Conference 7.286::digital

The answer is "none".  As far as I know, no TNSG products have been cancelled,
that is to say, there is not a list of products which customers won't be able
to buy or won't be able to find support for.  There are some projects for
which funding was removed; management is looking for alternative sources of
support which, in some cases, may involve third parties.  It would be foolish
to stop selling products, many of which happen to be very profitable for us
but don't fit into the "model" which management has established, just because
TNSG isn't going to do future development.  It would be worse to start naming
names, as this would interfere with our attempt to "market" these products
elsewhere.

Also, you can't look at the people who were let go and determine which products
were unfunded, as in most cases, folks on those projects were kept on and
moved to other projects.

This is the message I've been hearing from my management and I have seen no
reason to doubt it.

The model we're being given is "Distributed Computing that Works".  I'm not
exactly sure I know what this means yet, but I do know, for examples, that
compilers are considered one of our "core competencies" and there have been
no language products unfunded (indeed, we even got one added.)

		Steve

	Right now I am in the market for a PC (having realised that
	if I find myself on the street one of these days, my run of
	the mill knowledge of VMS won't be worth squat).

	Would I buy something like 1-2-3 if I knew that Lotus planned
	to spend no more money developing it? (Or, for all I might know,
	even maintaining it, fixing bugs, etc). No, I would not.

	There seems to be an antiquated hardware mindset involved in
	believing that a company can stop investing in a software
	application and still go on selling it. This might be possible
	for hardware: once the VAX 1111 is released and running, you
	don't need to spend more money on that specific model. Even
	then, people might not be keen to buy if they knew there would
	be no new models in the future.

	Of course, the party line is that "someone" will step in and
	take on any products that we don't wish to fund in future.
	I may propose this approach to the company that holds my
	mortgage: "I'm not planning to fund this any more, but I am
	looking around for some external organisation to do so".

	/Tom

    re .2
    
    Many, many people are of the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." school.
    
    I purchased a Rainbow in 1984; no hard disk but ~800K Ram.  I acquired
    Lotus 1-2-3 v1.0 to use for financial accounting/planning.  I use
    Kermit as a terminal emulator and, occasionally, SEDT.  It is little
    concern to me if Lotus even folds up their tent.  I have had ample
    opportunity to get more modern versions of Lotus as well as get a
    "real" PC, but what I have does the job I need and I keep my money.
    
    Not everyone/every company is willing to lay out $$$ just to have a new
    and improved <mumble> if the present <mumble> does the job.
    
    FWIW
    
    Dave

    Consider another counterpoint then.
    
    How much confidence can our customers have in our continuing to
    support our old hardware? A broken VAX ain't the same thing as a
    Rainbow.
    
    As Tom says, a very puzzling strategy, aside from the fact that they
    are mostly products where we are facing future demolition by
    competitive products unless we invest *heavily* in upgrading them.
    
    Laurie.

	You don't make much money selling something to someone *once*.
	You can do better by selling them something that works well,
	and two years down the line, selling them something new that
	works even better. And again two years later. And if we
	don't have that something better, you can bet our competitors
	will. Sure, there are folks who buy once and make it last, 
	but you can't make much money off of those folks.

	On the other hand, it doesn't make a lot of sense to expend a
	lot of resources on products that lose money, break even, or
	make very small profits. We have to determine which products
	we can invest our resources in to make the most money. Say you have
	5 engineers working on project X, which turns a small but steady 
	profit each year. You might say that this is a good use of those
	resources. But what if you took those same 5 engineers, and put them 
	to work on a product that turns a large profit? Much better use 
	of the resources. 

					Tom_K

    I was told that one of the main reasons for Alpha was to maintain our
    VMS customer base.  That is, if we didn't keep the hardware technology
    competitive our customers would drop us.  This is because although our
    current VMS machines do fine for them now, our customers need to have
    them continually improved to give them a competitive edge in the
    market.
    
    Given this train of thinking, why is it that when it comes to software 
    some apparently think customers will buy technology that may not stay 
    competitive? 
    
    Steve

	Can we really count, what makes profit and where we lose when:

	1. Revenue is not even nearly always booked where it should
	2. Costs are not booked where they should and definitely not in
	    enough granularity

	So when the profit comes from somewhere between the revenue and the
	costs, how could we know what is profitable?

	--Ritva

    	Some software projects which *were* profitable also lost their
    funding. Many customers, when they see a product enter maintenance
    mode, see it as not having a future and begin to look elsewhere. I'd
    expect sales of such unfunded software products to drop off rather
    significantly.
    	Also, with the recent downsizing, news is beginning to filter out
    to customers that people working on Alpha are being laid off. Customers
    have been rather surprised by this, and it leaves the perception that
    maybe DEC and/or Alpha has no future or that the company isn't serious
    about it. This certainly isn't true, but it's easy to see how some of
    these actions might be perceived by customers. This, also, could impact
    sales. These perceptions are important.

    I think the real implications are for the future of VMS, not AXP.
    
    One of the reasons for developing so many software products for VMS was
    so we would have a variety of tools/applications for customers when
    they were shopping for a new platform.  You have to have certain
    "mass market" software to make a platform viable:  compilers (of
    course), database, spreadsheet, presentation graphics, and word
    processors.
    
    VMS isn't attracting as many of those third-party companies because of
    lack of potential market volume when compared to MS-DOS, Windows-NT,
    and U*ix.  If we don't supply those tools (e.g. DECpresent), then we
    have to make it attractive for third-parties to supply them (and make
    the quality and functionality as good as can be found on other desktop
    platforms).
    
    If first-class, world-quality applications don't come to VMS when we
    drop those niches, then VMS will wither.
    
    This has to be done, in any case, because we can't afford to fund
    world-class products in each of those market niches.  Our half-hearted
    attempts to supply every need results in products that arrive on the
    market late, with limited functionality as compared to the competition,
    and usually with just as many bugs as the guys who are hitting on time
    with lots and lots of features.
    
    We need volume in order to make all this work.  The products we do
    provide have to be "killers" that would stand on their own on any
    platform.  We need "a few good apps."
                                            

    
    Yes, 'disbandoned' (see original note) is exactly what they are.  No,
    there is no official list.  Yes, it would be nice to know the company
    strategy, but alas, we don't.  No, don't await coherence in marketing !
    
    But don't spread rumors to customers, please.  These programs can still
    be offered in an ethical way.
    

Re: .9

If it only were VMS products that are affected... as things are today, also 
many OSF/1, DOS/Windows and OS/2 products are, apparently, 'disbandoned'.

One can only hope that the "smoke" clear soon, and we'll really find out
where we stand (hopefully not up to our necks in something unpleasant ;-).

...petri

Unfortunately, in the near term, you should talk to the appropriate
manager to get the "new level of support", whether it's in maintenance mode,
de-funded, new and improved or whatever.

	Bob 

>Unfortunately, in the near term, you should talk to the appropriate
>manager to get the "new level of support", whether it's in maintenance mode,
>de-funded, new and improved or whatever.

If you do not know which products have been affected, where do you start?
Where do you stop?
Do you send mail to every single product manager whose products you have
dealings with?  A little math shows this to be completely unworkable from the
PM's standpoint, let alone being a waste of time for thousands of info-seekers.

On the other hand, if such an avalanche of E-mail did descend on the product
management, maybe a list would appear PDQ...

Kevin

    If DEC has 5 people working on a tool which competes with a tool
    made by 50 people working at (Borland,Microsoft,Symantec,Lotus..),
    what should it do when its competitors start improving the tool
    faster than it can?  I see two choices:
    
    1)	Hire another 45 (or more) and compete for the #1 slot;
    
    2)	Drop it to maintenance mode (1 person), and shift the
    	4 left to other work.
    
    Clearly if there are 200 total people, DEC can combine both approaches,
    and go from 40 products at 5 each to 4 products with 50 each.
    
    TNSG had too many products for the number of people it had.  DEC can't
    affort to hire people to make up for this, so products have to go.
    
    It'd be nice to compete across the board in the software world.
    DEC doesn't have the resources to do that.
    
    		-John Bishop