[Info-vax] DECdirect, was: Re: BASIC compiler in the hobbyist distribution

[Simon Clubley]

On 2015-05-29, johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk <johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Wrt
> "Simply having your customers call up a sales representative to buy
> a US$100 software license and get a paper package printed and mailed
> and then typed into some registration mechanisms just isn't
> cost-effective for anybody involved, but I digress."
>
> DECdirect UK, and reportedly in Europe too, managed to do pretty
> much that. Together with manufacturing in Ayr (Scotland) and Software
> Supply in Galway (Ireland), they had LEAN systems before anyone even
> knew what LEAN was. End user orders a MicroPDP/VAX one week, Ayr custom
> build it, customer gets it the next week. Software and documentation
> produced on demand, not from stock. 
>
> DECdirect UK even did outbound marketing, e.g. via the DECdirect
> catalogues for high volume hardware and software (which looked
> nothing like the DECdirect US catalogue, fwiw). They contained
> articles for stuff that *could* be high volume, if people only
> knew about it. DECdirect UK software revenue went from zero to
> $USM100+/yr in the space of 18 months.
>

For the benefit of Hoff:

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/big/2304/DECdirect-Software-Catalogue/

Yes, Virginia, there was indeed a time when you could call up DEC and get
exactly what you needed without trouble. :-)

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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