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

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Saturday, 30 May 2015 09:49:52 UTC+1, johnwa... at yahoo.co.uk  wrote:
> On Saturday, 30 May 2015 09:30:39 UTC+1, Paul Sture  wrote:
> > On 2015-05-29, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> > > 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/
> > >
> > 
> > April 1989 - "Software from the world's No. 1 in networking"
> > 
> > Who would have though that less than a decade later they'd be swallowed
> > by Compaq?
> > 
> > -- 
> > I don't know what the language of the year 2000 will look like, but I
> > know it will be called Fortran.                    -- Tony Hoare 1982
> 
> I don't know who would have seen Compaq as a purchaser, but quite
> a lot of people could see that things weren't going well. Lots of 
> talk from corporate HQ of being "poised for growth" while the red
> ink, brown envelopes, constant re-organisations and workforce
> reductions were going on in many places. 
> 
> One of the notable spots for me in the UK was when the company
> decided that it's account group directors (for manufacturing,
> telecom, finance, defence, etc - that title may not be the actual
> one but it is close) needed to be more entrepreneurial (dynamic,
> responsive, etc).
> 
> So what actually changed? On the whole the same people had the
> same Account Group Director jobs, with the same organisation
> around them and the same products and services in the portfolio,
> but their job title was changed from Account Group Director to
> "Entrepreneur". Guaranteed to work, right?
> 
> One of these days I really must have another go at reading
> "DEC is dead, long live DEC" and see how well it matches what
> I observed (from a long way from HQ, at least geographically).
> http://www.decalumni.com/pdf/DEC_book_Press_Release.pdf

All of which was meant to lead up to the point that VSI, outside
of the dead hand of the corporate emperors, have a chance to
show that they actually understand what entrepreneur means.

And I forgot to trype it. Never mind.