Conference 7.286::digital

    Speaking of our friends.  Do we, Digital, still have a way to buy
    Microsoft software products at a discount. If so who do we contact or
    what is the procedure.
    
    Thanks in advance,
    
    Thomas 

    when you find out, please let me know
    
    Rick 

    We can purchase Microsoft products through a process that is
    administered locally through our Microsoft office here in Minneapolis. 
    There is a form you fill out, you check off the products you want,
    enclose a check, money order or credit card, send it into Microsoft
    direct and they ship the product(s) to your front door.  This is no
    limit on the products you order provided they are on the list.  The
    list has to have a signature at the bottom from the Microsoft
    representative who is charged with handling this for them.
    
    You can check with your local Microsoft office, they usually have
    someone there who handles this on their behalf.
    
    Mav
    

    There is no local Microsoft office in Birmingham, AL. Anybody know how
    to get in touch with the local office in Atlanta, GA?
    
    

    re:.0 -I sent a note to the AltaVista group about this several weeks ago
    suggesting that they try to get included on th Microsoft page.  I don't 
    know if they have tried to work it yet.
    
    /jeff

    Alta Vista and Digital was mentioned in an ad by Imus in the mornning 
    radio show on Tue am. 

    
    
    As part of the Alta Vista launch -  there are Radio and Print
    advertisements, plus some web banners.  
    
    The radio leverages many of the sound elements of previous radio for
    the Corporate Advertising campaign - music and narrator.  
    
   Imus is part of the buy.
    
    BT

Yesterday I was presenting at a VAR Internet Seminar. Microsoft also 
presented. After only a few minutes the VAR people were talking about 
having a power failure to get the guy off stage. He told the audience not to 
listen to any UNIX/RISC vendors about needing powerful servers for the 
Internet. All they need is Intel and WNT. He went on to explain that WNT is 
very scalable - the proof point being that Microsoft's own site (8th most 
popular in the world he claimed) runs on an Intel server which costs under $18K.

Thank you Microsoft!

Dave.

    
    
    
       It seems that alot of what Ms touches these days turns to gold.
      Doesnt matter whether they are wrong or right. A company on an
      incredible roll with lots of inertia.

    Re: .7
    
    Oh man . . . is this a prerecorded spot or an Imus announce?  The I-man
    generally has molto fun ad-libbing his announce spots, and I'm not sure
    the powers that be at MSO2 will appreciate the alternative scripts.  
    
    George

    I was just Web browsing and found Digital's PC home page
    (www.pc.digital.com). At the bottom it says the page was optimized for
    Netscape and has a button to go off to Netscape to download it.
    
    So much for Digital being Microsoft's friend...
    
    /s/ MarkB

    
    
    It should have both.( Especially in our case ) I've noticed latly most
    vendors now list both.
    

    A lot of us DEC-SALErs are taking classes at COMPUSA before we
    exit.
    
    I lucked out on my first Internet class, there were only 3 people in
    it and one other was a team mate.  The other fellow apparently
    had used Yahoo (it was one of the click-ons with Netscape); however
    once we figured out how to find Digital's homepage, AltaVista was
    there.
    
    The instructor let us have at it and my co-worker and I had a blast
    using AV.  In fact, after lunch the other fellow in the class looked
    at us and said "ya'll are havin' too much fun, show me what you are
    using".  By 2:30 we had both he and the instructor using AV; the
    instructor concurred that it was a terrific tool and commented that
    it was too bad that Digital didn't seem to be promoting it more :-0
    
    

    according to the Microsoft person (Bob Issacs) in Atlanta, this program
    for discounted software was disabled a year ago.  
    

In business there are no friends.  There is only survival, profitability
and growth. There are, however, people who are competent at executing 
plans which provide the above.

So far, all I see is a bunch of people getting technically excited about 
things and raving about us being Digital.

I happened to run into some "software awards" ceremony when zipping 
through TV channels last week.  The fellow from Digital came up to get 
the Internet award for best search engineer - Alta Vista.  He started to 
babble on about how the design center was for this and than, etc., then, 
he realized that he was babbling and that nobody really cared but they 
DID want him to accept the award, say thanks and then sit down.

I think that, more than anything, epitomizes our market approach.

Grand strategy and alliances at one end - but this needs to drive daily
sales for us to keep employed in the field.

So who is our "relationship manager" and how is he or she going to fix
this now?

Corporate seems to forget that those thousands of minds that go to 
Microsoft seminars, read in the trade rags that IBMs ES9000 are 
getting replaced by Intels are the people who DAILY buy more 
Intel servers.  

Shouldn't they really outta want an AXP?

And who, in corporate, is making that happen and HOW is that getting
out to the field?

After all, aren't all the wallets (of customers) in the field?
    

> Shouldn't they really outta want an AXP?

No, they should want an Alpha system. There's no such thing as an AXP. It speaks 
volumes for our marketing that we can't even tell internal people these things.

This is just like the customers that want me to install POLYCENTER for them.

PJDM

> > Shouldn't they really outta want an AXP?
> 
> No, they should want an Alpha system. There's no such thing as an AXP.
> It speaks volumes for our marketing that we can't even tell internal
> people these things.

  No, it speaks volumes for our marketing that we can't even settle
  on the name; that we invent a name, start building brand identity,
  and then change the name. Often, several times. (ambiguity intended)

  We get decked by this every time!

                                   Atlant

> We get DIGITALed by this every time!
    
    Try to keep up eh?
    
    :-)
    

    There is a two page ad in the latest Fortune on AV.  Even gives the
    address in big bold print on how to surf there.  So, it is getting some
    visibility, but not nearly enough.  Sooooo, why don't we as employees
    do something about that.  In every customer presentation that I do, I
    have a slide which promotes AltaVista.  And I show them how to get to
    it so they can use it in their business and home life.  Everyone smiles
    and says that's neat and I have just done a mini-marketing event in 15
    minutes or less to X number of people.  Show them it everywhere and it
    will pick up recognition.
    
    Mav

    Note, personally I've tired of dealing with Jupiters, Neptunes, 
    Scorpios, Flamingos, Robins, Episolons, Thetas, Mippys, 
    Hydra, Tanglefoots, Bruts, etc.
    
    I wish that engineering, marketing and product management (that unholy
    and disjointed blessed trinity of confusion) would just decide that
    we're going to build a product called "Fred", start MARKETING "Fred"
    before it's built, get everybody on-line and thinking about "Fred" and
    get the market lined up to buy "Fred"s as soon as they come off the
    line.
    
    Until we stop this stupid groupieness and quibbling about what it's
    called, technically correct, or incorrect, etc. we won't sell stuff.
    
    (Is it the DECchip21xx, AXP or Alpha or what that Alphaserver or
    duuh..) I *DO* believe that everybody does know that "Intel Inside"
    means.....it means good marketing.
    
    Aarugh,
    j
    
    p.s. FRED is a TRW (defense contractor among other things) acronym for
    Fiendisly Rapid Electronic Device.  Around "The Project" at one point
    we just called 'em "freds".
    

    >> I *DO* believe that everybody does know that "Intel Inside"
    >> means.....it means good marketing.
    
    And here I thought "Intel Inside" was a WARNING label!

Re .21: this has been mentioned before. The catch is that a product has to be 
called something, and the official name often isn't figured out until late in 
the development cycle. Internal codenames (which can be thought up instantly 
without reference to anything) remain internal because no-one then has to go to 
the time and expense of trademark searches, copyright infringements, etc.

However...

Remember when we brought out a new operating system called OpenVMS, and lots of 
people refused to upgrade to it because they liked the VMS operating system 
better?

Remember when all Alpha systems were going to be called

	Alpha{Server|Station} [MHz] {4|5|EVn}/[indicative number]

That one was torpedoed almost immediately because 200 looked better in the title 
of the 190MHz 2100. And now look what's happening.

We can't even name things differently when we should. Look at the differences 
between the 21164 and the 21164[sic].

(But I do think that Digital UNIX is better than DEC OSF/1, even if Dan Pop 
complains about uname returning OSF1. Does he complain that Solaris 2.4 says 
it's SunOS 5.4?)

(And I bet the F wasn't for "Fiendishly" 8-)

PJDM