerry but we in the field cannot fix the "VMS is dead"
    perception.  We can retard the flames yes, but unless the high air
    cover is established we are in trouble.  All you need is for a Gartner
    to say OVMS is not strategic and all the field work is nullified. 
    Witness the damage of Gartner's comments on Digital UNIX.

    re: .55
    
    The people that frequently trumpeted the benefits of the latest-and-
    greatest stuff in OpenVMS were the field software (NSIS) folks, like
    me.
    
    Guess what?  Most of the NSIS folks that I know are focussed on WNT. 
    You say "GALAXY" was officially announced at DECUS?  First that I've
    heard of that.  I don't doubt your word; it's just that almost no one is
    charged with watching OpenVMS anymore.  I do OpenVMS (and Linux and
    MSDOS and MS Windows) consulting.  Guess what I was told?  I need to
    learn NT.  And I'm probably the only person in my group who HASN'T done
    NT yet.
    
    Where's the push to learn about "GALAXY"?  Where are the brochures, the
    training materials for NSIS?
    
    The point is this: OpenVMS is dying because DIGITAL wants it that way.
    NT is the future.  OpenVMS is the past.  Not because I say so; it's
    clear from above that this is the case.
    
    My main customer uses OpenVMS workstations.  Well, I keep hearing that
    "we don't want to do OpenVMS workstations anymore".  Guess what?  We'll
    lose OpenVMS in this account soon -- because DIGITAL wants it that way.  
    And I can't push OpenVMS in good conscience anymore, since I know it's only
    a matter of time before my customer gets caught between a rock and a
    hard place, because we're not interested in his business.  Maybe I'll
    try to steer him to Digital Unix, but it's going to be tough to keep
    him away from a strictly Wintel solution that will mean zero revenue
    for DIGITAL.  And, if he goes Wintel, his ability to justify my
    existance to his bosses at over $100 per hour will be severely
    impaired -- even if he's sold on my abilities (which he is).
    
    OpenVMS is dying because DIGITAL wants it dead.  If we want it to live,
    someone on high needs to target NSIS to stay beefed up its OpenVMS skills.
    I know of no such directive.  The loud and clear directive is "go to
    NT".  Period.

    Yep, it seems like corporate wants to kill OpenVMS because they are not
    marketing it, make is too costly for persons to buy, and then got all
    the VARs and resellers angry by not delivering to them.  Compare the
    cost of an OpenVMS station versus a PC etc...we keep pricing it with
    the 'features, functions, value added, etc.' but people don't want it
    and we don't have the flexible licensing to grow it etc. (or it took a
    rocket scientist to figure out all the options etc.)
    
    The field can't push OpenVMS except for 'legacy' applications because 
    VARs aren't developing stuff on it.
    
    After all, our own internal support groups are downsizing the
    OpenVMS servers, converting to PCs, etc. because they feel that
    OpenVMS it "too expensive".  (Right, a PC on everybody's desk
    is cheaper with all that @*@*#)@* software..i USED to be able to
    reliably read mail before Exchange...aarugh)
    
    Oh well, another revenue stream negated.  And, yes, nobody said that
    MVS is dead for big data center stuff.
    
    And, with the offices downsized out of existence (i.e. there are now
    states in which Digital has NO offices anymore!) or downsized by
    70-80%, there just are barely enough bodies in the field selling - too
    few to do damage control of our absolutely broken and stupid
    marketing/engineering/development/sales structure.
    
    Aside from that, it's great.
    aarugh,
    j
    

Don't let anyone tell you OpenVMS is dead.  There are many people in this
corporation who are working hard to ensure that it isn't, despite the lack of
marketing and odd pricing schemes.

Paul

    
    
    Err, what's a Galaxy? 
    
    Is that a good thing? 
    
    Which customers is this targeted at? Are there profiles so us "field
    types" can know if we should be taking this to prospects?
    
    
    Will it work with NT or UNIX? 
    
    
    
    - John
    An NSIS "field type", often described in the literature as "a mushroom"
    (kept in the dark and fed bs).
    
    
    
    

    re:.60
    
    Regardless of what folks IN digital think....the bigger question is
    what CUSTOMER or non-customers think.  how are we GROWING the market,
    where are we targeting etc.
    
    What "We" do internally doesn't matter at all unless folks OUTSIDE of
    Digital know about it and talk about it.
    
    Else, we're contemplating our own navels...
    
    So, as far as the world (external development, growing market base
    etc.) it's dead...
    

    >>>
    What "We" do internally doesn't matter at all unless folks OUTSIDE of
    Digital know about it and talk about it.
    
    Else, we're contemplating our own navels...
    
    So, as far as the world (external development, growing market base
    etc.) it's dead...
    >>>
    
    mmmm... so if the outside world thinks OpenVMS is dead, how would you
    account for the following article which outlines how the Health Care
    industry just voted OpenVMS as the #1 operating system ?
    
    The attached just re-enforces my belief that the only ones who really 
    believe OpenVMS is not going anywhere are the PC Mags (who get zero
    revenue from OpenVMS) and internal Digital employees who think
    Microsoft has a lock on the entire world.
    
    Remember - NT is making all of its gains at the expense of other tier 2
    products such as Novell, Banyan, Pathworks etc. It is making very few
    inroads to the tier 3 arena (finance, health care, manufacturing) where 
    OpenVMS plays.
    
    re: NT taking over health care - now, is there anyone who would like to
    be in a critical health care situation and have to depend on an NT
    infrastructure for patient care? For those who think NT could handle
    it, one followup question "Have you had heard of any issues with our
    internal Exchange rollout?" Defense rests.
    
    Another example - large Customer locally with high availability just
    bought a whack of Alpha 4100's and a few biiiig 8400's (44xRZ29's, 4GB
    memory, 6x440Mhz cpus) to consolidate their OpenVMS operations
    environment. All these new systems are planned to run OpenVMS 7.1.
    
    Attached: Recent announcement on OpenVMS award:
    
    "FROM: Janet Cerella, @PKO, 223-5513, 223-5761 
    
    Are your customers aware that OpenVMS is ranked as the #1 operating
    system in healthcare? 
    
    In partnership with the College of Healthcare Information Management
    Executives (CHIME), HCIA conducted a survey of over 600 healthcare
    executives and asked them to report the top three computer operating
    systems.  They ranked OpenVMS as #1.
    
    These survey results can be used in sales situations to support the
    fact that OpenVMS remains a leading operating system in healthcare. 
    This, together with DIGITAL's strong commitment to OpenVMS and its
    future, can address any questions about positioning of OpenVMS raised 
    by healthcare VARs, ISVs, or customers.
    
    HCIA, Inc. is a leading healthcare information company with extensive
    industry database knowledge and experience.  The results of the survey
    were published in a 109-page report.
    
    DIGITAL has rights to reference this survey on the web (which will be
    done on the OpenVMS page and on the Sales and Marketing page under the
    healthcare sales impact kit in the "What's New" section).  We will
    also be referring to the survey results in an OpenVMS/NT healthcare 
    solutions brief (to be available in July).  Copies of the operating 
    system portion of the HCIA/CHIME survey can be ordered from LOS. The 
    part number is EC-Y7931-93.  
    
    Copies of the entire 109 page healthcare survey can be purchased from
    HCIA for $495.  The title is "The H.I.S. Desk Reference:  A CIO
    Survey."
    Call (800) 324-1746 to order.
    
    Contact Janet Cerella at DTN 223-5513 or janet.cerella
    @pko.mts.dec.com;
    Karen Guenther at DTN 471-5116 or kguenther@mail.dec.com; or Gary
    Gorden at DTN 535-4491 or gorden@mail.dec.com for any questions on 
    OpenVMS and healthcare opportunities.
    

    Figures lie, liars figure.
    
    Let's put it in CONTEXT.  What is #1 in technology TODAY is NOT what
    is #1 in technology TOMORROW.  After all, remember whenn ALL-IN-1 was
    the #1 office automation system and there were ComputerWorld articles
    with "Get Me DEC" on the cover?
    
    Please juxtapose the #1 healthcare system TODAY with facts and figures
    about growth of healthcare systems, choices of platforms and preferred
    platforms for NEW and EXPANDING systems.
    
    I don't think that OpenVMS will fly high in those figures.  
    
    So, you have THOSE numbers, the GROWTH ones, the ones which will be
    paying us for the years 5+ and beyond....or do we still want to quote
    'installed base' which appears, by all accounts, to be declining.
    
    Now...where are those GROWTH market numbers....
    
    waiting,
    j

    At least Alpha gets a mention...
    
    From the Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au)
    
    
    Tuesday, May 27, 1997
    
    
    
    
    
    Making NT promises
    
    
    
    The newest release of Windows NT promises to bring mainframe and
    telephone network-like reliability to the PC platform. ERIC WILSON
    listened to Bill Gates at the launch in New York last week.
    
    Microsoft's Bill Gates wants to own corporate computing. Last week, at
    Windows Scalability Day in the United States, he announced the Windows
    NT Enterprise edition, a version of the operating system that will
    allow a cluster of different NT servers to be seen as a single unit by
    users and applications.
    
    This means if one PC goes down, the others will automatically take over
    its work without users noticing a server has crashed.
    
    "It's today's thing," Mr Gates said. "We made this a priority for
    Microsoft about eight months ago, when we decided that the pieces
    really were in place to scale our systems better than any other."
    
    To prove his point, Mr Gates took some of his money out of an NT
    automatic teller machine connected to a cluster of NT banking machines.
    
    His withdrawal was processed among 1billion other simulated
    transactions being handled that day by the 25-node server cluster. The
    "global bank" demonstration had 1.6billion accounts - one for every
    family in the world. And Microsoft says the 1billion daily transactions
    simulated represents 800,000 more than in any commercial system in use
    today.
    
    Despite this load, Mr Gates had barely enough time to quip, "I hope
    I've got enough money!", before his cash withdrawal was completed.
    
    Microsoft calculates that by using this clustered NT technology, the
    cost of an ATM banking transaction on back-end could be reduced to
    1/50,000th of a cent. However, nothing was mentioned about this saving
    then being passed on to customers as lower banking fees!
    
    The foundation of this demo was Microsoft Transaction Server, an NT
    service that ties applications on different machines together in a
    robust way. Using this Transaction Server, database and business rules
    processing can be spread over a number of PCs.
    
    But the Transaction Server isn't just for big business. It can even
    scale down to link spreadsheets together in a reliable way across
    multiple machines. The NT Transaction Server will be available free
    from Microsoft's site next month for use with NT 4 Server.
    
    Mr Gates said future versions of NT Workstation would have a
    transaction server built in to resynchronise information used by
    notebook users. In a veiled reference to the Java platform, he said
    mobile computing was the Achilles heel of competing Network Computing
    architectures. 
    
    The alternative Java platform was otherwise ignored by Microsoft except
    when raised by the Herald at question time: "Our strategy is to enable
    complete interoperability for objects written in Java or any other
    language such as Visual Basic or Visual C++," said Microsoft's
    vice-president, Paul Maritz. "Unlike other approaches, we don't require
    you to use a particular language. We don't discriminate against you if
    you have used a particular language."
    
    But Microsoft's promise of Java support in NT clusters seemed to fall
    far short of Sun's run-anywhere Java goal. Rather than pledging Java
    applications will run unmodified, Mr Maritz described the migration of
    Java applications to NT clusters as "straightforward" for "correctly
    structured objects" obeying "commonsense rules".
    
    However, Microsoft's Transaction Server looks open enough for third
    parties to easily add Java support at the applications level. Despite
    the impressive demonstration of the 25-node "global bank" cluster, the
    first release of Windows NT Enterprise will allow only two machines to
    be tied together. Microsoft officials say this is because keeping the
    first release simple will give rise to fewer teething problems, leading
    to high customer satisfaction.
    
    Windows Scalability Day was also about being able to do more on single
    Windows machines. Microsoft used the occasion to show off NT's
    capability to host huge multimedia databases, with a single Windows
    machine serving US and Russian satellite images from a 1,000-gigabyte
    (terabyte) database.
    
    "When you talk about how big a terabyte is - it's huge!" says Jim Grey,
    a senior Microsoft engineer who previously worked with IBM and Tandem.
    "If you take all the HTML pages on the Web and drag them into your
    system, it's not a terabyte. If you go out to the New York stock
    exchange and take all the transactions ever [made] ... half a
    terabyte."
    
    Known as the TeraServer, the largest "out-of-the-box" NT 4 machine in
    the world uses four Alpha processors, two Gb of RAM and three giant
    refrigerators containing 324 hard disks. The next version of SQL Server
    runs on this system, fetching and managing the 112billion records of
    satellite information. The TeraServer will soon be connected to the
    Web. For smaller requirements, Microsoft promised a Small Business
    edition of Microsoft Back Office. The new edition will be designed to
    run on a single server with extremely low maintenance.
    
    <Picture: Signpost>
    
    

    re: .63
    
    Very nice.
    
    But, NEVER judge the market by Healthcare!
    
    OpenVMS is the number one o/s in Healthcare because it is the number
    one o/s that supports M (aka MUMPS).
    
    If you listen to the healthcare people, we should be ignoring Oracle et
    al because it's a MUMPS-type world out there.
    
    Healthcare is notorious for adopting solutions within its ranks which
    work fine for it, but are utterly useless in most other fields. 
    Healthcare has a long history of going against the grain of other
    industries to get the job done.
    
    It's fine that OpenVMS (and M) are the darlings of Healthcare.  Just
    don't make the mistake of thinking that Healthcare solutions mean
    anything to any industry outside of Healthcare.
    
    -- Russ

    re: .61
    
    to answer the earlier question, Galaxy is the phenomenon of 
    'Clusters of Clusters'.  It was demoed at a recent Decus, and
    our pal Shannon saw it, and was BLOWN AWAY!
    
    If it takes off, then Virtually Marketless Software (VMS) may
    have a new meaning!
    
    CHet

re .62,

> What "We" do internally doesn't matter at all unless folks OUTSIDE of Digital
> know about it and talk about it.  Else, we're contemplating our own navels...

Agreed.  What I should have emphasized is that there are many people *inside*
DIGITAL making sure people *outside* DIGITAL know that OpenVMS is not dead.

> So, as far as the world (external development, growing market base etc.) it's
> dead...

Then it's up to us to tell the world that it's not.  OpenVMS will never again
have the mindshare and market share it had in the 1980s, but there are many
situations in which it is the best solution.

Paul

    
    re: few previous replies about OpenVMS and Healthcare .. here we get a
    real boost to one of our OS's and we immediately shoot it down with
    "well, it's not really that good of an announcement, because ..."
    
    Rather than acknowledge it for a good thing, we shoot it down as the
    Healthcare only do proprietary solutions and nobody follows them ...
    
    Geez - talk about a tough sell.
    
    Ok, some more details on Galaxy for the OpenVMS doubters .. when one
    sees the following goal of a 300,000 TPCM benchmark, keep in mind that
    the top NT TPC benchmark is approx 8,000 right now and may get as high
    as 25,000 later this year .. with big Alpha's and VLM ..
    
    "_____Digital Offers Peek At Next-Generation Cluster_____
    
    In surroundings less frenetic than at Scalability Day, where 
    Digital Equipment and other vendors yesterday demonstrated 
    scalable Windows NT solutions, Digital is showing advanced 
    clustering technology at a place called the Pit at its user 
    conference in Cincinnati.
    
    Digital's Galaxy clustering software won't ship until next 
    spring, but when it does it will combine a shared-everything 
    SMP architecture with clustering into Digital's OpenVMS 
    operating system, and then provide integration with NT. 
    "You'll be able to move servers around from virtual system to 
    virtual system -- and I mean lots and lots more processors 
    than 12," says Wes Melling, Digital's VP of OpenVMS and NT 
    systems. 
    
    Digital is talking about performance in terms of the TPM 
    (transactions per minute)-C database benchmark. The vendor 
    plans on a 300,000 TPM-C; by comparison, Hewlett-Packard is 
    expected to announce tomorrow its V class server at a 
    30,000 TPM-C.
    
    Brad Day, an analyst with Giga Information Group in 
    Cambridge, Mass., says Digital is pushing ahead of 
    competitors with Galaxy. "Digital usually holds its big guns 
    in the back room and doesn't come out so much with leapfrog 
    technology," Day says. "Now Digital is talking about 
    technology that will perform three times faster than what HP 
    plans to ship" in the second quarter of 1999 under its Merced 
    chip alliance with Intel.
    -- Martin J. Garvey  
    

    re: .69
    
>    re: few previous replies about OpenVMS and Healthcare .. here we get a
>    real boost to one of our OS's and we immediately shoot it down with
>    "well, it's not really that good of an announcement, because ..."
>    
>    Rather than acknowledge it for a good thing, we shoot it down as the
>    Healthcare only do proprietary solutions and nobody follows them ...
    
    You missed the point, Kerry.  Sure it's good news.  I'd like to see the
    entire Healthcare market in North America and the rest of the world go
    OpenVMS.
    
    We were discussing whether OpenVMS was "dead".  You cited the report
    saying it's thriving in Healthcare.  I'm saying that says little about
    the "deadness" of the o/s, as Healthcare is well-known to snuggle up to
    technologies that most other marketplaces regard as old hat.
    
    I've directly supported Healthcare accounts for several years now.  If
    they want OpenVMS, that's fantastic!  But, that is no assurance AT ALL
    that our other customers view OpenVMS as anything other than a dinosaur.
    
>    Geez - talk about a tough sell.
    
    That's the problem -- you shouldn't even NEED to be selling it to me.
    It's our product -- and a darn good one.  We should be selling it to
    our customers.  But, the clear messages from above are "NT is the
    future; OpenVMS is the past".
    
    We're in deep trouble of our own making.  We need high-level directives
    to pursue OpenVMS training (for Galaxy and more).  We need advertising
    about the goodness of OpenVMS, not just the ease which with one can
    abandon it for NT.  We need to see the corporation unashamedly tout the
    virtues of OpenVMS -- not just issue statements saying that we haven't
    given up on it (yet).
    
    Our customers remember all too well how we've branded so many products
    as "core competencies" -- only to have us sell them off.  They don't
    believe what we say about software anymore.  We have to SHOW our
    commitment, not just TALK about it.
    
    -- Russ

    
    Russ,
    
    I don't think I missed the point. Obviously, there are area's in
    marketing OpenVMS that we definately need to improve. However,
    OpenVMS is a tier 3 product and as such can not be marketed like 
    a tier 2 product like NT. How many ads has anyone seen recently
    for MVS ?
    
    My point is that to many people rely on Corporate or Engineering
    to do everything for them. Once corporate messages are passed on
    as Wes Malling has done on a number of occasions, then it is the
    responsibility of each of us to relay those messages to our Customers.
    
    Customers are won and kept on both relationships and technology. If
    a Customer hears a corporate message, but the local Digital people
    are agreeing with the competition (OpenVMS is dead type messages),
    then who is the Customer going to believe?
    
    Anyway, enough of my rambling ... 
    
    Regards,
    
    / Kerry
    

    So, Galaxies sounds interesting, and sounds like it might appeal to
    customers with loadsamoney. So where does one go for more info, either
    inside or outside Digital ?

Article: 78231
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.os.vms,comp.sys.dec
From: "Terry C. Shannon" <shannon@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: Galaxies 
Sender: news@world.std.com (Mr Usenet Himself)
Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 20:26:45 GMT
Organization: Shannon Knows DEC / Harvard Research Group
 
Excerpt from the June 1, 1997 issue of Shannon Knows DEC
 
INSIDE STORY: THE FUTURE OF OPENVMS: IT'S GALACTIC!
 
 
Digital Equipment Corporation invented the VAXcluster over 14 years ago,
and the VMScluster remains the standard by which computer clusters are
judged. Despite a stream of scalability, reliability, manageability, and
interconnect improvements, DEC's clustering technology no longer is a
unique differentiator. 
 
 
Beyond Clusters
 
 
With the definitions of clusters and the capabilities of enterprise
servers in a state of flux, the time has come for Digital to take the
next evolutionary step by bringing large multi-system performance,
scalability, availability, and reliability into a single OpenVMS system
that forms an unlimited high end and fully leverages the capabilities of
Alpha.
 
Digital already has taken that step, and OpenVMS developers currently
are putting the finishing touches on the next-generation OpenVMS
Galaxies Software Architecture. 
 
The goal of the Galaxies program is to deliver continuous computing,
unparalleled apps availability, and a cluster-aware transaction engine
without dedicated application systems or esoteric hardware and software.
Similarly, Galaxies must address the scalability limitations of  large
SMP architectures, and the lack of shared memory and low interconnect
bandwidth that hobble clusters.
 
Galaxies relies on Adaptive Partitioned Multi-Processing, (APMP), a new
computing model which enables many copies of OSes to execute
cooperatively . Support for node-private I/O and memory (each node in
the diagram has its own copy of OpenVMS), as well as shared memory for
applications and cluster-wide global sections, create a
cluster-in-a-cabinet "grandson of Andromeda" paradigm.
 
 
More details available in the newsletter, of course!

    

    re: From "Cluster" to "Galaxy"
    
    Logical progression or not, is there some way we can tie up the term
    "Universe" before some other company uses it to trump our "Galaxy"?
    
    (Still bugged about IBM co-opting "AlphaWorks"...)

RE: .71 -< Need to restore faith in Digital .. >-

>    I don't think I missed the point. Obviously, there are area's in
>    marketing OpenVMS that we definately need to improve. However,
>    OpenVMS is a tier 3 product and as such can not be marketed like 
>    a tier 2 product like NT. How many ads has anyone seen recently
>    for MVS ?

I've made this point in other forums, but I will make it again here.
The single most important area that we need to improve in our marketing
of OpenVMS is to make sure it is mentioned exactly as many times, in
exactly as many places, with exactly as much emphasis, as our other
two operating systems.

Which means that one of the "3" in our 1-3-9 strategy is *NOT* 64-bit
UNIX, but *IS* 64-bit Computing (ie, we have it today with Digital UNIX
and OpenVMS, and are working to have it tomorrow with Windows NT).

Which means that when we announce a new Alpha product, we do *NOT* imply
by omission that the 'u' in the product name means UNIX instead of
universal, by literally forgetting to mention support for one of our
primary products, but instead proudly state that we are continuing the
tradition of supporting every one of our operating systems on every
one of our Alpha offerings, and here is the schedule.

Which means that when we announce All-Connect integration with Windows NT,
we don't completely ignore OpenVMS and focus exclusively on Digital UNIX,
and only after prompting does the spokesperson shamefacedly admit that we
also have an initiative called OpenVMS Affinity, but instead proudly states
that we have the best integration with Windows NT on the market today, and
we have it for all of our operating systems.

>    Customers are won and kept on both relationships and technology. If
>    a Customer hears a corporate message, but the local Digital people
>    are agreeing with the competition (OpenVMS is dead type messages),
>    then who is the Customer going to believe?

You are right, but that is only half the story...

If a Customer hears a corporate message (64-bit UNIX as one of the 3, 
not a word about OpenVMS when we announce a new Alpha product, and 
All-Connect is the NT integration strategy), while his local Sales and
Support people are saying "of course OpenVMS is a viable product", who
is he going to believe?

I just went through the most depressing exercise in a while.  A customer
who believes in OpenVMS and has succeeded with it for years, asked me
for some recent benchmark data around Oracle on OpenVMS.  Guess what?
There isn't any.  The most recent OpenVMS benchmark I can find is for
Rdb, and was done in late 1995.  His software vendor is pushing Digital
UNIX (at least it is our product), and he wants to stay with OpenVMS, but
I can't give him the ammunition he needs.  I have the relationship, and
I have the technology (aka, the Digital and Oracle products to do his
job are shipping and working).  But I don't have the marketing needed to
prove to his non-technical managers that OpenVMS is a viable choice.  

That is the kind of thing that *only* Corporate can provide, because
otherwise it is just my word, with no support from Digital.

-- Ken Moreau

| Which means that one of the "3" in our 1-3-9 strategy is *NOT* 64-bit
| UNIX, but *IS* 64-bit Computing (ie, we have it today with Digital UNIX
| and OpenVMS, and are working to have it tomorrow with Windows NT).

This is where I think things are broken. Somehow, this very memorable 1-3-9
strategy was coined. And since then, we spend a lot of time trying to figure
out how all we do fit into 1-3-9 or how things can be paraphrazed to fit.
Meanwhile, just about nobody can articulate the meaning of 1-3-9 without
looking at the darn web page.

What is wrong with listing a number of markets that we are targetting? I
mean, take a look at the explanation on the SBU page for the "3". It
first lists three (which does not include VMS) and then goes on to say
that this should not be taken as an abandonment of the following three. I
guess that makes it six. How about just listing 6 areas? The "1" is
pretty meaningless. It basically says: We do the right thing. And then
you look at the 9... sigh. What happened to things like 7x24 computing,
something we can *really* claim to good at? What about the array of
chips we're making at DS?

I don't know why the 1-3-9 strategy reminds me of that old note about
this guy who comes to interview at Digital sometime in the next century...

>Per

    re: Ken's .75
    
    I agree, VMS needs equal billig as the others and it does not get it.
    For that I blame corporate.  An example that had me wondering, which
    I did not get a chance to research had to do with the May 15 Digital
    Today.
    
    There were a number of pat ourselves on the back articles about recent 
    wins.  Many of them mentioned NT or UNIX as the OS involved in the win.
    Some articles mentioned no OS.  No article mentioned a VMS win.  Had
    me wondering, are we not allowed to pat ourselves on the back when 
    VMS is involved in a win?  Anyone else notice what I saw?  Was I
    imagining this?  Like I said, I never researched it any further.

    .75 - Ken,
    
    You are right about needing corporate to give equal billing for OpenVMS
    advertising - it is one of the area's I had in mind in my last note
    that stated "there are area's in marketing OpenVMS that definately need
    to improve"..
    
    I suspect that part of the problem is that many senior marketing people
    within Digital have backgrounds in the PC LAN space and as such have
    little understanding of the tier 3 platform issues and requirements. As 
    an example, how many marketing technical types would understand and be
    able to explain why OpenVMS clustering is so much more advanced than
    the Wolfpack initiative ?
    
    Someone in the last few weeks entered an analogy of our approach to
    OpenVMS marketing .. they used the example of a monitor company who
    makes both 15" and 17" monitors. Now, both products have clear
    functionality, pricing and performance differences, but does the
    monitor company decide to drop the 17" monitors for fear that it
    might impact their 15" monitors. Not likely. 
    
    They simply do their marketing and target different Customers.
    
    We need to get senior marketing folks within Digital to realize that
    NT and OpenVMS have totally different markets and should be marketed
    as such. We also need to get some third party vendors to develop killer
    type app's that will run on OpenVMS.
    
    I suspect that a fully clusterable, 64 bit JAVA engine, with IPV6
    support, now manageable from a PT/click NT based GUI interface and very 
    high IO capabilities would be of interest to a large number of 
    Customers. This is the type of platform that could provide a SW vendor 
    with a real competitive advantage.
    
    Regards,
    
    / Kerry
    

    I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for product specific advertising.
    It's not gonna happen.
    
    Harry Copperman was visiting Networks a while back and made the
    statement to the effect that:
    
    The current Digital culture says you're not a "man" unless you have
    your own advertising. This means that we have lots of divergent ads all
    over the map and none of them have critical mass to produce any
    results.
    
    He described Sun's ad strategy as making the world aware that they are
    "the Internet Company". They don't do ads for workstations or Solaris,
    but those product are big money makers for them. They do advertise
    things like Java that haven't made them much money directly but let
    them get a foot in the door to sell the other stuff.

    meanwhile, we advertise monkeys. yeah, right, that's a guaranteed
    route to success.
    
    Actually I nearly fell over the other day when I saw a DIGITAL ad in a
    UK PC comic which not only talked about product but even mentioned a
    PRICE!!! Way to go, folks! Let's see more of it (but make sure HQ don't
    get to find out or you'll get your knuckles rapped for doing too much
    demand creation...)
    
    bye
    jw

    re: .79
    
    >I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for product specific advertising.
    >It's not gonna happen.
    
    PC WEEK, June 2, 1997, Rear Cover (nice positioning, at least!)
    
    We have a product-specific ad for our prize O/S: Microsoft Windows NT.
    
    Oh, yeah, it says we offer "middleware" so that NT can work along side
    "Open VMS" (not "OpenVMS" ???) and UNIX.
    
    -- Russ

I like the copy in that ad, I don't see anything wrong with that message.
"You want NT experience, we got it - more of it and better than anyone else"

I just wish the DIGITAL logo was a little more prominent and certainly bigger
than M$.  Althought the logos are the same size, M$ is actually bigger because 
the font is bigger.  I doubt they are helping to pay for these ads.

Too bad they couldn't throw in a few words like 'The planet's most reliable 
OS' in front of the OVMS reference.  It wouldn't take much more than comments
like that to make our customers believe that we believe in OVMS.

Of course the monkee is questionable, but at least we are being consistent 
with it.

IMO of course.

    re: .82
    
    I don't see anything essentially wrong with the message, either.
    
    My beef is that we do little elsewhere to balance the message.  The one
    clear, consistant message the customer gets from Digital is "you want
    NT".
    
    Our customers are fleeing OpenVMS because the message is clear: NT is
    in, OpenVMS is out.
    
    Heck, I was even actively selling Digital's multimedia capabilities
    on OpenVMS to a customer.  When I asked an Engineer about some details
    of a product, he informed me that they had no plans of ever releasing 
    another version of that software on OpenVMS.  
    
    After working for years to keep a Digital presence in this effort, I
    can no longer promote OpenVMS to this customer, since we have no
    intention of providing the capabilities that our competitors happily
    provide.
    
    We've determined that, at best, OpenVMS will fit a little niche as
    designed by someone above.  Unfortunately, many of our customers do NOT
    use OpenVMS in that niche, so they need to migrate.  When they migrate,
    there is often a bad feeling toward us, since we "abandoned" them on
    OpenVMS.  That's an excellent way to make certain we lose customers and
    revenue.
    
    Building business requires building trust.  We've not built our
    business because we've made it clear to many customers -- time and
    again -- that they can't trust us to go the long road with them.  We've
    declared "DECblah is a strategic product".  Then, we sell off DECblah.
    The customer feels violated.
    
    Now, we say OpenVMS is alive.  But, it's only for servers.  And third
    party products are drying up on it.  And we don't talk about it, except
    to say how easily it can be migrated to NT.  And our word is suspect
    regarding software (in recent history, at least).
    
    Would you base your business's future computing plans on that track
    record?
    
    -- Russ

    so...
    
    we rename OpenVMS to DECVMS and then tell everyone "it's a strategic
    product" ? :'(
    
    

	Everyone knows that DEC is no longer used, so with the way they promote
OpenVMS, they might as well put DEC in front of it.

    
    Nah, always dilute a namebrand.  Change it from OpenVMS to...
    
    AltaVista OS!64 97
    
    

> Nah, always dilute a namebrand.

Speaking of which, we must be at risk of building up some
name recognition with FX!32, so we now have
	Digital Celebris FX 2
to dilute it.

    The release of Celebris/Venturis FX (predecessor to the FX-2) 
    predated the release of FX!32 by about a year (August 95 vs.
    September 96), FYI.
     

    it dilutes anyhow...

>    The release of Celebris/Venturis FX (predecessor to the FX-2) 
>    predated the release of FX!32 by about a year (August 95 vs.
>    September 96), FYI.
     

    	Ahh, but which do you think has more mindshare?  Hint:  first isn't
    *always* most!



    Brian

     >Nah, always dilute a namebrand
    
    That's it Fred, the way to go. It also has the advantage of confusing
    customers, not to mention support staff. Yesterday I had a guy looking
    for AltaVista. After some enthusiastic thrashing it turned out he was
    looking for Firewall. Two strong brandnames, ingeniously confused.
    It would take talent to do it worse :-(
    
    ..Kevin..