Conference 7.286::digital

    Can someone confirm that the Dave demo was real?
    
    -Bruce

    I think we need to turn the segment where Enrico 'takes a tour' of the
    Jensen motherboard, ending at the heatsink with sunglasses on, into a
    TV commercial.
    
    And I think we need to distribute millions of pairs of Alpha PC
    sunglasses.
    
    Good think I'm not in marketing, eh?  8-)
    
    ...tom

    
    	re -*
    
    	So how about some details for us that had to work?

    re: .2
    
    I agree with the idea of the TV commercial and the "shades".  It was
    the first thing I thought of as well.  The audience at The Westin in
    Waltham loved the segment and it would translate well to the TV medium.
    
    

    
    Yea .. Get the sales folk some sunglasses with the AXP logo on the
    side, and have them wear them at the trade shows. The last show I was
    at IBM was wearing sneakers with the IBM logo, and their line was
    "we're in the fast track "

    
    Didn't they change it to "We're in deep sneakers"?
    

	The images of Bob and Enrico, when showed for the real time voice
	synthesis and full motion video, looked compressed - their faces
	appeared shorter and fatter. 

	Also, I found Bob to be too smooth, gave the impression of a *very*
	well rehearsed talk. I would have liked a little more impromptu and
	relaxed talk. (or, is it that Bob talks too fast?)
	
	But, overall, it was a very impressive demo and a good exposure for
	Digital. 

    hi,
    
    what did they talk about please?
    
    thank you in advanced,
    
    \bye
    \nasser
    

)0 Worldwide News                                 LIVE WIRE
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 Digital announces world's fastest PC; ...                   Date: 25-May-1993
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                        Digital announces world's fastest PC; 
                          begins Windows NT support rollout 
   
        Digital today announced the world's most powerful platform for 
   Microsoft's new Windows NT operating system, a new PC based on the Alpha 
   AXP RISC (reduced instruction set computing) chip.  Called the DECpc AXP 
   150 personal computer, it is the first member of Digital's new PC family, 
   and is targeted at application developers, early implementors and power 
   users.  The announcement was made at the Windows World trade show in 
   Atlanta.
         The company also unveiled a comprehensive worldwide program of 
   support, training, and services that will assist users and help IT 
   departments integrate Windows NT running on Alpha AXP-based and 
   Intel-based systems.  
        Digital also announced commitments from software firms to port nearly 
   300 WIN32 applications to Windows NT/Alpha AXP, and introduced a variety of
   layered software products -- the tools and services that enable Windows NT 
   applications to work in corporate, multivendor computing environments.
        "Today, personal computing is becoming increasingly vital to 
   corporate business success, and Digital has a strategic focus on 
   fulfilling this growing customer need," said Enrico Pesatori, vice 
   president and general manager of the Personal Computer Business Unit.  
        "The DECpc AXP 150 PC running Windows NT brings personal computing 
   benefits to users requiring more performance than any PC can provide.  
   Digital intends to be the price/performance leader for Windows NT computing
   with the DECpc AXP family.  In addition to application developers, we 
   expect power users of applications like financial modeling, high-end 
   graphics, complex spreadsheets and databases to be among the early 
   adopters," Enrico added.  The OpenVMS and DEC OSF/1 operating systems will 
   be available on the Alpha AXP PC family in the fall.
        At Windows World, Digital also kicked off its comprehensive support 
   program for users who choose Microsoft's Windows NT operating system.  
   "Many customers are evaluating Windows NT and expect it to become an 
   important part of their client/server, corporate computing environment.  
   Digital intends to be at the forefront of the Windows NT movement," said 
   Ed Lucente, vice president, Worldwide Sales and Marketing. 
        "We are committing our expertise and experience at application 
   migration, client/server computing, networked multivendor integration, 
   and worldwide support and services to help make Windows NT successful.  
   Anyone even thinking about choosing Windows NT as part of their 
   corporate computing environment should come and see us," he added.
        Digital's new comprehensive support program includes training, 
   installation, start-up, and help desk support, as well as consulting, 
   professional services and technical support for integrating and managing 
   Windows NT on both Alpha AXP-based and Intel-based systems. It is aimed at 
   users, application developers, and technical staff to help them take 
   advantage of the capabilities Windows NT offers. Digital has been 
   supporting Windows for six years, and already has trained more people on 
   Windows NT than any other vendor.
        Thousands of off-the shelf, shrink-wrapped WIN16 and DOS applications 
   will run without modification at the first shipment of the Windows 
   NT/Alpha AXP environment.  Microsoft will port its major applications to 
   the Windows NT/Alpha AXP version over the coming months.
        Digital also announced that over time it will move all of its 
   appropriate layered software to Windows NT.  The initial offerings were 
   aimed at facilitating multivendor network integration, application 
   development, and multivendor system management.  
   
   ---
   Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks of Intel Corp. Microsoft 
   and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp., and Windows 
   NT is a trademark of Microsoft Corp. OSF/1 is a registered trademark 
   of the Open Software Foundation, Inc.

	The Palmer talk could have used some more impromtu as someone
	else said.. Otherwise, it was a very slick presentation. I
	just wished he lightened up just a teeny bit.

	The voice recognition demo was cute. I'll be curious to see
	how much of that was real tho. If it was all real, I'd die for
	having a "Dave" in my office. ("Dave" was the name of the
	computer that Bob was talking too)

	I found Enrico VERY personable. I too believe that the walk-thru
	of the Jensen..er..AXP/150 should be turned into a TV commercial.
	I was very impressed with Enrico.

	The Bill Gates talk was also pretty interesting with some very
	funny moments and some seriously "very cool" moments.. Watching
	his demo made me want to run over and work at Microsoft on the
	neato-gee-wiz stuff. DEC..er..Digital needs that draw..

							mike

    A show of hands for the dark glasses with the Alpha AXP logo on the
    sides ..................................98,100 ??????
    
    Logo should read something like.
    
    	Alpha AXP PC's - Let's get ready to Rumble !!!!!!!

    I wonder if there is a more serious attempt to collect the impressions
    of customers from each city where the announcement was televised?

    I'm afraid that the New York audience wasn't impressed except with the
    animation of the face.

    Also, many people were having trouble understanding Enrico Pesatori who
    apparently is not a native speaker of English.  That's not a criticism
    of Mr. Pesatori, but it just had that impression upon people.

    I was there to see Bob Palmer et. al... with customers (Alabama State
    Forestry Commission - they control the forests where most of y'all's
    paper comes from, and they fight forest fires...) and they were VERY
    IMPRESSED!  Bob and Enrico did an outstanding job.  All we heard the
    rest of the day is how they are going to move to ALPHA for VMS and
    NT - no mention of INTEL.  Yes, we could have been at the NT
    announcement, but we did make the NPR Marketplace news today, whereas
    only Microsoft was mentioned yesterday.  All in all, the 'demos' were
    impressive, and having seen 'Dave' in person at previous DECworlds
    promoting 'DIDDLY' (which, by the way is in use at Emory University
    in Atlanta) I believe the demos were real.
    
    We still have a long way to go, but the customers requested a videotape
    of the DIGITAL presentation to show to their superiors.  We will
    probably have the entire state gov. of Alabama on Digital HW/SW 
    soon.... (not Q4 business tho....!@#$%)

    Yeah, DAVE looked a lot like Dave Wecker, of DIDDLY fame. Also, when
    Palmer's mailbox showed up, there was a mail from Wecker in there.
    Having seen Dave W. in action at DECworld I wouldn't be surprised is
    this was real. For this audience, this was a great HW announcement.
    
    The other thing I liked about the 'show' was the slogan "Digital and
    Windows: Imagine the view"
    
    Rene

    I guess the thing that I found ironic is with this image thing that's
    going on (DEC vs Digital), Gates called us DEC three times. Equal time
    though; he also called us Digital several times as well.

The boys on the street weren't impressed

DEC, I nean, Digital stock was down  1 3/8.

By the way, anyone know the price of the Jensen?

>By the way, anyone know the price of the Jensen?

Currently just below $7000 with the Windows NT SDK. See notes/announcements
in, e.g., DECWET::WINDOWS-NT.

...petri

    Someone may know the price, but the SALES FLASH that was promised in
    the current issue of SALES UPDATE hasn't been sent or added to the
    SALES_UPDATE_US VTX infobase.

Here's where the OLD DEC screws up the new Digital

God forbid someone actually wants to buy one of these damn things and
no one knows what the price is.

As far as I'm concerned, whatever momentum may have begun yesterday has been
lost.  

In Digital, heads should roll, but since this is DEC, it's business (or lack
thereof) as usual...

    Some PB2xx prices have appeared in the US Price List (access from
    ACCESS menu in VTX).
    
    PB2xx is the part number for DEC AXP 150.

RE: .17

>>> The boys on the street weren't impressed
>>> DEC, I nean, Digital stock was down  1 3/8.

A stock drop on the day of a big announcement is considered "normal".  Prior to
the announcement, speculation bids up the price, followed by a sell-off on the
announcement day to reap the profit.

A surprise or unexpected news usually leads to immediate stock fluctuation.


							-Paul

re.... on the street...

	DELL was down 7 point on weak earnings, dragged down Digital...

Bill Z.

    
    NYSE (and the press) don't care about WindowsWorld - big story of the
    day was Dell, big Digital story was South African subsidiary.  Until
    earnings, don't expect much to happen with our stock except narrow
    fluctuations, or to even read about us in the business section.
    

>    ... big Digital story was South African subsidiary.  
    
    Various institutional investors are prohibited by law or policy from
    investing in companies that do business in South Africa.  We probably
    saw some selling based on the theory that a lot of DEC stock would need
    to be unloaded fairly soon.
    
      John

    There are probably a lot of conferences to discuss this in but
    to keep the focus on Digital, it's important to mention...
    
    The Clinton administration is preparing legislation and executive
    policies to remove economic santions of South Africa.
    
    Companies that are going to require some ramp-up time (like Digital)
    are already getting started in the anticipation of the end of
    sanctions.  For Digital, it's a business decision.
    
    The article mentions this.

    
    Pertaining to .11 and the Alpha AXP sunglass slogan
    
    how about, 
    
    "FUTURE'S SO BRIGHT GOTTA WEAR SHADES!!!"

    re .27
    
    Perhaps but a royalty will have to be paid to the Cowboy Junkies. 8-)
    
    Jim C.
    

    ... and that was one of Michael Dukakis's campaign slogans from 1988.  
    
    L.

re: 28 Cowboy junkies....

Didn't Timbuk3 do the song???

Keith R>

    
    
    > .. future's so bright, I gotta wear shades
    
    The Joy Boys at Sun (Scott Mcneely, Bill Joy, and others) used this
    phrase for quite some time to describe their company back in the late
    80s.
    
    Some magazine articles (and at least one front cover with them)
    highlighted Sun and that catchy phrase.  So it probably would not be a
    great idea for us to use it.
    
    

    re: .28
    
    Right you are, the memory fades.
    
    Jim C.
    
    

	Hi, Norma Frye, Digital Video Network, here.  I am just back 
	from the production at at WindowsWorld and will answer a few    
        questions.

	First, we realized too late the marketing opportunity we missed
	with the sunglasses.  There were so many things going on it just
	got by everybody.

	Second, the Dave Demo was real.  Dave Wecker was there with us
	babysitting the project.

	Let me know if there are other questions.

	NTF

    Could someone explain (describe) the "Dave Demo"?
    Was it taped for video viewing?
    
    Thanks,
    Jodi-

    Yes, the DVN was taped.  Allan Csiky of Corporate Communications told
    me that it will be available to be borrowed by employees.  You might
    want to send him a note (ALLAN CSIKY @CORE) to find out how/where.

    There were 4 "DAVE" (= Desktop Audio/Video Environment) demos, plus
    three video clips of a customer discussing some of the market
    applicability of next generation of computing.  The demos were:

        . a wireframe "face" which articulates/lip-synchs to sounds that
        come over an audio line.  It is from the Cambridge Research Labs. 
        It also works to animate bit-maps of people's faces.  The demos
        used Dave Wecker, Bob Palmer and Enrico Pesatori at various times.

        . continuous speech recognition -- running entirely in software,
        including the Digital Signal Processing -- which drove a airline
        lookup database.  This is sort of an ATM for airline tickets.

        . video decompression -- running entirely in software -- comparing
        486 speed (2 frames per second for the specific video size) versus 
        "next generation" (i.e. Alpha AXP) processor speed which looked
        pretty much like "full-motion" -- about 15 fps.

        . a prototype/model of DAVE as the "office of the future" where
        fax, voicemail, e-mail and hardcopy mail are all treated
        interchangeably... where group calendaring actually asks you to do
        the prioritization before committing your time... where you can
        tell it to call people, etc...

    Hope this helps.

    /Marc

To add to Marc's note


I spoke with the DVN folks yesterday, and yes the entire broadcast
(including Bob and Enrico's talks) was taped.  It will be available 
shortly (within a week) through the VTX OPAL  A-V Catalog.  


-bill

	Another way to see the tape is to contact your local DVN Site 
	Coordinator (you can find the locations and contacts listed in 
	Livewire) to see if it was taped locally and if that tape is 
	available to borrow.  

	Norma Frye

    Thanks Marc, Bill and Norma for the DAVE info.
    
    
    Jodi-

    Well, I was quite disappointed that the major news media didn't cover
    the event.  I beg to disagree with an earlier comment about the Wall
    Street Journal only reporting financial data.  WSJ consistently does
    company profiles, and often features products, or product development
    efforts, of major companies.  The day after, the 26th, the WSJ ran a
    headline story on Microsoft's NT development!
    
    Personally, I'm concerned that Digital is not getting the kind of press
    we need.  Sorry, but I don't see any excitement for AXP anywhere,
    except in internal memos.
    
    We need an aggressive marketing and public relations campaign. I hope
    Ed Lucente recognizes this also and is planning one.

    RE: .39
    
    
    WE HAD an aggressive PR campaign for Windows world.  I personally did
    over 50 interviews at the show.  Dennis Schneider did something like
    200.  Jesse Lipcon was interviewed for teh NBC Nightly News (this past
    tuesday) regarding the announcement and technology.  CNN, NBC, CBS, and 
    ABC were all (from what I'm told) offered stock footage as well as 
    interviews with key people.
    
    You just can't go to the news people and say "I want this printed
    tomorrow"   Magazines have lead times, closing dates.  Unfortunately
    (in my opinion) we embargoed the press from printing anything before
    the 25th.  That means, that weeklies missed their monday (24th)
    distribution issue, and that monthlies  most likely missed their 
    print dates for the issues that came out last week.  Given that, I
    wouldn't expect to see much Digital coverage until this week in the
    weeklies, and NEXT MONTH for the monthlies.  
    
    
    The marketing and PR teams aren't sitting around waiting for the phone
    to ring, we have been very aggressive in going after stories.  I think
    the way that the workstation team handled the 4/20 announcement was
    considerably better (from a PR standpoint) than the Windows World 
    announcement.  They didn't embargo and played right into the printing
    \deadlines for all of the magazines and I think the press was very
    good.
    
    On the other hand, from an event and field-event standpoint, I think
    the company has never seen something as well planned and executed as
    what went on at Windows World.  The booth, the announcement, the
    satellite broadcast, the 42 cities around the world, etc, etc.  Others 
    who do upcoming announcements could learn alot from this one.
    
    -bill

    re: .40
    
    I was disappointed that The WSJ and the NY Times did not print anything
    about our announcements.  I guess I am frustrated that the press hasn't
    paid that much attention to what Digital is doing.
    
    I will definitely keep an eye on the weekly and monthly publications.

    The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times took notice that Digital
    announced intent to open operations in South Africa.
    
    The WSJ Cutler article and high tech supplement were good showcases for
    Digital.
    
    "Dog bites man" that's not news.
    "Man bites dog" that's news.
    
    Digital introducing yet another AXP product is not news.