[Info-vax] VSI has a new CEO

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 8/2/2021 1:53 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2021-08-02, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 8/2/2021 8:08 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>
>>> What I was really trying to ask is how much does he know about the
>>> DEC culture so that he can understand what VSI's customers might
>>> expect both of him and of VSI ?
>>
>> The 1975 - 1995 era is not coming back.
>>
>> The IT world is very different today and the it seems better that the
>> new CEO have the right culture for the future than of the past.
>>
>> He needs to have:
>> - general leadership capabilities in a technology company of VSI size
>> - broad understanding of the IT industry and strategic directions
>> - understanding of the type of customers that use VMS today and the
>>     type of customers that may switch to VMS within the next decade if
>>     everything goes well
>>
>> VMS knowledge and DEC 35 years ago knowledge seems irrelevant.
> 
> That's because you are not looking at this in the right way Arne.
> 
> An excellent example is the utter disaster area that are the new licences.
> 
> Today, it seems acceptable to some people to pay for online services
> and online cloud access on an ongoing basis and then lose access to
> all your data if you do not keep up the payments

That concept is not particular new.

What happened in 1981 if you stopped paying your electric bill.

I can tell you: the electric company would shut off electricity and
you would loose access to your data.

>                                                          or if there is
> some loss of service disaster that you are now powerless to fix yourself.

Well in 1981 you may have called DEC and they would send a technician
to look at the problem while in 2021 you call Amazon and they will
have their technician look at the problem.

> A manager or CEO raised with only that knowledge and mindset would never
> understand why this could be a problem for some people - after all
> everyone they read about in their own circles is apparently doing
> the same thing.
 >
 > A person raised with the DEC culture would understand why the customers
 > would scream bloody murder if you imposed such a thing (which is exactly
 > what has happened with the time limited licences).
 >
 > They would understand that stability and uptime are the most important
 > things to those customers

You may have missed it, but in todays world the availability
of IT systems is much more important than it used to be. The
CEO, the board, the auditors etc. all have focus on that.

>                       and that it is totally unacceptable to their
> customers to have systems that could fail at the end of the current
> licence period if VSI goes bust.

I think there is general agreement on that there is a problem.

> The new VSI licences have clearly been created by people who only
> understand the new online subscription model and didn't understand
> why this would turn out to be such a massive problem for their
> traditional DEC mission critical customer base.

The problem is that there is no traditional DEC mission critical
customer base.

There are practically no customers willing to pay what they
paid DEC 40 years ago.

What we got are two categories:

"the cry babies" - we have a problem and we want VSI to deliver DEC 1981
service at 10% of what DEC charged back then

"the rest" - we have a problem - the world has changed, so the solution
  need to change as well, but there must be a solution providing
customers assurance at a reasonable cost and VSI a reasonable revenue
stream

> DEC had a way of doing things and of selling products in a certain way
> that met the requirements of their customers. If VSI wants to sell to
> people raised with that culture, then they need to explain things and
> sell things with that culture in mind.
> 
> To do that, they need to understand that culture.
> 
> _That_ directly impacts on VSI's profits and viability right here in 2021.

If they tried implementing DEC pricing then 90% of customers would be
gone in 3 years.

Arne