[Info-vax] Chinese Alpha?

[John Wallace]

On May 11, 6:33 am, Paul Sture <p... at sture.ch> wrote:
> On Thu, 10 May 2012 13:17:04 +0000, ChrisQ wrote:
> > On 05/04/12 10:27, Paul Sture wrote:
> >> On Thu, 03 May 2012 12:50:38 -0400, David Froble wrote:
>
> >>> The problem isn't so simple.  Digital had a huge investment in people.
> >>> Just about every major city had an office for hardware support, and
> >>> software support.  At one time such was needed.  But over time the
> >>> entire thing became obsolete, at least in comparison with what the
> >>> competition was offering.  The cost of people also continued to rise.
>
> >>> No longer do computer manufacturers (for the most part) have local
> >>> offices, and HW people who come out to fix problems with occiliscopes
> >>> and soldering irons.
>
> >>> I don't have any details to back up my guesses, but I've got to think
> >>> that the cost of the computers helped to support the local support
> >>> that DEC provided.
>
> >> We had monthly Preventative Maintenance on our first PDP 11/34,
> >> performed by the DEC office in our neighbouring city.  We were very
> >> pleased when DEC decided to change that to once every 3 months, as not
> >> only was it a disruption to our work, but the system often failed a few
> >> hours after a PM, sometimes as soon as the engineer had driven off.
>
> > The industry has changed, in that there is no longer any need to repair
> > down to component level, nor is it possible. In the days of small scale
> > integration and leaded discrete components, the failed parts could be
> > replaced after debugging with a 'scope. System boards are much higher
> > density and surface mount technology measn that swapping the board /
> > subassembly is the only way.
>
> > The service process has been deskilled by low hardware costs and the
> > fact that a high degree of knowledge and experience is required to debug
> > hardware down to component level = expensive. It's more cost effective
> > to replace the board or subassembly, than to spend hours trying to fix
> > it, much as it grates my instincts of thrift.
>
> All true.
>
> > Local offices weren't just about servicing though, but also local lines
> > of communication back to the company. Intelligence gathering for future
> > product directions, customer attitudes, good will and more...
>
> Unfortunately we have lost that.
>
> --
> Paul Sture

The theory on several occasions was that "the channel" (distributors,
VARs, etc) would pick up the role of marketing in its broadest sense -
telling the customers what was available and why it was interesting,
and listening to feedback from customers about what they wanted next,
and comments on what was already available. The reality didn't seem to
work out that why; the dialogue between DEC and resellers that I was
aware of seemed to be mostly about discounts and bookings. Perhaps
that's no surprise.

And the same really applies to JF's comment about non-commodity
systems. The channel was supposed to be the place the technical
expertise lived when DEC got rid of it. Except that didn't much happen
either. There is still expertise out there, but unless you're already
in the know, the chances of getting to it via official channels appear
to be pretty low.