Conference 7.286::digital

    
    I'm thoroughly depressed.....
    First Eichhorn, now this!
    
    

    
    Are we hemorrhaging Unix/OSF talent?
    
    
             <<< ASIMOV::$1$DUA4:[NOTES$LIBRARY]MARKETING.NOTE;5 >>>
                   -< Marketing - Digital Internal Use Only >-
================================================================================
Note 1762.0                    Joe Menard moves on                    No replies
MRKTNG::SILVERBERG "Mark Silverberg DTN 264-2269 TTB" 6 lines  18-FEB-1992 14:48
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Joe Menard, Director Of UNIX Marketing at Digital, left today to take
    the VP of Marketing position at USL in New Jersey.  As of now, no
    replacement has been named.
    
    Mark
  

    Clearly, yes.

    
    Looks like old Kurt *REALLY* slagged us in UNIX Today!
    
    The cover story is about the closing of Palo Alto.
    
    Not a good issue if you are a DECcie!
    
    We need a marketing response to these QUICK!!!
    
    -Ed_in_Silicon_Valley
    
    

Are these cases of hemorraging talent or of a long-overdue housecleaning?

--PSW

Equally important, can these guys pull talent along with them (i.e. whether
they're talented or not, can they recognize and entice Digital talent now
that they've moved on).

    
    	rumor has it that HP will shortly be announcing new blazing fast
    risc processors.  I think Kurt can certainly lure some folk.  I think
    we face some real competition in the OSF/DCE workstation battle, and
    a tough road for Alpha to hoe to boot. Certainly nothing to feel
    complacent about.

    HP sort of had to announce their new chip several weeks before they
    were originally planning to, due to the announcement of the EVAX
    (Alpha) at the technical conference yesterday, and at that theirs is
    slower, less capable, and uses a larger feature size than the EV-4
    does.  That is, it is not quite state-of-the-art, and the EV-4 chip is.
    HP's hand got forced - which is just fine!
    
    A lot of us here in HLO are really proud and happy to see the thing
    finally get announced, after all the work that has been put in on it
    here (and on the predecssor EV-3 chip for that matter).  It makes all
    the hard work and long hours worthwhile.  Here in the CAD group, I was
    not, obviously, directly involved in either the design or the
    manufacture - we write the software that is used to design DEC's CMOS
    chips (I'm actually in the architecture group, which means I do things
    like command languages, object-oriented interfaces, Motif interfaces,
    etc., not device physics).   Now let's just hope that DEC can figure
    out how to sell RISC machines.
    
    /Charlotte

    
    re-.1
    
     Sell?? The word is MARKET, then Sell, customers will not buy what they
    are not familiar with. MARKET, advertise etc. etc. more MARKETing then
    Sell. And oh, let us hope we have qualified people selling.
    Understanding the customers business is the KEY!
    
    -Mike Z.

Despite the poor economy (which DEC uses as an excuse for poor perfomance),
Hewlett Packard announced a big earnings jump this week.  Wall Street liked
it, and the stock took off.  Their new chip may not be as good as ALPHA,
but they're doing something right.

    If anyone would care to transcribe the 'UNIX TODAY' article, or even
    give a precis, I'd be real grateful.
    
    Thanks
    
    /a

    Unix Today!  Feb. 12, 1992   Top of Page 54
    
    
    DEC UNIX EXEC MOVES TO HP
    
    Chelmsford, MA. - Former Digital Equipment Corporation vice president
    Kurt Friedrich, who was active in Digital's integration of OSF/1 into
    its Unix Operating System, joined Hewlett-Packard last week to oversee
    that company's OSF/1 operations.
    	Friedrich was named general manager of HP's Open Systems Software
    Division, overseeing staff in Fort Collins, Colo.; Cupertino, Calif.;
    and Chelmsford.  He started work at HP last Monday, after working his
    last day at DEC Feb. 7.
    	Friedrich will be responsible for integrating HP/UX, which is HP's
    Unix Operating system, with OSF/1.  He reports to William P. Roelandts,
    HP vice president and general manager of the Network Systems Group.
    	He said he joined HP because of its greater commitment than DEC to
    open systems.
    	"I think they have a cleaner, clearer strategy, and they're really
    executing it," Friedrich said in a phone interview last week.  "You can
    talk to anyone in the company and ask what is HP doing, and they'll
    tell you and they're executing them."
    	HP has already made the transition from CISC to RISC chips, said
    Friedrich, and HP also plans to make OSF/1 central to all operating
    system development.
    	DEC is still focused on the VAX chip and is just now beginning the
    transition to RISC-based Alpha.  DEC has announced no OSF/1 plans
    beyond integrating it into its Unix strategy.
    	Friedrich said that DEC's multi-pronged strategies often left
    employees unclear of corporate direction and how their work fit into
    it.
    				- Mitch Wagner

    re .11
    
    HP is showing profits, IBM is buying up Wang, Apple keeps on growing.
    Sun still has the lion's share of the desktop. And what is DEC doing.
    Still worrying about the downturn...
    
    Watch my lips folks. It is the $10B+ corporations that are going to
    shape how fast and how easy it is to come out of this recession! But
    not if they keep hiding from reality...
    
    sigh...
    

Re: MIPS war

Saw other night on TV news blurb about Hitachi and their 1,000 MIPs
chipset.

RE: .14

SUN does not have the lion's share of the desktop.  IBM PCs and clones do.
Compared to the number of desktops running PCs, the entire workstation market
is lost in the statistical noise.

--PSW

re:  hemorrhaging Unix/OSF talent

This concept intrigues me a bit given the circumstances. While our Ultrix/OSF
platform certainly made some significant moves under Kurt's management, in
all fairness he was associated with the product set for a relatively short
period of time (under 2 years, if I'm not mistaken) before his departure, having
spent the vast majority of his time with DEC on VMS.

I'm not faulting the man, as a matter of fact there was a lot about him
that I admire, but I'd hardly consider him as having been one of the
driving forces of our U*ix/OSF strategy. I do think he was good engineering
manager in general, regardless of the product.

What am I missing?

-Jack

    Here is a recent article on 1991 Unix market shares. As you see, the
    greatest growth in the past year has been in the IBM camp.
    
    
    From:	RDVAX::MACHEFSKY "EXTERNAL RESEARCH PROGRAM, WEST COAST
    		415-723-4339  25-Feb-1992 1126" 25-FEB-1992 11:32:25.72
    To:		@SUN
    CC:	
    Subj:	Unix market shares
    
    [Thanks to Frank Kettenstock for this note.]
    
    
    UNIX Market Leaders (Preliminary Factory Revenue Estimates)
    Source: Dataquest, January 1992
    
    Vendor                  1990 Share      1991 Share
    Sun                       13.2%           13.8%
    Hewlett-Packard           12.3%           11.8%
    IBM                        6.1%           11.2%
    DEC                        6.2%            7.0%
    Others                    62.2%           56.2%
    
    o Digital slipped from 3rd place to 4th place in terms of market share.
    
    o The DEC, Sun, and HP share of the market remained almost constant
    from 1991 to 1991.
    
    o IBM gained significant market share at the expense of the smaller
    vendors (the Others).
    
    o The share of the leading vendors (Sun, HP, IBM, and DEC) increased
    from 37.8% to 43.8%.  This may signify that the fragmentation of the
    UNIX market may, in the future, converge toward a few main vendors with
    the lion's share of the market.
    
    
    UNIX Market Segments (Preliminary Factory Revenue Estimates)
    Source: Dataquest, January 1992
    
    Segment                 1990 Share      1991 Share
    Supercomputer              5.4%            5.8%
    Mainframe                  1.8%            2.9%
    Midrange                  52.1%           46.0%
    Workstation               38.5%           43.1%
    Personal Computer          2.2%            2.2%
    
    o The midrange segment experienced decline, while the workstation
    segment showed improvement.  This is mainly as a result of corporate
    downsizing.
    
    o UNIX has a major share in the supercomputer, technical workstation,
    midrange, and small business markets.  Market growth is predicted to
    come from the mainframe and the office desktop.  Therefore, satisfying
    these two segments should be considered when determining where added
    value investments for UNIX should be made.
    
    
    

    All the more reason why *WE* (meaning Digital, not Santa Cruz) should
    be developing an OSF/1 operating system offering for the Intel-based
    marketplace.  At the moment, SVR4 is the only competitor in this space.
    Let's expand our UNIX presence!
    
    More of my $.02
    

RE:       <<< Note 1766.19 by DENVER::DAVISGB "This note is legal tender" >>>

>    All the more reason why *WE* (meaning Digital, not Santa Cruz) should
>    be developing an OSF/1 operating system offering for the Intel-based
>    marketplace.  At the moment, SVR4 is the only competitor in this space.
    
Unfortunately our track record in developing Unix systems software
stinks...Ultrix is the laughing stock of the industry...therefore we
are better off having someone who knows what the are doing develop the 
thing.

>stinks...Ultrix is the laughing stock of the industry...therefore we
>are better off having someone who knows what the are doing develop the 
>thing.
    
    if this is true, and me dont know that, it might be because it is
    very hard to duplicate to the letter a bad operating system.
    
    but we are good at writing operating systems , we have like 10 or so
    of them, and VMS every one agree is a good operating system.
    
    i think DEC is much better in producing original designs and products,
    (example VMS , RSX , among others), i mean we might not be good at 
    trying to duplicate someone else softwares , which looks like the 
    case with ultrix. again, i dont know anything about ultrix, iam just
    assuming you know more and taking you word at it.
    
    we have a lot of very original programmers at DEC who can 
    write better than anyone in industry and iam sure others will share my
    feelings on this too.
    
    thank you,
    /naser

    -1. I take exception to the remark about "DEC" write good operating
    systems. The latest dibocal around VMS 5.5 has got once dedicated
    customers ready to pull the plug on DEC IN GENERAL. They absolutely are
    livid , brand new spanking 66xx systems turned off because of VMS 5.5.
    To put it simply "IT DON'T WORK" and there is no work around. How many
    times have I installed VMS upgrades and the first thing that has to be
    done is install the mandatory update or if you call Software Support
    they tell you either; we can load a patch or go back to the earlier
    version and reload XXX. drivers to as a work around. The biggest
    one that I like is; "send me a crash dump on tape and we'll get back to
    you in a couple of weeks". Mean while what is Mr. Customer supposed to
    be doing???? PLaying with his Bit Bucket waiting for a patch?????
    The impact of the VMS 5.5 has reached the ivory tower and when it is
    over I believe some heads are going to roll...........
    	regards
    	John 

RE: .21

I was not commenting on the quality of Digital work in general.  In
fact, not even the quality of Ultrix work.  The problem is that
historically Unix has taken a back seat to VMS over the years and it is
apparent that Ultrix has suffered.  In most any independent comparison
of operating system features (i.e. those that Digital has not paid for)
that has been published Ultrix is ranked at if not at the bottom.  The
problem is not so much how well things have been done but what things
have been done. 

Since we are behind in this area it makes sense to use outside
experience, such as that of SCO to catch up.  There's a lot more to it
than quality of engineering.  In a smaller company like SCO the
engineering management is probably closer to the rest of the
corporation.

In addition, having SCO do the the work might bring a certain amount of
credibility.  Digital has been portrayed as the 'Closed systems' villan
for the past few years.  While this is not anywhere near true we
sometimes do a lot to encourage that sort of thinking.  For example,
while the industry definition of "Open Systems" is more or less Unix,
Digital says "You want Open Systems.  We have Open Systems:  Open VMS".

So while we do have the skills within Digital to do the job, SCO is
probably in a better position to put them all together in the required
time frames than our great elephant Digital is.  Many ways we are
playing catch up.

I also agree that Unix stinks.  However, if that's what people what to
buy then Digital need to be able to provide the least smelly Unix
around.

John

    ref .22
    
    i dont know detailes about VMS 5.5, and i dont want to talk about
    that . but i want to talk in general about a bigger picture.
    
    i think we need to take a bigger picture of things here, these kinds
    of problems are symptoms of a larger problems, it applies to many
    large software projects, (example: VMS is about 5 millions lines), as 
    software gets bigger and more complex, and as long as human programmers
    use the same software methodologies and tools we've been using for years,
    these problems will keep happenings.
    
    look around, it is said that AT&T's crash of their network sometime ago
    was traced back to a missing "else" to handle an obscure case in their
    routing algorithm, did not DBase version 4.0 had a bug that caused loss
    of data, the bug found after the software just released? i knew of
    one large software in one GM plant that ran the overall 
    scheduling of vehicles inside the plant crash one day after running for 
    3 years with no problems because a certain rare operation was entered that
    was never before encountered causing the whole plant to shut down for
    the rest of the days with many thousands of $$ lost. (GM plants average
    $1,000 per minute cost of running for labor). did not say that NASA
    lost one of their unmanned spaces crafts many years ago because of space in
    the wrong space in a FORTRAN program? and many many other cases we can 
    come up . (there are articles written about famouse and expensive bugs 
    in large production software). 
    
    as software gets large and more complex, the possibility of subtle bugs
    to creep up is higher. even though we are very smart we still sometimes
    makes mistakes, as long as people write code, mistakes will happen, we
    could only increase our confidence that the program is healthy by more
    testing, but we could never be sure it is %100 healthy. (proof of
    program correction by mathemtically based process is still loong way 
    away ,last time i looked).
    
    there is a BIG difference between writing a 10,000 lines program and
    500,000 lines program, what tools and languages and setups and
    managements that works for the small program will invariably failes
    for the big program. i.e. programming in the small is not the same
    as programming in the large. 
    IMHO, if i want to improve reliabilty of large software , i'll suggest 
    start thinking about using ADA. 
    
    so my bottom line is that, these problems are spread across the board, and
    not specific to one company only.
    
    buy,
    thank you very much,
    /nasser
    ps. these opinions expressed here are my alone and the result of no
    kind of foriegn influence.
    and why is this notes file so sloooow to access and use???

Re : Note 1766.23 ACOSTA::MIANO
    
>So while we do have the skills within Digital to do the job, SCO is
>probably in a better position to put them all together in the required
>time frames than our great elephant Digital is.  Many ways we are
>playing catch up.
    
    So here we are,  coming up on a year after the ACE announcement, at
    which time it was said that SCO was going to be the delivery mechanism
    for OSF/1 on X86.  Real timely...
    
    They haven't even put a stake in the ground as to when this product
    will appear...and lately they've been waffling on "if". 

> However, if that's what people what to
>buy then Digital need to be able to provide the least smelly Unix
>around.

    	Exactly my point.  *Digital* ought to engineer and sell this
    product, on DEC as well as non-dec platforms...  
    

    re: .20
>Unfortunately our track record in developing Unix systems software
>stinks...Ultrix is the laughing stock of the industry...therefore we
>are better off having someone who knows what the are doing develop the 
>thing.
    
    This is unfair and untrue. While there are lots of shortcomings in
    ULTRIX we are ranked far better than for example IBM AIX. 
    
    I would not quote SCO quality any higher than ULTRIX.
    
    	pekka
    

    Depends on who's doing the ranking. My customers rank IBM's
    high-availability version of AIX (HA/6000) -MUCH- higher than Digital's
    "Watchdog" for ULTRIX. And with all our energy and attention being
    focused on the future ALPHA systems and OSF/1, I don't expect we'll see
    any real DEC competition to HA/6000 for quite some time. Meanwhile Stratus
    and Tandem in addition to IBM are recognizing the customers high
    interest in high-availability UNIX and we're just not competitive.
                 

    Bill Storey, the former head of UNIX Systems Software (ULTRIX & OSF/1),
    Marketing, recently left for the DEC NT program office in Littleton.
    UNIX-based Software & Systems (USS), as we knew it, is disbanded & the
    remnants will be scattered about the new organization.  It wil be
    interesting to see how this equates to reinforcing the message that
    Digital is committed to UNIX.
    
    Mark
    

    
    Mercury News said Kurt has taken a job at -get this- Tandem!
    
    
    Wierd.
    
    -Ed