Conference 7.286::digital

We recently had a meeting over there for some PC train-the-trainer
and product update.  We asked them what was their success.  We 
were informed that Marketing does a bunch of research on its 
Competitors like AST, Dell, etc. and comes up with what they think
are product requirements.  Then they solicit input from the Field
to see if a product with these requirements would sell.  With
this information they present to Management.  Along with this they
get coordination with Engineering to see if this is feasible.  When
all the heads are nodding in the same direction Engineering goes 
off and builds the product and Marketing gets ready to generate 
DEMAND.

Next day we were at the Mill talking to the individuals working on
the next generation of AXP systems.  Everything was confusion.  Build
it and throw-it-over-the-wall philosophy.  Not taking anything away 
from these individuals, it's just that 10 years of successful VAXes 
business with no competition they just don't understand the steps to 
be successful, No Clear and Concise direction.  Marketing is LAST is 
the process and Sales Input is nowhere in sight.

Our Marketing Strategy with AXP's is to have the FASTEST box.  People
don't care about that anymore, and we don't know how to market and
capitalize on it.  People want to run applications and Microsoft 
Applications in particular in Native Intel Mode.  What is our strategy
to do that?


	Regards,

	 kam

I've read that PCs are a $1B business per year for Digital and that we're
breaking into the top 10 list of PC sellers.  I've also read that our
"Desktop Direct" (or whatever they call it nowadays) PC business is the
largest direct-seller mailorder business anywhere.

				Steve

	...and that we have surpassed Gateway in number of PC's shipped.

							mike

    
    
    		... and that the 4xxST/XP 's are on their way to Kanata
    	since they haven't been able to kill the origional product; though
    	they've been trying since Dec.'93. (Intel boxes , Digital logos.)
    
    		The future of Alpha in PC's should be a given......
    	it's the applications that must follow quickly to optimize
    	the power. There was a company in the Far East that was going
    	to use Alpha on the mother board...trick is I suppose , to get
    	the bus moving fast enough to keep up with it, and have the 
    	software ported. As I said a year ago, I wish I'd seen an Alpha
    	PC here in ABO. The comment by the "new" plant manager at the
    	time was "... we don't really know where the PC business is 
    	going, so we'll wait on committing our resources in manufacturing
    	of PC's till a future date..." Pat McCarthy, Plant Wide Comm.
    	meeting, Oct.93.  Most of us involved in the PC business knew
    	where it was going then, we just couldn't convince everyone else.
    
    		A sad day for us here, as I said, we pack it up and ship it 
    	off tomorrow.  Best of luck, and keep up the good work in the PCBU.
    	
    
    				Pablo
    
    

    re. -1
    
    you mean a future for the Alpha Rainbow: a machine you can buy no
    software for in the next mall?

    
    
    re.- Alpha Rainbow.......if your vision in your crystal ball is 
    	such, then I will not argue the possibility. From what I have 
    	heard the competition won't have 64-bits on the bus for at
    	least 4-5 years. Even DEC couldn't blow that lead in this
    	horse race. My crystal ball shows Pentium costing Intel
    	more than it's worth; fierce competition in 64-bit work-
    	stations in multiple flavors , and super servers that'll
    	service any machine you want to connect to them from.
    
    
    		All that aside , when was the last time you wanted
    	to buy a Intel 286 based machine whether the applications
    	were there for it or not. Rainbow is a good example of 
    	a copy cat machine based on proprietary software, DEC's,
    	at a time when PC's were toys, and people didn't spend 
    	money on expensive computer toys.
    
    
    				Pablo
    

Re: .6

You have no idea what the Rainbow was, do you?


				Steve

    I remember it and its competing IBM PC very well and neither was 
    what I would call inexpensive compared to what people earned in
    1982ish. It was the lack of 100% compatability that killed it.
    Special DOS, special lotus version etc., then when shareware
    became good stuff, if you had a rainbow you had nothing usefull.
    
    Dave     

The Rainbow came out before the IBM PC defined "the standard".  It ran
CP/M which was very popular at the time.  MS-DOS (PC-DOS) was almost unheard
of.  It was no more proprietary than the IBM PC was at the time.

				Steve

    re.-7 Oh yes indeedy, the Albuquerque plant built them alongside
    	the Decmate II, designed for word processing PDP-8 style , and
    	to replace the only offering we had Robin (VT125) to fill
    	out the something for everybody. And as a companion if you want
    	to talk Dectalk , which nobody did appearantly. And the PRO350
    	was going to be the "workstation every engineer wanted to...."
    
    		I was working with Regis Graphics at the time, then
    	into the Decmate II, rather than IVIS after the GIGI which
    	we designed for Educational Computer based training. 
    
    
    		The Rainbow was/is an excellent example of a fine machine
    	over engineered for the target market.
    
    				'Nuff said  ??
    
    				  Pablo
     

    Timing: IBM PC came out a year before Rainbow.
    
    IBM PC "clones" were NOT out by the time of Rainbow; other vendors' PCs
    were not truly compatible, even if they used 8088 CPUs.  Compaq
    invented the clone and the market followed; by 1984, everybody was a
    clone or they were out of business.
    
    Digital's answer, the VAXmutt, met a deserved fate.
    
    Rainbow never had a chance because it was crippled by internal
    politics.  It didn't have ANY bus, thus was "closed" to peripherals.
    Why no bus?  Because Pro 350 had a (proprietary, closed) bus, CTAB,
    and Rainbow had to be kept inferior to the "KO" boondoggle, er,
    product.  Something like 30 people worked on Rainbow, versus something
    like a thousand or two on Pro, which was a bigger flop.

    	I just read an obituary yesterday about Richard Keldall (sp?),
    the author of CP/M.  It seems he believed that since he wouldn't
    cut the flat rate deal IBM wanted (no royalties) when they were looking
    to get a PC operating system going, they then went to Bill Gates.
    Bill Gates brought in someone else, who had DOS.  Keldall believed
    that this was essentially a ripped-off version of CP/M.  Gates
    cut the deal with IBM, and the rest is history.
    
    	Just an interesting segue to the previous note.
    
    	Note--I have no direct knowledge of this, just an article in
    yesterday's paper.  Please, no flames if you have a different version
    of the story....thx.

    >	I just read an obituary yesterday about Richard Keldall (sp?),
    >the author of CP/M.
    
    The author of CP/M is/was Gary Kildall.  I hadn't heard about his
    death.  Can you tell me more about the story or where you found it?
    
    -Pete

    	I apologize if I got his name wrong.  It was about a 1/3 page
    story in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph.  Apparently his 
    life following the CP/M vs. DOS story was never really the same, 
    and even his death is associated with peculiar circumstances.
    
    	I'll see if I can find the article and provide a pointer.
    
    	editorial note:  I don't think of the C.S. Gazette as a
    particularly progressive rag, but they are now available via
    Internet, and will provide even more stories (that don't make the
    cut for hardcopy) on the net.  Maybe this led to their picking
    up and printing this story.  Now if they could broaden their
    politics a bit...  :)

    RE: .10
    
    > to replace the only offering we had Robin (VT125) to fill
    
    The VT125 was not the Robin; VT125 was a VT100 family with regis graphics;
    I believe that the Robin had the VT180 tag on it (I remember upgrading my
    VT100 to a Robin). I have a VT125 at home; great terminal but it
    generates a lot of heat!
    
    As an aside, wasn't the Robin designed by someone as a midnight project
    and put into production within 6 weeks?
    
    Deb

    ...many forwards removed...
    
    

                             SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
                     Copyright 1994, San Jose Mercury News

 DATE: Sunday, July 31, 1994
 PAGE: 1A                         EDITION: Morning Final
 SECTION: Front                   LENGTH:  79 in. Long
 ILLUSTRATION: Photos (3)
 SOURCE: Rory J. O'Connor Mercury News Staff Writer

                          FAREWELL TO TROUBLED GENIUS
                      KILDALL'S WORK OVERSHADOWED BY RIVAL

    Fifteen years ago, in the salad days of the personal computer 
industry, anybody remotely familiar with the business could extol the 
virtues of Gary Kildall. 
    Kildall was a software genius, an inventor who created much of the 
foundation upon which today's personal computers are based.
    In the hypergrowth of 1980s Silicon Valley, though, his technical 
genius couldn't compensate for his lack of business acumen. As with many 
of his contemporaries, his accomplishments were soon overshadowed by those 
of better businessmen, especially Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates, and 
Kildall was ultimately forgotten.
    He watched, tormented, as Gates became a billionaire, gained 
international fame and -- in Kildall's view -- stole the credit for 
fathering the software industry.
    In the past few years, Kildall had spiraled downward into depression 
and alcoholism, according to friends. At age 52, he died in Monterey three 
weeks ago in a bizarre episode that is the subject of a police 
investigation, one that has garnered him more publicity in a fortnight 
than he had received in the last decade of his career.
    Many of the circumstances of Kildall's final days remain unclear. What 
is certain is that he died at 9:45 p.m. July 11, three days after striking 
his head against the floor of the Franklin Street Bar & Grill, a tiny 
basement watering hole in downtown Monterey. Despite initial observation 
by paramedics and two separate visits to the same hospital, nobody 
discovered the bleeding inside his head caused by the blow -- bleeding 
that eventually killed him.
    But friends and acquaintances say the real culprit in Kildall's death 
was his inner torment over an industry that had forgotten him, and a media 
that obscured his seminal role in computing.
    Operating system preceded MS-DOS 
    THE ONE PIECE of software that rocketed Gates and Microsoft to fame, MS-DOS, 
was similar to Kildall's CP/M operating system. And Gates was able to turn that 
into a software empire only because he cut a deal with IBM in 1980 that Kildall 
and his company, Digital Research Inc., bungled.
    People who know both men maintain that this single deal didn't make 
the difference in their fates. Kildall's family and closest friends insist 
that, even if the IBM deal had gone Kildall's way, Kildall would not be a 
billionaire mogul, nor would Gates be a forgotten man. And they're angry 
that, since Kildall's death, the press has focused on the deal that might 
have been instead of the man that was.
    ''I don't want this to come across as Bill Gates bashing. My dad would 
never be what Bill Gates became,'' said Kildall's son Scott, 25. ''Bill 
Gates is an excellent businessman. My dad was an excellent inventor.''
    But over the ensuing years the growing public adulation of Gates 
embittered Kildall. 
    It was not because Kildall yearned for fame, nor because Kildall was 
jealous of Gates' vast fortune. Like Gates, who is more interested in 
making a mark than a fortune, money did not consume Kildall's soul.
    ''He was an inventor; he loved to create things,'' said daughter 
Kristin, 23. ''I don't think he was ever in programming for the money. He 
would have done it for $10,000 a year or $10 million a year.''
    In fact Kildall was, by any measure, a wealthy man. His California 
estate, according to probate records, includes more than $5 million in 
securities from which Kildall derived $240,000 in annual income. Although 
officially a resident of Austin, Texas, he owned $3 million in real 
property in California, including a sprawling, multimillion dollar home 
with a walk-in refrigerator and an all-glass side with a spectacular ocean 
view on 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach.
    In Texas, he owned a posh lakefront home where friends said he kept a 
stable of 14 sports cars. He was a passionate pilot who owned and flew his 
own Lear Jet, for which he also employed a pilot and co-pilot. When he 
finally sold Digital Research to Novell in 1991, he pocketed a good chunk 
of the $120 million sale price.
    ''I think Gary suffered for many years from the problem of Bill 
Gates,'' said one close friend of Kildall, who asked not to be named. ''He 
had a hell of a lot of frustration over all the publicity that Gates got. 
It's a hell of a thing to see this guy (Gates) on the cover of every 
business magazine (and know he's) worth $8 billion and know that that 
could have been you.''
    In fact, Kildall had little business sense and was unashamed of it. He 
said in numerous interviews that he preferred tinkering with gadgets to 
keeping books and that he hated competition.
    In that respect, Kildall was little different from most of his 
contemporaries in the early days of personal computing, in which machines 
were geared toward hobbyists and not used seriously by corporations.
    ''It's not fair to single Gary out,'' said Gordon Eubanks, chief 
executive of Symantec Corp., who met Kildall in 1975 and was a Digital 
Research vice president in the early 1980s. ''Look at all the companies of 
that era. The only one left is Microsoft. The industry wasn't exactly full 
of business tycoons back then. In perspective, Gary did better than most 
of them.''
    Kildall's family and friends said he never aspired to be a businessman 
but loved to teach and had settled on a career as a math teacher by the 
time he entered college.
    ''He should have become a teacher,'' said Bob Kildall, Gary Kildall's 
uncle and at 73 the family patriarch. ''It's what he always wanted to do.''
    If he had steered that course, he would have followed a family 
tradition.
    From navigation to computer chips
    KILDALL'S FAMILY arrived in Seattle from Norway in 1883. His 
grandfather opened a school of navigation in 1924, and his father followed 
on the faculty of what the family called the ''Kildall College of Nautical 
Knowledge.''
    At first, Kildall didn't seem the part. Born in 1942, he nearly 
flunked high school, preferring to steal hubcaps and fix up cars, friends 
said: first a blue 1947 Ford and, a few years later, a black 1963 Corvette 
Sting Ray.
    He graduated with a 2.1 grade point average -- but only after 
repeating an English class where he sat behind a girl named Dorothy 
McEwen. The two became high-school sweethearts and married in 1963.
    After high school, Kildall began teaching at the family school of 
navigation. A short time later, he enrolled at the University of 
Washington to study mathematics with the aim of becoming a math teacher. 
He quickly became seduced by some of the earliest computers and earned a 
doctorate at the school while tinkering with them.
    Upon graduation, he entered the U.S. Naval Reserve. When offered a 
choice between duty in Vietnam and a post teaching computer science at the 
Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, he readily chose the latter.
    It was there that Kildall encountered his first computer chip and took 
a side job as a consultant to its inventor, Intel Corp. When Intel created 
a more powerful chip that could serve as the heart of a full-function 
computer, the 8008, Kildall got busy writing software for it.
    First, he wrote a version of a programming language called PL/I. A 
year later, in an attempt to fashion a functional computer with one of 
Intel's chips, he wrote an operating system that would control the 
computer's main components: screen, keyboard, microprocessor and floppy 
disk drive.
    That was the first version of CP/M, which Kildall decided to sell to 
other hobbyists for $75, a new practice. Hoping to support his own 
computer habit with the proceeds, he and McEwen started a company in 1975 
at their brown Victorian house in Pacific Grove. CP/M became a runaway 
success, and soon Kildall was one of the richest and best-known people in 
the nascent software business.
    But Kildall never allowed himself to become managerial or the company 
bureaucratic. McEwen managed the business aspects of Digital Research; 
Kildall  tinkered, not only writing all his own software but finding and 
fixing all its bugs and writing the manuals. Perennially casual, he 
treated employees as true colleagues, inspiring great admiration and 
loyalty.
    One former employee, John Wharton, recalls Kildall being far more 
comfortable ''interviewing job applicants while wearing a toga and roller 
skates'' than dabbling in license agreements. Another, Bill Haygood, 
posted an on-line remembrance of the company as having ''the most loyal 
workforce I have ever seen anywhere -- a company that allowed its people 
freedom to do their very best unfettered by petty rules and company 
policies.''
    But it also meant, Eubanks said, that ''Gary just didn't care that 
much about building a business. It wasn't until the money stopped coming 
in that he would worry.''
    That nature may have left Kildall and his company unprepared to deal 
with the fateful meeting with IBM in 1980.
    Suspicions surface in dealings with IBM
     THE BUTTON-DOWN COMPUTER GIANT, as different as could be from 
blue-jeans clad Digital Research, was secretly developing its own personal 
computer in Boca Raton, Fla. It needed an operating system. It wanted the 
market leader, CP/M. On short notice, it sent executives to Pacific Grove 
to get it.
    The morning of the visit, Kildall and his director of engineering, 
Thomas Rolander, were flying together, some of the more than 1,000 hours 
the two logged together in the cockpit. As usual, McEwen was attending to 
the business end of the company, signing that same day a licensing deal 
with Hewlett- Packard that was the biggest in Digital Research history. 
McEwen also met with IBM.
    She did not like the representatives or their terms. Kildall met with 
them in the afternoon but also balked at terms, which called for a flat 
payment instead of the standard royalties, and in which IBM insisted on a 
one-way secrecy deal that benefited IBM.
    Besides, along with most people in the business at the time, Kildall  
considered IBM too staid to ever succeed in the free-spirited personal 
computer business. Even IBM's own aspirations then were modest, so it 
didn't seem worth the effort to engage in hardball negotiations.
    So IBM went to Kildall's hometown of Seattle and met with Gates, whose 
company then existed in the shadow of Kildall's. Gates, whose sharper 
business sense found no downside in such a deal, promised them an 
operating system. He got it from a friend, Tim Patterson, who had written 
a program called QDOS that Kildall always believed was copied largely from 
CP/M.
    While Patterson has strongly denied those assertions, such practices 
were fairly common at the time. In the early days of personal computing, 
there was little concept of intellectual property protection in software.
    There were no software patents and little case law to help companies 
suing for copyright infringement, something Kildall's attorneys had urged 
him to do to Patterson's Seattle Computer Products.
    ''Gary was a very forward-looking guy,'' Rolander said. ''He believed 
that by the time you litigated and went through the process, you should 
have been one technology ahead instead.''
    When Kildall discovered IBM's plans, he informed them of the source of 
Gates' operating system, which IBM called PC-DOS. IBM agreed to cut a deal 
for CP/M, too -- but forced Kildall to give up his right to sue, and 
priced CP/M $200 higher than PC-DOS.
    For three years or so Kildall's CP/M-86 battled in the marketplace 
with PC- DOS and MS-DOS, a virtual clone that Gates had, under terms of 
his IBM deal, kept the right to license to other manufacturers. But with 
IBM's brand name endorsement and Gates' aggressive business dealings, 
Microsoft won, and Digital Research -- and Kildall -- began a slow decline.
    ''There's a Kildall trait, they don't look for credit for things 
they've done,'' said Bob Kildall. ''But it always bothers them if somebody 
else takes credit for their work.''
    Kildall and McEwen separated, then divorced in 1983. At the same time, 
he began seeing the woman who would become his second wife, Karen. The two 
made their home in Austin, where Kildall did pioneering work in multimedia 
far from the limelight that was increasingly shining on Gates.
    ''What happened to my father, not getting credit for what he did, I 
think that was very unjust,'' said Kristen Kildall. ''He didn't express 
how he felt about it, and I didn't ask.''
    A spokeswoman for Gates said that he considered Kildall's death 
''unfortunate'' and that Gates regarded Kildall as one of the early 
pioneers of the personal computer industry who deserves to be so 
recognized.
    Most recently, Kildall was developing a prototype multimedia 
telephone. He completed an unpublished memoir of the personal computer 
industry. And he created a series of children's stories -- written and 
illustrated by Kildall  on computers -- that involved characters based on 
fish.
    'The Bill Gates thing never left him'
  PRIVATELY, THE GROWING CULT of Gates ''ate away at him,'' said Tom 
O'Neal, a Carmel Valley photographer who became Kildall's friend while 
taking pictures for Digital Research in 1981. ''The Bill Gates thing never 
left him.''
    Kildall's long-time drinking turned into alcoholism, although family 
and most friends politely but firmly refuse to discuss the subject.
    ''In the past few years it had gotten real difficult to communicate 
with him because the drinking had gotten so bad,'' said O'Neal. ''He had 
gained weight big time, his face was real puffy, he just wasn't very 
healthy-looking at all. It was like the old Gary had died, and the demons 
had taken over his body.''
    Monterey police, citing the coroner's findings, say Kildall had 
suffered from the illness for some time; his heart and liver had both 
begun to enlarge. In April 1991, he was convicted in Monterey Municipal 
Court of drunken driving, according to Department of Motor Vehicle Records.
    O'Neal said that the last few times the car-loving Kildall had made 
the trip from Pebble Beach to his Carmel Valley studio, he didn't drive: 
He took cabs.
    In April 1994, Kildall and Karen divorced, and his heavy drinking 
continued.
    It apparently helped end his life.
    On July 8, a Friday night, Kildall went to dinner with a group of 
people, including Patricia Marra, whom police describe as Kildall's 
live-in girlfriend. They dined and drank at Cibo's, an upscale Italian 
eatery in downtown Monterey.
    Around 11:20 p.m., Kildall and Marra crossed the street and cut 
through a public parking lot to the back entrance of the Franklin Street 
Bar & Grill, a place frequented by locals during the week but largely by 
tourists on the weekend.
    Police said several witnesses described Kildall as being drunk or 
intoxicated.
    Nine minutes later -- and nobody can yet say how -- Kildall fell with 
a jarring thud. He lay flat on his back at the left side of the bar near a 
pinball machine, his head straddling tiny white hexagonal ceramic tiles 
and thin, dirty carpeting laid over a concrete slab.
    ''The waitress said she felt the floor shake,'' said Laura Bruno, 
owner of the bar said.
    When fire department paramedics arrived, however, Kildall refused 
treatment and went home with Marra, according to police.
    But by Saturday morning at 6:51, Marra summoned an ambulance to the 
home, and Kildall was taken to the emergency room at the Community 
Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, where he was soon released.
    The hospital refuses to say what care he received, and it is unclear 
if Kildall again refused treatment. But detective Sgt. Frank Sollecito of 
the Monterey Police, who is investigating the case, said that ''as far as 
I know, no one treated his head. I don't know why the head wasn't 
treated.''
    Police say the hospital isn't under investigation.
    Kildall again went home.
     At memorial, tears for pioneer, joker
    ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, he was again brought to the hospital and this 
time admitted. He died there at 9:45 p.m. Monday of a subdural hematoma -- 
bleeding under the lining between the skull and the brain. The coroner, 
after performing an autopsy, forwarded the case to police on July 15 for 
investigation.
    On a hot, sunny morning four days later, a small knot of people 
gathered for a memorial service for Kildall in Seattle. Mostly family 
members and childhood friends, they sat quietly, a bit stunned, in the 
first few pews of Trinity Episcopal Church, an old Gothic stone building 
perched halfway up the hillside from which downtown Seattle was carved 
when his family first settled there.
    They listened to eulogies for a man whom they called a pioneer, a man 
of responsibility and calculated risks; a practical joker whose second 
wife called him ''the nutty professor''; a father who taught his children 
to water ski and constantly took them flying -- even after son Scott threw 
up in Kildall's prized flight bag.
    They prayed. They wept.
    And a scant three miles north, not far from the bridge that will take 
you to the lakefront property where Gates is building his new 
42,000-square-foot, $35 million home into the Lake Washington hillside, 
they laid his ashes to rest.

 CAPTION:   PHOTO: JOHN PIERCE -- SPECIAL TO THE MERCURY NEWS Digital 
Research staff gathered outside the firm's Pacific Grove building in 1981. 
Kildall watched, tormented, as Gates became a billionaire, gained 
international fame and -- in Kildall's view -- stole the credit for 
fathering the software industry. [940731 FR 10A 1]

 PHOTO: TOM O'NEAL -- SPECIAL TO THE MERCURY NEWS John Rawley of Digital 
Research and Gary Kildall, center, with Regis McKenna in 1982. [940731 FR 
10A 2]

 PHOTO: Gary Kildall died July 11 after hitting his head in a fall. 
[940731 FR 1A 3]

 KEYWORDS: SOFTWARE INDUSTRY PROFILE
END OF DOCUMENT.

                               

    Gary Kildall (rip) died nearly three weeks ago.  He was 52.
    
    The story goes like this:
    
    CP/M (from Digital Research, Monterrey, CA) was the "defacto" standard
    for 8bit OS's.
    
    IBM asked Microsoft (which was then NOT involved in OS's) to supply
    one.  IBM and Microsoft visited DR on a day that Kildall was flying his
    private aircraft (his avocation).  Kildall knew about the visit, left
    his wife and a business associate in charge of the shop.  They turned
    IBM down, thinking they would lose control and consequently the market.
    In fact, DR *WAS* developing a 16bit OS... multi-tasking and all...
    called MP/M.  
    
    A few months later,  IBM asked Bill Gates if he could write a 16bit OS. 
    "NO PROBLEM", said Gates.  
    
    A MS engineer had a friend, Tim Patterson, then an employee of Seattle
    Computer Products.  Tim Patterson was a former employee of DR.  While
    at SCP, Tim wrote a "variation" of CP/M which he called 86DOS. 
    Obviously it was similar to CP/M and was intended to be "compatible".
    
    Microsoft negotiated rights to this OS for approx. $10,000.  Later,
    when SCP fell on hard times, MS acquired all rights to the code for
    another $50,000.  That's somewhat better than the Louisianna Purchase!
    
    86DOS became (with very few changes) PCDOS ver 1.0
    
    The OS itself did not originally impose the infamous 640Kb conventional
    memory limitation on systems.  That limit is the result of negotiations
    between IBM and MS.  If IBM had won, the limit would have been 512KB!!!
    
    MSDOS was available to other vendors (Heathkit, DEC, etc.) in its
    original "generic" form... it was PCDOS which was the bastardized
    version.
    
    Shows you what marketing can do!
    
    If *I* been Gary Kildell, I'd have probably committed suicide... years
    ago!  ;^}
    
    
    tony

    Wasn't there also some story about Gate's mother having some special
    ties with IBM? Don't recall the details.

Gary Kildall was an instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey CA
in the 70's. He taught several of the early microprocessor courses I took there
as part of a degree in computer science in 1978 and 1979.

CP/M was, in fact, developed at the NPS by graduate students as part of a course
on the 8080 and Z80. Gary somehow got the rights to it, and left teaching to
form Digital Research, developing it a bit further and releasing V1.1 as
commercial CP/M.

I remember building a Heathkit H-8 while I was there and running NPS "in-house"
versions of CP/M. 4K of 8-bit memory, 90K floppy disks, the works!

-stephen

      Re:.15- exactly right Deb VT180 was Robin complete with floppy.
    		I had Regis on the brain....
    
    			Pablo
    

Re: Gates mother's connection to IBM

From "Hard Drive" p189, IBM exec John Opel knew Mary Gates from
having served with her on the national board of United Way.  
Mary Gates was the first woman president of United Way in Seattle.

    I strongly disagree that it is the PCBU makes the PC business boomiong.
    I think we need to clarify the so called PCBU success story.  The
    success of PC business is not because of PC itself.  Our PC price is
    not low.  Our PC performance is not on the Top.  Many magzines are even
    aware that we are selling PC neither many PC buyers.  There are many
    versions of the PC success stories.  I like to tell mine:
    
    1. Customer uses Digital as a one-stop company for all supplies
    2. Customer are moved/sold by dedicated saleswoman and salesman
    3. Customer are impressed by level of excellence from MCS and DCS
       consultants 
    
    I have one customer with 100 employees under this person's management.  
    The company is big (> 10,000 people) but not a Digital shop at all.  Last
    year, the salesman went there to understand their business.  Three MCS 
    consultants went to bail out their NetWare installation and manage
    their LAN.   I went there to automate their operation.  Since then
    every new PC they buy are coming from Digital.  Recently they are mad
    at our delivery schedule so they are thinking to buy from Compaq
    instead from us.  

    re.-1
    
    >every new PC they buy are coming from Digital.  Recently they are mad
    >at our delivery schedule so they are thinking to buy from Compaq
    
    In Holland we recently got a muliplethousands PC order 
    cause Compaq could not deliver.........

    re: Note 3335.22 by NYOSS1::JAUNG 

    Another reason I think that we are doing well is that we will sell and  
    service PC's in many more countries than Compaq, Dell, Gateway ...
    This is important to multinational corporations.

    -Bruce

    Time tends to blurr the facts!
    
    Rainbow(which ran both an 8 & 16 Bit version of CPM) was late market
    by about five months (after IBM). Compaq was just starting out at
    that point.
    
    The product was conceived for introduction six months before IBM.
    The VP in charge of the business made the decision to go after
    the installed VT100 base (Robin) first rather than enter an 
    undefined desktop system market. Like everything else in this
    industry timing is everthing.
    
    It is a purely theoretical discussion as to what would have happened
    if Digital was first and if we could have locked up the channels
    the way IBM did...but we will never know.
    
    When MSDOS (due to IBM volume) overtook CPM,  Digital did port DOS
    to the Rainbow and offered it as an alternative. It did not
    matter, however, because at that time hardware compatibility
    was just as important to the application vendors as the OS.
    
    Ken Olsen was in fact one of the first people to push for conversion
    to a compatible hardware base. No plan recieved support, however,
    until the buyout activities with Tandy began in '89. The interim
    years were spent trying to optimize our networking activities
    for PC rather than being a commodity vendor.
    
                                                  

    
    I've been with the PCBU from the start. Though I've been with Digital
    for 18 years..we here at the PCBU are a new breed.
    
    One of the major reasons we're winning in my opinion is that
    Marketing, Materials, Manufacturing, Engineering, and ""Customers""
    are all tied together. Everything we do, we do as a TEAM. 
    
    All business decisions are based from Data collection not emotion.
    
    The average business meetings last a half-hour.
    
    Customers have a direct line into manufacturing not just Sales. We in
    Logistic-Operations average 2000 in-bound calls a week of which 80%
    are external customers.
    
    We have improvement plans for on-time delivery that will soon be
    second to none. 
    
    The pace of an average work-day here to put it mildly is : Ballistic! 
    I wouldn't have it any other way...I'm having a blast working here.
    
    The future? In order to be a serious PC player we need to ship at least
    a million units per year and be in the top-5 PC business in the world.
    
    So....just wait...right now we're crossing our T's and dotting our
    I's..and pretty soon we're going to turn on the after-burners....
    
    Rick
    
    (PC logistic operations)
    

    re .26
    
    sounds like an exciting place to work - thanks for the lift!
    
    8^)
    
    /dlw

    
     re .26
    
     let us make every place in digital an exciting place to work.
    
     The PCBU is a fine example, we see the turn around, we already
     know how to do it, what is the problem?
    
    just do it.
    
    -Mike Z.

>                  -< It is Digital's success not just PCBU! >-
>
>    I strongly disagree that it is the PCBU makes the PC business boomiong.
>    I think we need to clarify the so called PCBU success story.  The
>    success of PC business is not because of PC itself.  Our PC price is
>    not low.  Our PC performance is not on the Top.  Many magzines are even
>    aware that we are selling PC neither many PC buyers.  There are many
>    versions of the PC success stories.  I like to tell mine:
    
    This is patently false.
    
    While our prices are not necessarily the lowest, with notable
    exceptions (Dell Dimension XPS, for instance) we're at or below Dell
    and lower than HP, Compaq and IBM.  These are 4 of the top 5 we're
    chasing.
    
    Regarding performance, our products have won Best of Comdex Finalist
    awards (DECpc XL), have won Best Buy in PC World (DECpc LPx, XL), have 
    been voted Byte Best Overall Unix awards (MTE), and have consistently
    been competitive in terms of price/performance in *all* the magazines.
    And the analysts (IDC, Dataquest, Seybold, Gartner, etc) *all* love our
    products and have been quoted as such.
    
    Mark.
    

    Where can we read up on the prospective scenarios to be played out with
    the next round of PC price-cutting?  News reports say the next round is
    coming "in the fall."  Do we think so too?  What will be the definition
    of success by springtime?
    
    Frank

    re -1
    
    Read latest BusinessWeek.
    
    Articles on Intel's planned price cuts for Pentium chips over the next
    few months, and on Compaq's ballooning inventory - which BusinessWeek
    read as stockpiling for a major marketing push up to Christmas.
    
    London Financial Times carried a story on Compaq's 22% price cut across
    a 'broad range of models' yesterday. Christmas comes early for some
    people.
    
    And apparently IBM has been forced to buy back some of the ValuePoint
    systems they dumped on their channels and distributors (... no-one
    wants the inventory...) recently.
    
    UK PC Magazine rates DECpc as 'best engineered' of the bunch under
    review (but not the best performer per se).
    
    IBM's market share of PC in Europe on the slide (Compaq on the up,
    surprise surprise...).
    
    We make good PCs. Go to it PCBU.
    
    AW
    
    
    

    Compaq has already fired the first shot with price cuts up to 22% on
    some models.  I'm waiting until early Oct. to upgrade.
    
    					John G.

    The fact is the PCBU is successful for lots of reasons ranging from the
    PCBU itself to a lot of hard working dedicated people in the field. 
    Every one involved in producing, distributing, marketing, selling, and
    support all deserve credit.
    
    I just hope we don't lose momentum, and can keep pushing and pumping up
    the volume.  Stay focused, and stay determined!

    Outside the Hudson Library on a bulletin board they have a IDC report
    on PC sales by vendor.  They list Digital as having sold ~240K PC's
    worldwide last quarter. Around 72K of those PC's were sold in the US.  
    
    I saw something on TV about Compaq's price cuts.  They said that the
    prices were cut 7 to 22% and the 22% was on the high priced 486's that
    are due to be replaced soon.  They said analysts had expected larger
    cuts.
    
    -Bruce

    

    
    	Just a quick note from the field. The PCBU is successful for one
    major reason. They deliever!!!
    
    	Quality is perfect. These babies run and run and run. They are very
    well constructed. "Little bricks" one of my VARs calls them. They are
    exceptionally well-engineered. Virtually very piece of software known
    to man runs on them at first keystoke. You cannot believe the horror
    stories VARs tell about other manufacturers' incompatibilities with
    3rd party software and hardware. With us - NO PROBLEM....
    
    	Yes we have spot product shortages, so what. In two years of
    agressive promoting our Digital PCs, I have yet to have a customer
    complain about quality. And that is the bottom line...
    
    	I wish the rest of this company ran as well. Thanks, PCBU - you
    are one of the few pleasures working in the field at Digital.
    
    		the Greyhawk

     Worldwide News                                              LIVE WIRE
     
     PC Business Unit reaches major milestone ...                Date:
    17-Aug-1994
     
                                                                  Screen  1
    of 1
                       PC Business Unit reaches major milestone
    
             Digital's PC business has reached a milestone: it has broken
       into the ranks of the top 10 PC vendors worldwide for Q2 of the
       calendar year.
             Reuters, the British news agency, quoted the market research
       firm Dataquest as saying that Digital "surpassed Gateway 2000 in the
       second quarter to rank 10th in worldwide PC shipments."  Dataquest
       credited strong international sales for the surge.
             Digital is ranked #12 in U.S. PC sales, according to Dataquest
       statistics published by Reuters.
    

    
    I absolutely love my DECpc laptop.
    
    Cindy

    I've been watching the PC market and the magazines.  DEC's 
    non-laptop PCs generally get good reviews, though they don't ever seem
    to be the fastest in their price category.  The laptops, though
    (made by AST), consistently get poor reviews, mitigated only by their
    being cheap.
    
    I'm probably going to buy a PC this fall.  I'd like to buy Digital
    but will have to see what the market is like.
    
    					Steve

    re: Note 3335.38 by QUARK::LIONEL

    According to PC week and other trade mags Digital will have it's own
    laptops/notebooks soon.  Hopefully this will help to make us a real
    player in the portable market, which is growing faster than the PC
    market.  

    As far as the price of Digital PC's they are high compared to many mail 
    order vendors. But they aren't high compared to the price of the
    systems that Compaq, IBM, NEC, AST, HP, Dell and others sell to 
    corporations.  Corporations are the big buyers of PC's and they
    seemingly don't mind paying top dollar for top products. This is who 
    we seem to be successfully going after with our current line of PC's.  

    -Bruce  

                         
    Re.38
    
    Ah well...even though my laptop was not made by us, I'm still pleased
    with it. In two years I've never had a problem with it, and it is by 
    far one of the best purchases I've ever made.  
    
    I used it *extensively* last year while working on a non-profit 
    multinational conference, and through an interesting set of circumstances 
    managed to end up sitting with the Dalai Lama's representative to 
    transcribe a speech he had just given, for press release purposes.  After 
    it was entered, I printed out a copy for him on a Canon BJ.  He was *truly* 
    amazed!  And then added that he must consider getting some laptops for 
    his office in New Delhi.   
    
    Sadly though, I didn't have a business card to hand him.....I'd tried
    for many months prior to the conference to get them, but was unsuccessful.
    Of course I'd told him the name of my company and gave him a short demo, 
    but it's just not the same as handing over a card with a logo and contact 
    information on it.  A(nother) missed opportunity.
    
    Cindy

    Re: .40
    
    The DEC laptops are good, it's just that the competition is better.
    Even AST's own laptops rate better as they have faster processors.
    Ours are cheap, though.
    
    				Steve

    Our desktop products are excellent .... our laptop story is less
    spectacular with at least 3 different vendors over the last 3 years.  I
    use a DECpc 425sl daily and it is an excellent product.  I'm looking
    forward to our own designs so that we can also become a serious player
    in the portable market.

    
    	I've heard a rumour that 25% of HPs Laptops are DOA with the end
    customers.  Anyone got the truth there?
    
    				Malcolm.

    Before we get too impressed with our own success in the PC market, a
    "splash of cold water in the face" is necessary: Read Note 3317.36.
    
    Unfortunately, it's correct. With our business processes and accounting
    processes, we can't tell who is making money!

    Well..I can't say I am impressed by beating Gateway since I was
    convinced they were a downmarket food chain in the UK.I can't say I was
    impressed by the delivery I got on my own PC over a year ago either
    BUT..
    I am very,very impressed by the professionalism of the PCBU people I
    have dealt with and I am impressed by the quality of the products and
    impressed by what seems to be,dare I say it,marketing grip of the
    people I have met.
    I think we must be in the top 5 if possible but the signs are that we
    have the will and motivation to do it-this goes a long way in the
    current climate.
    good luck

    re .45
    
    Gateway is quite visible here in the states.  Surpassing Gateway
    could/should be a major milestone for Digital.  If used correctly, this
    could be great publicity!
    
    

    Of course, the article was vague enough that it could have meant we
    surpassed Gateway in shipments to businesses.  I have a hard time
    believing we sell more PC's to individuals than Gateway.  I know
    dozens of non-Digital people who have Gateways.  I don't know anyone
    outside of Digital who has purchased a Digital PC.

    
    	I HAVE. Given about 100 PC catalogs to everyone I know and many I
    don't. About 1/3 have ordered DECpc products ranging from LPv to
    XL Servers. 50/50 split between home and "business" use. All of them
    love our PCs. I love my DECpc, too. This is really a good box. My
    kids even like it, and their friends too.
    	So get yourself some catalogs and spread the word. When the rest
    of Digital becomes like the PCBU, we will be a $100 stock again.
    Believe it!!!!
    
    			the Greyhawk

    Sorry, but I won't be spreading any news as long as I can buy more
    machine for less money from Dell, Gateway, and the like.

re: Note 3335.47 by ODIXIE::LUBER 

>    Of course, the article was vague enough that it could have meant we
>    surpassed Gateway in shipments to businesses.  

No, it means what it said, we sold more PC's last quarter than Gateway.  A
big advantage we have is non-US sales. Something like 65% of our PC's are
sold outside the US. 

>    I have a hard time
>    believing we sell more PC's to individuals than Gateway.  I know
>    dozens of non-Digital people who have Gateways.  I don't know anyone
>    outside of Digital who has purchased a Digital PC.

I have no doubt Gateway currently sells more PC's for home use than Digital.

Who would you rather sell to, a buyer of 1 or a buyer of 100?  Maybe in the
future Digital will take aim at the home market.  For now the PCBU seems to 
be doing fine with the corporate market.

-Bruce  

    I have been in peoples homes providing warranty service on our
    PCs. Joe Public is buying.
    
    If you're not willing to "spread the news", then please go work
    somewhere else.
    

    re: .49
    
    Well, I've used both DELL and our own PCs and find the Digital boxes a
    far better value.  I recommend our PCs to everyone who asks.  My wife's
    company is currently buying one base on my recommendation.  They're
    good stuff!
    
    Dave

    re: .51 
    	OOPS! The "love it or leave it" note!
    
    	Sorry, the right to disagree is reserved....
    	

    
    I've heard "Love It or Leave It" lately every time I raise an issue. 
    This has reached epidemic proportions around my area:
    
    Man in bathroom stall #2: "Hey, I'm outta paper over here.  You got any
    over there?".
    
    Man in bathroom stall #1: "There's none.  Love it or leave it."
    
    Obviously, stall #2 has a vested interest in solving the problem,
    whereas stall #1 is somewhat detached from the problem and believes the
    issue will resolve itself and the stall still be there afterwards. 
    Stall #2 could argue with #1, attempting to change his attitude, but I 
    prefer the more innovative approach to dealing with the LIOLI type:
    
    Man in stall #1: "Hey, what's this all over my shirt tail?"
    
    Which demonstrates that ignoring a problem with obnoxious one-liners 
    usually only makes it worse.
    
    						:^]  Tex

    My only suggestion is those that gripe about our PCs make sure their
    perceptions are based on current data.  Our pricing and products have
    come a long way in the last few years.  My customers love them, they
    didn't a few years ago.... it's not love 'em or leave 'em ... maybe
    it's time for another "date"

    I've stated before in the EMPURPRO conference,   I love DEC PCs. 
    Theyare built like work horses and are killer machines.   But I just
    wish Digital would get on the ball and start marketing to the
    mainstream public.
    
    The more people can afford our machines, the more people _WILL_
    reccomend them to their companies because they will have had experience
    with them.
    
    As it turns out now,  DEC PCs are very expensive when it comes to the
    consumer market. Did anyone see the review in PC World about the DECpc
    XLs?  They gave it a glowing review and said that the XL was easily one
    of the best machines in its lineup and that DEC service and support was
    outstanding. However, they did mention several times about the high
    cost of this machine.
    
    Scott

At any rate, new marketing slogan (with apologies to my old 36 bit
buddies):
                    If you're not using a PC from Digital,
                     You're not playing with a full DEC.

(ie, lets bite the bullet and capitalize on the association people have with
the "word" DEC)

(Of course, if we're not pricing in the monitors, then I guess you could
modify it to say "if you buy a PC from Digital...", but why be negative?!?

    
    re:-1
    
    	I love it!!! What a great slogan.
    
    	I believe the reason we are not doing more selling of PCs to the
    public-at-large is basically a manufacturing one. We simply cannot
    make enough of them quick enough. This is really a good problem to
    have.
    
    	As for monitors, most of my customers buy NECs, Mitshubitshi, or
    CTX. Only the very low-end units go out with our "cheapie" monitor,
    most business users like 16-17" size and our pricing on quantity is
    nonexistent. Pricing with monitors would probably be a bad idea at
    this point. 
    
    	But we are selling PCs like crazy out here. Now if we could just
    figure out a way to get workstations moving like this....
    
    		the Greyhawk

    "..... is basically a manufacturing one...."
    
    Not really, it's basically a management one. 2 PC manufacturing plants
    in the Americas, are closing doors this quarter.
    
    /john

    
    		Re.-51
    
    		Gotta say that you may have job security for a while
    	since we're the only PC vendor I know of "giving away" a 
    	Three year warranty on our machines......of course most of
    	that is carry in only.(Mail in..?) 
    
    		And the issue of reply.-1 /john is one of headset in
    	this company. Planning in this company has gone the way of
    	the Condor.(a bird) Get the real facts on MRP and it is evident
    	that capacity of the Manufacturing Plants  is not the gateing 
    	factor.....parts shortages and Master schedule and order fore-
    	casting and the whole juggling act are. Now with one less Mfg.
    	site here in ABO (We only did abot 25,000 the last two years)
    	capacity just may be the issue again.May be.
    
    				Pablo
    
    

    We were one of the last major PC vendors to offer a 3 year warrantee...

>    We were one of the last major PC vendors to offer a 3 year warrantee...
    
    I thought we were one of the first.  Dell still doesn't offer 3 years
    on all systems.

We were the first, but no longer the only.  Also, our warranty doesn't cover
the monitor, unlike some of the others.

				Steve

    Compaq was the leader .... we followed

And Dell will sell you an extra two years for $199... which
still makes the system price way below DEC's price.

That's on-site service, by the way.

    
    ... and the on-site service for servers is delivered by Digital.
    
    

    Warranty policy was modified as of the 1st of the calendar year;
    during year 1 the monitor, mouse and keyboard will receive Basic
    on-site support.  However, as before, the monitor is not covered
    at all during years 2/3 of the warranty.
    
    

    Digital is still expensive for the home market. as of this writing
    Gateway has a Pentium 60MHz, 8MB RAM, PCI bus, 15" monitor, 540MB drive
    Double-Speed CD-ROM, Sound card and speakers, MS-DOS, Windows, and
    MS-Office with three year warrenty on all of the above for $2300 with
    no state sales tax ( Michigan = 6% ). Even with our EPP discount
    digital is ( if you could get one on a Pentium box ) is $1000 higher.
    I'm in field service, and from my view our PC's have no $1000 dollor
    advantage over anyones. Ask your local FE how many monitors there
    logictics organzation ordered lately, its one of the higher parts used
    on the parts list lately.
    

    
    >if you could get one on a Pentium box 
    
    do you mean "are they available on Pentium" or
    do you mean "are they available on Pentium on EPP"?
    

    RE: .48
    
    ...so get yourself some catalogs and spread the word.
    
    GH,
    
    I would appreciate if you could divulge your source for catalogs. My
    comment in 3282.66 was tongue in cheek, but true. I asked for a catalog
    from PCBYDEC ~ June 15th, because I was interested in ordering a PC and
    I'm still waiting for the catalog! I do have a nice 433SX at home
    thanks to a PCBYDEC catalog that a co-worker let me borrow, but if I
    didn't have a local source, my purchase could have been at a local
    electronic superstore that probably don't carry the Digital product
    line.
    
    I don't exactly have money burning a hole in my pocket, but if I do
    need additional items, why should I not go to a COMPUSA or Circuit
    City? If I called them for a catalog, would I wait this long?
    
    I also like my PC, my wife and my son like it. As DIONKS, we do a lot
    of catalog shopping to save time. Maybe there's a reseller in the GMA
    that I should be in touch with?
    
    kjg

When I called PCBYDEC and asked for a catalog, I had it within two days.
(Of course, I live in the same city it was mailed from.)  I've also gotten
an updated catalog in the past month or so.

Be that as it may, my current analysis shows that Digital's PCs are well
behind the curve regarding features and price.  Too bad, as I would have
liked to buy one.

				Steve

    Reg .69
    
    I was refering to the EPP plan, the last time I checked Pentiums where
    not on the EPP list. even the system that where are still not competive
    with the other vendors even with the discount. And don't forget the
    warrenty for the EPP plan is return to digital, not onsite. Which makes
    them even more costly in the long run. Also digital only covers the
    monitors for one year, compared to most other vendors which have it
    covered for the full three years. Wait till all those customers that
    didn't read the small print about the exclusion of the monitors after
    the first year find out that.
    
    Bill

    Re: .70 If you have access to WWW you can access the DecDirect Catalog
    online by using:
    
    http://topdog.pa.dec.com/DECdirect/ddi/html/ddhome.html
    
    If you go to the h/w section there is a section for p.c's
    
    ray j.
    csc/at

    Is this accessible from outside DEC?

    
    	Hey, easy does it.
    
    	Just order what you need thru the EPP. Who needs a catalog? Any
    sales rep should let you thumb thru theirs for stuff the EPP won't
    sell us. Just get the base box (like I did) and the rest of the innards
    from wherever. Save a ton, and everything works just great!
    
    	Pentium is overkill for the home. I have a 486/66 and it sits there
    waiting for the CD-ROM to figure out what zip code the data is located
    in. The key is getting a BIG monitor. I got a 19" on sale from one of
    my VARs that was a discountinued Mitshubitshi model and WOW!!! Who
    cares about processors... My friends and neighbors just come over and
    gawk at the monitor. And it only cost $600. What a deal. SimCity blows
    your mind. And putting a Word document up is heaven, you can actually
    read the small print.
    
    	I love this stuff...
    
    		the Greyhawk

    Re: .74
    
    It's not "real" yet - just for user interface testing.  
    
    				Steve

    Reg .75
    
    Once again we find our selfs having a uncompetative PC products 
    just because the box has digital on it. If you can figure that its more
    cost effective to piece meal a system from other companys, how long
    before the customer determines this. And there know reason to do that.
    Just pick up a PC WORLD or COMPUTER SHOPPER and look at all the total
    packages from very reputable PC computer companys ( Dell, Zeos, Midwest
    Micro, Gateway ) that the normal sales channel and the EPP can't touch.
    In a few days I will be leaving digital to start a new job intergrating
    PC's and a WAN network throughtout the Midwest. As I need to purchase
    hardware for this project, digital only PC advantage is its service
    organization not the product. And with all the cuts that have effective
    MCS and the limiting resouces for the engineers that are left have, I'm
    not sure there much left to differentiate digital from the other
    players.
    
    Bill Sevic
    MCS/Field Service Eng.
    Grand Rapids, MI
    

re Note 3335.77 by GLDOA::SEVIC:

>     Once again we find our selfs having a uncompetative PC products 
>     just because the box has digital on it. 

        A big difference is that this time we are really selling tons
        of them!

        Given that "you can't fool all of the people all of the
        time", perhaps we really are delivering something that in
        some way is perceived as markedly better by the customer.

        Bob

    .61 is false.
    
    Compaq was first.  We were in the second wave that included ALR and
    AST.  ALR, in fact, has a 5 year (limited) warranty.
    
    Mark.

    IBM and Compact just reduced prices - 22 and 29% - yesterdays
    Wallstreet Journal.  If we're having trouble maintaining margin when we
    sell at 22% off at current pricing of products - how well will we do as
    the bottom falls out of the PC pricing?

    I think .78 just identified another role of Marketing that wasn't
    mentioned in the Marketing thread (I'm too far away to do a DIR/TITLE=,
    sorry).
    
    Another role for Marketing is to identify what we're doing right when
    things are going well.
    
    bill

I too am looking to buy a PC. There are quite a few people in my group
that have PCs (486/66, P90s, etc.) and not one of them, that I know of,
has bought their PC from DEC. They all wanted to... but when it came down
to it, DEC was too expensive. 

I've been thinking about getting one for some time, and have been looking
through ComputerShopper for the last few months. I have to agree with the
folks that say, "Look at the package you can get from Gateway, Zeos(sp?), etc.
and compare it to DEC's package." Without looking at EPP, or PCBYDEC, or
whatever. I just looked at the ads from these other companies, and then the
add from DEC, and there is no way that DEC is competative. Even with by
Employee discount, it is cheaper to buy from someone else.

I couldn't understand why anyone would by a DEC PC, and then someone said,
"Well the EPP discount you get is probably less than the Corporate discount
the customer is getting". So, a corporate can buy a PC from DEC for less
than an employee can. Maybe that is why they are buying them.

Anyway... I would really like to buy a PC from DEC. 

	1) I work here, and it seems the "loyal" thing to do.
	2) DEC needs all the $ it can get, maybe this little bit would
	   help it out.
	3) Kind of embarassing to work for DEC but buy a PC from someone
	   else. Doesn't do much in the way of advertising when folks 
	   ask where you got your PC, and you tell them some other
	   company.

However, I need to get the most I can for the money I have, so if I can't
get one from DEC for close the the same price I can get one somewhere else,
I'll have to go somewhere else.

Now a previous note mentioned just buying the box from DEC, suggesting that
it's the add-ons where DEC cost more. However... that seems kind of a pain
to me. I'm kind of looking for a package that has everything I want, so
that it will come someone "put together". 

Anyother thoughts on employees buying from DEC? Have many people done it?

Seems to me that DEC would want its employees to buy from them. Get more
PCs in the hands of the employees (which I would think would enlarge the
tehcnical knowledge base, etc.), good advertizing, etc. I'm not asking
that they give them away... but it seems like we should at least get
a good deal on them. :-}

	James.

It's more than just price.  The major mail-order retailers (and face it,
Digital is one too) are continuously upgrading their systems with such
stuff as: enhanced IDE controllers, bigger disks, faster CD-ROM drives,
flash-programmable BIOS, etc.  If Digital is doing any of this it's news
to me.  

What's more is that the Digital systems, when tested by magazines, generally
end up at the back of the pack in performance.  I found a PC Week Labs test
of several Pentium-90 PCI systems and the DECpc XL was slowest by a
considerable margin.  Why should I pay more and get less?

					Steve

re .82

Embarassing? Yes I suppose it might be embarassing, but embarassing
for who? Certainly not for me. Maybe for the EPP management.

Joe (owner of a Gateway 2000 PC)

   another thing to consider is that the DCU offers some special
   financing when buying DEC gear. I think it's just a personal
   loan with a lower interest rate. Call the DCU for details.

    Only the clueless would call DCU about financing rates on DEC gear!

    The rate is currently 7.something.  I don't consider this to be
    worth much of anything.
    
    					Steve

    
    	hey, Steve - wake up call.
    
    	Please, please, tell me where you can get better than 7% no money
    down, three year loan on a consumer purchase. Please?
    
    
    		the Greyhawk
    
    
    		

    You misunderstand.  7% is not a good enough rate compared to what
    I might pay on a credit card to overcome the disparity in PC price.
    Compared to a 14% credit card (DCU), the total interest savings for
    a $3000 purchase over 24 months is a whopping $200.  That's less than
    the price difference between a DECpc and a similar model from
    Dell, etc.  (And the DECpcs just aren't available with the features
    that the other vendors have.)
    
    For me, personally, the availability of a low-interest loan is of
    no interest [!] as I would pay cash.
    
    The DECpcs do seem to be very well engineered, assembled and
    reliable.  But not THAT much better.
    
    					Steve

I would have liked to buy Digital for home, but it was just too
expensive even with EPP, or whatever it it is called. So the 
kid went off to college with a mailorder clone.  486 @$1MM 15"
420HD, CD ROM, 14.4modemn for $1800, typical of what they need 
for college. That was the price last month.  This month they
can get the P90s for $2500.  And I don't think we (Digital)
even have one listed.

Sorry, but this is the second time I tried to buy Digital, at
Christmas, we purchased a 486/25 MM from Packard Bell because
Digital special+(epp) was $200 more and counld only commit to 30days.

so give  me a reason to buy Digital, and I even work here!

/ejr

    
    To those of you who have been successfully selling Digital PCs, or who
    own them and are pleased with them...
    
    I would like to recommend them to my friends, relatives, small business
    owners, etc.  What are the main selling points you use to close sales?
    Exactly *why* do you find our PCs to be better than others?   
    
    And for someone just starting out who has never touched a computer 
    before, what current Digital PC solution(s) would you recommend?
    
    Cindy

A few month's ago I decided to replace the Rainbow (takes just too long to do 
a Lotus update on a monster spreadsheet).  In character, I spent a lot of time 
researching what I wanted and where the "best buy" could be had. I started 
looking for a lower cost, lower performance critter and soon changed my "wants" 
list to spec out a more powerful, more expensive beastie.

My conclusions were that if you are looking for an under_$2K computer, Digital
is not only not competitive, it is not in the same league as other "major name"
brands.  However, when you get up to more loaded and powerful systems, Digital
begins to look better.  When I compared the XL to similar (difficult since not
much PCI was out there) offerings from other "brand names" and the "clones", I
found that Digital was much closer - with EPP, it was about a wash. I compared
"apples to apples" wherever possible; 486x66 DX, 256K Cache, 8MB memory,
Toshiba CDROM, Seagate 5xxMB Hard drive, 15" monitor (monitor specs compared
when available), 3 year warranty. 

I found the PCBYDEC folks as friendly and easy to buy from as LL Bean.

The computer arrived later than promised and my charge for short delivery was 
refunded automatically.

Setup was unnaturally easy; it worked the first time.

Prices dropped a few weeks later and I got a refund.

And it continues to work, flawlessly, being turned on and off a few times each 
day.

I would recommend a DEC PCXL to friends.

As usual, For What It's Worth.....

Dave

I've been hearing lately that the price of IDE drives is coming
down to close to 50 cents/meg, so I looked at some typical
prices to verify this.  This turns out to have been a little
bit of an exaggeration, but I *did* notice that the price
of a 540MB IDE drive, name brand, was around $350 by mail
order in the latest PC Magazine, and just under $900 in
the latest DEC PC catalogue.
 

RE: 3335.90 by MUMPS::RUDACK

> Sorry, but this is the second time I tried to buy Digital, at
> Christmas, we purchased a 486/25 MM from Packard Bell because
> Digital special+(epp) was $200 more and counld only commit to 30days.

I compared Packard Bell PCs with Digital PCs about a year ago.

When I looked under the hood,  the Digital had a second level cashe,  and
the Packard Bell did not.  This means that the Digital PC will run about
twice as fast as the Packard Bell PC on most programs.

The Digital PC was a 486DX and the Packard Bell was a 486SX.  This means 
that floating point intensive software will run much faster on the Digital 
PC.  (10 times??)

The display on the Packard Bell was four times slower updating than the
Digital PC. 

If I was looking for cheap and fairly powerful,  I would have bought a 
used 386.  I could match the Packard Bell for about 1/10th the price.

Gateway,  AST,  and Compaq were much more competitive.


Phil

    Re. Hard Drive pricing. There was an ad in the Houston Chronicle
    yesterday for a 420 meg Connor Hard Drive. The price? $249. That's
    getting pretty cheap!
    
    Harry
    

RE: .94

	Packard Bell isn't exactly the best brand out there. Many
	people call it "The brand you'll buy only once". Kinda like
	the Tandy/Radio Shack/DEC pc's of old. Very "un-open" design.
	Not very expandable.

	Compare DECpc's to DELL, Compaq, and probably Gateway. DECpc's
	don't make it on price. (I know, I own a 486/66 XL. Built like
	a tank but it cost me more)

							mike

RE: 3335.96 by AXEL::FOLEY "Rebel without a Clue"

3335.90 only bought a Packard Bell once,  but seemed to be claiming that 
it was a better deal than a DECpc.  I disagree.


Gateway was a no-show when I was looking at PC's due to a firmware bug, 
fixed a couple of months later.  The price is lower,  but technical support
and quality seem lacking...

Compaq and AST seemed slightly better pricewise at very similar quality.

I forget why DELL was not on the short list.


Phil

    In re comparing to Packard Bell ...
    
    When was the last time you saw a car company, no matter how
    economy-minded, comparing themselves to Yugo?
    
    Computer owner in store: "I'd like to get a modem cable for my
    Packard Bell."
    
    Store clerk, after a moment's thought: "Fair trade."

    
Please read the following from VOGON News this morning.
    
    The heat is on !!!!!!!!!
    
<><><><><><><><>  T h e   V O G O N   N e w s   S e r v i c e  <><><><><><><><>

 Edition : 3146              Tuesday 30-Aug-1994            Circulation :  5766 

        VNS COMPUTER NEWS .................................  209 Lines
        VNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH ..............................   30   "

  For information on how to subscribe to VNS, ordering backissues, contacting
  VNS staff members, etc, send a mail to EXPAT::EXPAT with a subject of HELP.


 IBM - Slashes PC prices, undercutting Compaq
	{The Wall Street Journal, 25-Aug-94, p. B8}
   IBM, as expected, slashed prices as much as 27% on most of its business PCs,
 undercutting recent price moves by Compaq, which reduced prices last week by
 as much as 22%.  The IBM cuts, which took effect yesterday, most dramatically
 affect servers.  Also affected are the commercial desktop brands, PS/2 and
 ValuePoint, and one ThinkPad subnotebook model.  The consumer brands PS/1 and
 ThinkPad 750C, which remain in short supply, aren't affected.  The biggest
 price change for IBM means a Server 95 running on a 486 array Intel chip with
 16 megabytes of memory no lists for $9,500, down from $13,090.  The Compaq
 ProLiant 1000 server, a comparable model, sells for $10,000, about 5% more
 than the IBM server.  As reported, IBM said it had planned to reduce prices on
 the current products to clear the way for an overhaul of its PC product line
 next month, but the timing of the announcement was driven by Compaq's cuts.

    

Yeah, and we are, too, especially on the high end.

8/26 Livewire excerpt - "Digital has announced price reductions in the
U.S. of up to 26 percent across most of the Intel i486- and
Pentium-based personal computers in its Value and Premium lines."

It'll be an interesting comparison but probably more suited
to a PC-related conference.

Pete

>	Packard Bell isn't exactly the best brand out there. Many
>	people call it "The brand you'll buy only once". Kinda like
>	the Tandy/Radio Shack/DEC pc's of old. Very "un-open" design.
>	Not very expandable.

I don't know about this... I got a Packard Bell several years ago,
a 486/33. I can upgrade to a DX2, I've added another hard disk, new
video card, internal modem, SCSI, CD-ROM, and soundcard, more RAM, cache...
I haven't felt limited in the least...

I am pretty close to maxing out the system now... but not yet. ;-)

But all desktops have fewer expansion capabilities then towers. Which
Packard Bell also makes now. Overall, I've found it a nice machine. Getting
UMB's from it have been fairly painless compared to other systems I've
worked on too, so usually I've got 614K free even with DRVSPACE installed.

/Scott

    
     Some comments:
    
     1. There is alot of junk out there today. Alot of it you are lucky to
    get a C: prompt. DEC pc's generally have chipsets in them that might
    not have been provided yet to other customers because we do alot of
    the bug fixing and first crack at new parts. Most of the disk drives
    have "fixed" firmware revs that other folks might not have. We also
    test and support alot of other non-MS OS's that's important in the
    business enviroment, but not home. Same for drivers (local bus IDE,
    video, CD rom etc..).
    
     There is a cost associated with this work.
    
     2. The PC business needs to keep growing and need bucks to plow
    back into major areas that we do not service yet. Alot of the third 
    tier guys are going under and selling product at a loss or break even
    because of pressure from the first tier folks.
     
     3. The Digital name is worth a few bucks on a PC due to quality etc..
    
     4. The magazine issues are being worked, we are getting a full time 
    person to manage the submittal and testing, there will be no repeats
    of the XL disaster. 
    
     5. Some of the other PC suppliers do not pay their vendors at all or
    even on time. So they owe millions of $$'s. Temporarily they look
    good on pricing, but the bills haven't come due. When they do or get 
    cut off from their suppliers, the're history.
    
     6. We have to pay sales tax everywhere due to Digital's status.
    
     JRogich
    
    
     

                     <<< Note 3335.102 by PCBUOA::ROGICH >>>
    
>>     4. The magazine issues are being worked, we are getting a full time 
>>    person to manage the submittal and testing, there will be no repeats
>>    of the XL disaster. 
    
    
    What XL disater?  I think the DECpc XLs are awesome machines!  Granted,
    they didn't end up as fast as some of the other PCs rated in PC rags
    but I wouldn't call that a disaster. 
           
    The steep price is what's killing us in the reviews.  All the reviewers
    rate our PCs as expensive. Maybe the steep price and the lackluster
    performance is what you meant by disaster?
    
    

    The PC Week review on the XL was an issue. Not the product itself.
    

PC Week, June 27, 1994 v11 n25 p101(3)

HP, Micron blaze past Dell, Intergraph, DEC desktops

...

Performance

In PC Week Labs benchmark tests, the HP and Micron PCs gained a significant 
performance edge over the others by virtue of their very fast Matrox Electronic 
Systems Ltd. MGA-II graphics adapter, as well as having Microsoft Corp.'s 
Windows for Workgroups installed, which improved disk performance. Both systems 
netted the best overall Windows performance and the best video and disk 
performance under Windows.

However, the Matrox board is slow under DOS, causing the HP and Micron machines 
to be the slowest DOS performers of the bunch.

In contrast, the DECpc XL 590 proved to be the slowest overall, due to a 
combination of slow video and SCSI-based hard-disk performance. Intergraph's 
TD-3 PC managed to offset its hard disk, an obvious area of weakness, with 
better processor and video performance. 

From what I recall, PC World loved the XL 590 in a recent
issue (hope I've got the right magazine, they all look the
same to me).  They weren't too keen on the price though.

This pretty much reflects my own opinion of the system,
too.

    And price is why most of us DECies don't own a DEC Machine.  I love
    sidestepping customers when they ask me what kind of PC I have at home.
    I tell them it's a VAX Station I have on loan from the office.  Not a
    PC clone I bought from XYZ computer company.  It's the Price Stupid!
    
    - Mike

I've read the press release about our new "Celebris" line of PCs.  (See
LiveWire.)  Based on what I see there, these look extremely promising, both
in features and in price.  There are some innovative features there which
remind me of how we made our mark in video terminals - perhaps we'll end
up being leaders here too.  I'm looking forward to more details (haven't been
able to find any yet.)

					Steve

re:.108
Some additional info on the Celebris PCs can be found in the conference
GIADEV::DECPC_ENG, topics 118 and 119.

Re: .109

Thanks for the pointer - I think.  I was astonished to find that the new
line is a buyout from Olivetti.  Did we do any significant design work or
is this another sign of the impending "virtual corporation"?

					Steve

    Re: .110
    
    AFAIK, the 486 Celebris systems are buyouts from Olivetti & the
    Pentium Celebris systems are our own.
    
    ...petri
    

Hmm - I must have missed that.  In any event, these look like well-designed
systems. I'll look forward to seeing what the actual configurations and
prices are.

					Steve

    Relevant quotes from the September 19, 1994 issue of Fortune
    in an article titled, "What's driving the new PC shakeout" (page 109).
    
    In 1994, for the first time, as many PCs will be sold to U.S. homes
    as to businesses.  Consumers will pay $8 bil to buy 6.6 mil PCs....
    more than Americans will spend on TVs.
    
    Competition for the home market is shaking up the PC hierarchy.  Compaq
    has zoomed to the top....Most surprising, Packard Bell...has elbowed
    IBM.  Apple's share has fallen...
    
    (The impact of consumer spending) will reshape the industry in at 
    least 4 ways:
    
    1.  The big will get bigger.  This year the top ten will capture about
    70% of the market, up from 63%.  Increasingly, the battle is between
    Compaq, IBM, APple, Packard Bell, and a few ambitious wannabe's like
    AST, Dell, Gateway, and Acer.  Small companies will have a tough time.
    Many that once seemed promising are struggliong to stay alive, among
    them Northgate, Zeos, and CompuAdd.
    
    2.  Microsoft and Intell will maintain their roles and buttress their
    hold on the market...
    
    3.  Building a strong brand image and devlping small but distintive
    features will become more critical than ever.  The names of the new
    generation - Spectra, Presario, and Performa - sound more like cars...
    
    4.  New players will emerge...many experts look for big consumer
    electronics companies, inc. Japanese giants, to retaliate...
    
    
    ...don't expect to pay much less for the next generation...the average 
    home PC will cost about $1,200.   PC makes prefer to offer more
    features at roughly the same price...
    
    ....roughly 67% of American households have yet to acquire a PC.
    
    ...the laptop is becoming a personal badge like a Lexus or a Piaget
    watch."  ...it has an emotional contect to it...
    
    ...Packard Bell's PCs now accomodate optional detachable colored
    panels...in teal azure, or sahara...
    
    ...Three of the biggest hardware companies have already demonstrated
    they understand well the importance of software.  P-B, Compaq, and AST
    have all develpd proprietary sw that sits on top of windows, masking
    its often-infuriating complexity...  An analyst said:  "I consider these
    user interfaces the essence of branding."
    
    ...P-B's success (has been) the result of long planning...the company
    pioneered bundling sw with its machines and was the first to make a
    concerted push into retail stores....the private company's revenues
    this year will exceed $2.4 bil.
    
    ...IBM's new brand will get a glitzy, car-like new name...(and) allows
    service techs to take control of your PC over a phone line...
    the wake up function will allow (it) to turn itself on...
    
    
    ....the huge consumer market ...won't really open up until PCs get much
    easier to use.  "To move a market like this, you have to create a
    social movement."
    
    ...to boost Pentium sales, Intel is spending $80 mil (by Christmas) on
    a new ad campaign....by next year will have capacity to make roughly
    20 mil Pentium chips, enough to supply half the new PCs in the world.
    
    re: Apple's position vs. Intel (which easily could be our's with
    Alpha):
    	Apple CEO Spindler predicts Intel will have no choice but to move 
    	to RISC.  
    
    	Counter's Intel: "Even SW develprs are businessmen down deep, and they
    	look for volume.  Next year there will be no fewer than 50 mil
    	x86 machines shipped...At best Apple will ship five mil.  The
    	numbers just work against them at an increasing rate each year."
    
    	Fortune: Essentially the Mac is floating in the same leaky boat 
    	as Sony's Betamax video format - cursed with a somewhat better
    	technology...but with vastly smaller market share and clout.
    
    Other notable quotes:
    
    "I've got a computer at home partially because it's a badge that says
    I'm an educated person.  It's a status symbol."  (Compaq guy)
    
    "Our whole philosophy is that hardware alone is not the key to the
    satisfaction of the consumer."  (P-B CEO)
    
    "A PC should be like an appliance.  Using one should be as easy as
    toasting a bagel."  (Microsoft Windows head)
    
    "The PC industry doesn't know squat about marketing to consumers."
    (Consultant)
    
    "The big Japanese companies understand consumer marketing much better
    than IBM, Apple, or Compaq.  Plus they have a more loyal distribution
    channel and dealer network."
    
    (Our) long-term vision includes selling even in outlets like Toys "R" Us. 
    (Compaq's cheif strategist.)	
    	

    I thought that it was just the enclosures that were bought from
    Olivetti?
    
    Jeff

    re .111, .114
    
    Please, no more OLIMATES

    Re .113 Am I the only one that noticed that "Digital" (who many memos
    claim is now outselling Dell and Gateway) was not even mentioned as a
    player in the article, let alone being mentioned as one of the major
    players!
    
    Hello!?!?! Marketing?!?!? Public Relations?!?!? I guess they're off at
    a meeting somewhere. :-(
    
    Harry
    

    reply .116
    
    This is the first time that I heard that we are outselling Dell. Where
    did you get your information from ? Dell is at $3B. Our PC business is
    at a $1.5B run rate although our rate of growth is higher than Dell's.

 Packard Bell - 4th quarter shipments of PCs more than doubled
	{The Wall Street Journal, 2-Jan-95, p. B6}
   Packard Bell's shipments of PCs in the U.S. surged to an estimated 750,000
 from about 320,000 in the same period a year earlier, said Mal Ransom,
 marketing VP.  For all of 1994 in the U.S., he said, Packard Bell shipped 2.1
 million PCs, compared without about one million in the previous year.
 Dataquest ranked Packard Bell the 3rd-biggest shipper of PCs in the U.S. last
 year, behind Apple and market leader Compaq.  Though Packard Bell's core
 market is the U.S., the company is moving to broaden its presence in foreign
 markets.  That help boost its 1994 world-wide PC shipments to about 2.5
 million from 1.1 million the previous year, Mr. Ransom said.  All sales 
 combined to give Packard Bell about $3 billion in revenue during 1994, a huge
 jump from 1993 revenue of $1.25 billion.  The company doesn't disclose profit.
 Analysts say Packard Bell's percentage growth should taper this year, only
 because its business has grown so large.  Philippe de Marcillac, director of
 PC research at Dataquest, said the company's main weakness is that is overly
 dependent on one market and would be susceptible to any slowdown in
 consumer-buying habits.  No one expects the consumer-PC market to slacken
 anytime soon, though, and analysts say Packard Bell is safeguarding itself by
 broadening into foreign home markets such as Europe.

    Dataquest ranks us #10 worldwide.
    
    Mark.

    Page B1 of the Feb 2, 1994 issue of the Wall Street Journal has an 
    outstanding review of Digital's new notebook PC, the HiNote Ultra.
    Digital's new product is compared favorably to HP's notebook.
    
    Way to go PCBU!!

Is this a review or an advertisement?  The WSJ is receiving an awful lot of
Digital ad dollars lately.

					Steve

    
    	The HiNote was not a review nor advertisement. It was a columnist's
    comparison with praise for engineering excellence. I've had three calls
    from VARs already this AM wanting to purchase these babies.
    
    	Congratulations PCBU Engineering. Now that is the DIGITAL way!!!
    
    		the Greyhawk

    Can someone forward me the Jan 20 Newsletter on Mobile PCs; apparently
    there's a success story in there that I missed.
    
    Thanks, John Wood @ DCO
    	    Granpa::JWood

    The WSJ article on the HiNote appears is a regular column, "Personal
    Technology", in section B, Marketplace.  The article is by Walter S.
    Mossberg.
    
    Since this is a regular column, I do not feel it is a advertisement. 
    It compares the HiNote to the HP OmniBook.  Says the HiNote is better. 
    This is a very positve article and should give a boost to HiNote sales.

Glad to hear it.  I see lots of questions about HiNote (such as - can I get one,
or where can I see one?) in the CompuServe DECPC forum.

				Steve

RE: .124

>>    This is a very positve article and should give a boost to HiNote sales.


	Gee, Bob Palmer said we are sold out in the Employee DVN yesterday.

							mike

    Anyone know where I can *lease* a HiNote?  Answers by EMail are OK...
    

    
    So here I am at a party last night and I meet a dermatologist who says
    "You work for Digital?  Really?"

    I brace myself.

    He says, "Gee, we just got this deck PC free from Medicare so that we
    can use their software and it's the best system I've ever seen!  We
    really like it."

    Wow, what a nice change, I thought, just having explained to another 
    fellow, a biologist selling chemical products, why Alpha hasn't caught
    on even through it's a terrifically impressive architecture.
    
    

re.128:

>    Wow, what a nice change, I thought, just having explained to another 
>    fellow, a biologist selling chemical products, why Alpha hasn't caught
>    on even through it's a terrifically impressive architecture.

Where did you get the idea that Alpha had not "caught on"? 

Dave.

    It was free ...of course he liked it
    
    Brian V
    

    >It was free ...of course he liked it
    
    There are many makes and models of PC's that I wouldn't want to touch
    even if I was paid to have them (I would be happy to take the money,
    though ;-)
    
    ...petri

    Re: .129
    
    >Where did you get the idea that Alpha had not "caught on"? 
    
    You're kidding, right?
    

    well petri if you ever get one of those pc's please pass it on to me
    
    
    
    : )
    
    Brian V
    

    Re: .133
    
    no can do; I reserve the pleasure of seeing them scrapped for myself ;-)
    
    ...petri

re.132:

>    >Where did you get the idea that Alpha had not "caught on"? 
>    
>    You're kidding, right?

No.

Dave.

Are these the facts or not???

18,000 Alpha 2100's sold
85,000 Alpha Systems sold. = 2 billion dollars in 2 years.

ALL of these are TRUE SALES - customers are NOT running to us and 
saying "Please sell me an Alpha" - so these are hard work for every 
salesman.

Other companies:
	HP and PA-RISC took 6 years (1986 to 1992) to reach $2 billion.
	Sun SPARC SERVERS - only has a total of $800 million.
	Sequent - 5,000 servers in total.

Over the last 12 months MANY (and probably MOST) of the worlds (not 
just Digital's) large deals ($40 million plus) have been won by Alpha.

85,000 systems and 2 billion dollars means that ALPHA HAS CAUGHT ON. I 
do agree that it can catch on even more!!, and hopefully it will do so.

Cheers, Chris

    
     re -.1
    
    And just think what those sales figures could be if we got out of
    our own way. Incredible.
    
    Fun to think about, isn't it.
    
    -Mike Z.
    
    Want to sell some vacation time... interested?
    

    
    re.136
    
    We really need to hear this more, POSITIVE NEWS!
    
    Thanks,
    Mike M.
    

     
      A lot of these sales are to national accounts such as the US Postal
    Service (like ALL of the GMF facilities nationwide) and Veterans
    Administration Medical Centers (they WERE going to replace their 
    VAXclusters with ACER PC's but went with Alpha OpenVMS clusters instead). 
      Both of these accounts were formal VAX sites that had succesful 
    Alpha migrations. From a MCS perspective we're seeing a LOT more 
    installs of Alpha systems, with a trickle of VAX systems slowing down
    steadlily.
    
    							-John R-

Realize people can have different expectations for what "caught on" means.

Apple sold 1,000,000 PowerPC systems in 10 months, yet the PPC is still
struggling to be recognized as a mainstream alternative to Wintel PCs.

Apple wanted to use Alpha in their next generation of Macintoshes,
but Ken was reluctant to make our iron dependent on some one
elses Operating System.  A year later we picked Windows NT.

Alpha has certainly had its successes and failures, hopefully we can
acknowledge and learn from both.

- Peter

>Alpha HAS caught on
.
.
.
>customers are NOT running to us and saying "Please sell me an Alpha" 

That's what I meant.  If Alpha had caught on, then they would be...

tim

*Apple sold 1,000,000 PowerPC systems in 10 months, yet the PPC is still
*struggling to be recognized as a mainstream alternative to Wintel PCs.
    
Apple sold 484K Power Mac's in 1994 (source: Computer Intelligence/Infocorp). 
    

    On January 19th, Apple announced that they had sold 1m PowerMacs
    in 10 months, thus exceeding their goal of 1m in the first year
    of availability.  Methinkum Computer Intelligence/Infocorp screwed up.

    I *think* the reason for discrepancy here has to do with PowerPC
    *chip* sales versus PowerPC *system* sales.
    
    Steve

Is Lotus Notes available on Windows NT/Alpha yet? Why do we have to beg Lotus
to do the port?

Olav

    
     re -.1
    
    >>> "begging"
    
    References to software developers and PC products not being ported to
    Alpha are most interesting. Having worked with an X86 architecture, and
    having been so successful at doing it, what insentives are in place to
    attract said developers and products to a completley new life style.
    
    It will be a long haul battle, not something that just happens. Even
    dinosaurs just didn't go extinct overnight.
    
    -Mike Z.
    
    Vaction time *still* for sale, interested?

  Apple doesn't sell PowerPC chips, they sell PowerPC systems.
  And it was 'way back in summer when IBM claimed they'd shipped
  the one millionth PowerPC chip.

  The press release that accompanied Apple's announcement was
  very clear: They had shipped over 1,000,000 PowerPC systems
  by that time (10 months after their introduction).  This makes
  Bob Palmer's comparisons of Alpha ramp rates to H/P PA-RISC
  ramp rates extremely dated, at best, and quite possibly
  deliberate obfuscation.

  You may quible about inventory in retail channels, but the
  fact is, in terms of absolute numbers of system sales, PPC
  in the guise of PowerMacs is way ahead of Alpha.  In terms
  of absolute dollar value of systems shipped, PowerPC may
  lead Alpha. In terms of users attached to PPC systems versus
  Alpha systems, you might finally have a winning argument.

                                   Atlant

    The average cost of a PowerPC system was easily $4k, or $4b in
    sales in 10 months, compared to Alpha's $2b in 2 years... so
    the dollar story won't work either.

re: .146

 Lotus, Hewlett-Packard - To unveil a development pact for e-mail software
	{The Wall Street Journal, 8-Nov-94, p. B6}
   The companies are expected today to disclose details of a joint marketing
 and development pact involving Notes and HP e-mail software products.  As part
 of the deal, Hewlett-Packard will include preinstalled copies of Notes with
 it Unix-based workstations and computers.  The move, which was expected,
 echoes an agreement Lotus signed with Sun Microsystems last month.  The
 companies also discussed merging HP's OpenMail e-mail product with a
 forthcoming Lotus e-mail product known as Lotus Communications Server, giving
 Lotus entree in several large HP accounts; according to a report in this
 week's PC Week magazine.  Lotus is also expected to report a 7,000-unit order
 of its Smart Suite software package from HP, for the company's internal use.
 Analysts have valued the order at $10 million to $15 million.  A Lotus
 spokesman confirmed that the two companies planned an announcement today but
 wouldn't offer further details.

    
    	We sell our own "Notes" look-alike - LinkWorks!
    
    	Digital is *still* in the applications business; why, I don't have
    a clue...
    
    	Lotus has spent over $500-million on Notes, is marketing it very
    aggressively, has over THREE MILLION licenses installed, and we
    "believe" we are going to compete? Again?
    
    	I say we play "Let's make a deal" and get on with it...
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

    The way this works, whether the ISV is big or small, is they run a
    business plan to see if they will make any money.  In this case, it
    looks like HP guaranteed Lotus $10M-$15M for the port.
    
    It works for me!  Now, do any of you have $10M to give Lotus?
    
    Mark

    
    Not to get you too excited, Mark - but "guaranteed" sales minimums are
    a fact of life in this business today. A vendor goes to a developer and
    says "Run on my box and we'll guarantee you X $ of sales". Developer
    says "Costs me Y $ to port and build infrastructure to support". If
    X is bigger than Y, you talk. If Y is bigger than X, developer walks.
    
    It's not bribery, it's good business...
    
    		the Greyhawk

And it's why platform volume is so important...

    Yes, I have a grip on reality.  I used to work in the group that
    brought you Lotus 1-2-3 on Ultrix RISC.  I don't know the actuals, but
    I doubt that we leveraged enough system sales to pay for that deal. 
    Who knows, maybe that bad experience is responsible for the lack of a
    deal with Lotus on Alpha.
    
    Mark

    
    Nothing personal Mark, but ULTRIX RISC was probably the dumbest thing
    we've done in the past ten years (not to be confused with things we
    SHOULD have done).
    
    Hindsight shows why.
    
    Keep the faith, tiger - remember the beauty of being a pioneer and
    collecting those arrows is - you get a much better view of the other
    side.
    
    		the Greyhawk

The main problem today with Windows NT/Alpha is price/performance. I'm unable
to configure systems with better price/performance than an Intel system
(maybe except at the extreme high-end). How are we going to attract new
users?

Olav

    <<< How are we going to attract new users?
    
    Well some of us think, by adding value. What that value is of course
    is a tightly contested and guarded secret.
    
    I could tell you, but then I have some vaction time I am trying to
    sell.
    
    -Mike Z.
    

>    Well some of us think, by adding value.

What value are we adding to Windows NT/Alpha which will not be available
on Intel? Multia kind of stuff?

Olav

    
    	We include the CDROM with the system ;-)
    
    		the Greyhawk

    >	We include the CDROM with the system ;-)
    
    Nothing unique to Alpha. A CD-ROM is included on selected Intel models
    too. When I compared configurations/prices, I did of course compare
    identical configurations. Intel wins on price/performance almost every
    time.
    
    Olav

    
    Ok. Intel wins.
    
    -Mike Z.

    Re: .150
    
    >	Lotus has spent over $500-million on Notes, is marketing it very
    >aggressively, has over THREE MILLION licenses installed, and we
    >"believe" we are going to compete? Again?
    
    PC Week, January 30, 1995, front page, "Lotus stengthens foothold
    with groupware upgrades":
    
    	"Money spent by Lotus on Notes: $450M
    
    	Notes penetration of 63 million networked PCs: less than 2%
    
    	Notes installed base at end of 1994: 1.35M
    
    	Potential installed base by 1997, according to Jim Manzi: 20M"
    
    Soo, they've spent less than what you said, and their installed
    base is less than half that you estimated. ;-)
    
    Same magazine (don't remember if it is the same issue, and I don't
    want to search ;-) also says that Lotus needs a 5M installed base
    against Microsoft Exchange, EMS.
    
    ...petri
    

    
    	Got my numbers from Datamation Feb 95., so split hairs...
    
    	We are still peeing up a rope.
    
    		the Greyhawk

    
    re .-1
    
    >	We are still peeing up a rope.
    
    		What a picture that brings to mind.
    		Think I prefer the BabeWatch thread.  :)