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Volume 8, #1____________________________________________________________________
January, 1989
Winning
The
Desktop by Dom LaCava, vice president, Low-End Systems
Engineering
Capturing
The
Desktop Through Service by Dave
Grainger, vice president, Field Services
The
Desktop
And Integrating The Enterprise by Bill Johnson, vice
president, Distributed Systems
Sales
Challenges
Of The 1990s by Joe DiNucci, manager, U.S. Workstations
To herald the arrival of products designed to
make Digital the leader in the desktop computing market, over 3000
Digital sales, service and marketing people participated in a
special training session known as "DECtop University" in
Littleton, Mass. Held in December and early January, this
training prepared people to sell and service the new products
beginning on the very day of the announcement — January 10.
In his introductory remarks at the training,
Ken Olsen, president, noted, "We now have everything from
terminals and timesharing to a complete line of personal
computers, as well as VMS and Unix workstations. Our job now is to
pull together as one company to bring this message and these
products to our customers."
The overall "DECtop" plan, sponsored by Product
Marketing and Low-End Systems, includes all desktop training,
public relations and promotion and area-level customer events.
These activities are intended to create a single, coordinated
"desktop voice" to communicate clearly and consistently Digital’s
desktop message: Digital now has a full range of products and
services. There is no need for customers to make compromises on
their desktop solutions. Now when choosing desktop computing
solutions, Digital sales people can "just say ’yes.’"
The following are summaries of the speeches
from the opening day general sessions of the training.
Over the past few months, we have made a number
of announcements regarding the capabilities we will bring to the
desktop -- for example our technology and equity agreement with
MIPS Computer Systems and our new relationship with Ashton-Tate.
These agreements, as well as our own product development, will
lead to many exciting capabilities for the desktop. These pieces
of our overall product strategy flow from our vision of computing
and our architectural concepts.
We should always keep in mind that the ultimate
success of any product strategy depends on how well it provides
for present and future business environments. The business
environment is becoming much more competitive, and organizations
must be prepared to compete globally. As a result, we and our
customers are under great pressure to lower costs, raise
productivity, bring products to market more quickly and get higher
returns on all investments. Simply stated, we all must become more
effective at what we do.
Information utilization is the key to meeting
the challenge of such an environment. Information must become a
tangible business asset. People need access to information if they
are to meet competitive challenges.
To meet this need, organizations have invested
heavily in information systems. But in many enterprises these
investments have not been optimized.
A tremendous amount of information is generated
on the desktop; but often that information is not shared or used
effectively. Huge investments have been made in multi-vendor
systems that cannot talk with one another. Desktop users often
cannot access information and resources beyond their own desktops.
Delay in information flow and access to resources contribute to
the unproductive, uncreative, uncompetitive enterprise.
Our strategy provides a way to cope with this
environment. It’s our dream of the present and future.
In our vision, information can flow throughout
the entire organization, supporting and enhancing business
decisions. Our vision is instant, uninterrupted access to
information for ourselves and our customers. We want desktop users
to be able to share their information and to access information
from around the organization and also from suppliers, from
distributors and from customers from any source that adds to the
total productivity and creativity of the enterprise.
We want to optimize this opportunity for our
customers. That is the value added, the competitive advantage that
we must capitalize on now and build on in the future.
Where do we stand in carrying out this vision?
Today, we are in a leadership position, thanks to tremendous
investment and years of development time. Our ability to pull this
off is the result of the planning, continuity and discipline that
went into our single system architecture. It is in the context of
this single system architecture that we will look at our product
strategy.
Our computing strategy was established over a
decade ago and has been refined many times over. It was motivated
by a vision of the role of computing in the enterprise. In that
vision, computers would be broadly deployed throughout the
enterprise, close to the business problems and close to the end
user. These computers would be linked into an enter- prise-wide
computer network, permitting information to flow freely throughout
the enterprise and permitting people and computing resources to
work together in real time to solve the business problems of the
enterprise.
To realize this vision we believe in three
product attributes:
o pervasive, consistent networking Within this
networking environment, all products would be disciplined,
conforming to a single defined networking approach.
o distributed computing — In a distributed
environment, the operating system and higher level software
components would use the network such that there was no
distinction between local and remote applications and data.
o a wide range of compatible products — An
application could be written once and then deployed on whatever
systems were needed — from the desktop to the data center.
To implement our vision, we established a
single system architecture that was the framework into which all
our products would fit.
At the time this work began, the prevailing
view was that a system architecture should focus on base hardware
or an operating system. But the developers of the VAX family had
in mind a system architecture that went far beyond this concept.
They designed a system architecture that not
only included the hardware and operating system, but networking,
data management, application integration and core applications as
well. They structured a system architecture that carefully
specified a number of components and the relationships or
interfaces between them. Only when all of these architectural
components were designed and properly layered would we truly have
the system architecture of the future.
What is the value of this approach? An
architecture with such layered components gave us the unique
ability to change or evolve one component of the architecture
without changing all the others. It did not lock us into any one
approach at any one of the layers.
Our single system architecture includes all the
layers — from base hardware to focused applications — that can
evolve independently and still play together. This architectural
approach provides the framework for responding to changing
technology and customer needs in a way that preserves customer
investment.
For example, today, because we isolated
networking to a single component of our system architecture,
rather than spreading it throughout, we can evolve our DECnet
software to full OSI compliance, while maintaining our customers’
investments in networked applications. We also have added our
Unix-based ULTRIX operating system in parallel with our VMS
operating system. And, at the base hardware layer, we now have
RISC as well as VAX hardware.
Now with this same architectural framework, we
can look to the future of our product strategy.
At the system level, we will continue to offer
computers with both VMS and ULTRIX operating systems. Both are
strategic to us.
VMS software will be offered on VAX-based
hardware and ULTRIX software will be offered on not only on
VAX-based hardware but also on a complete line of RISC-based
hardware from the desktop to the data center.
We introduced RISC technology at the
workstation level because it is here that we believe its
performance gives us the most immediate advantage.
We also will increase our investment in VAX
hardware and become even more aggressive than in the past with
technology enhancements aimed at achieving a 50% price/performance
improvement per year. The technologies and product definitions
that will allow us to do this have already been planned. The
concepts have been tested and implementation is under way.
In our minds, VMS remains the leadership
operating system in the industry. It provides the broadest
functionality and the most integrated software. Our recent
announcements in transaction processing reinforces our commitment
to continue VMS leadership.
On the other hand, we are equally supportive of
our customers’ needs for industry standard software systems.
Digital was instrumental in establishing the Open Software
Foundation (OSF), and our recent ULTRIX Version 3 release
indicates that we plan to lead in high quality, industrial
strength Unix software.
Regardless of whether customers choose the VMS
or ULTRIX operating system, RISC or VAX hardware, we will supply
systems — from the desktop to the data center. And when the
customers need both ULTRIX and VMS operating systems, we will
provide the highest possible interaction between them.
What about the other architectures our
customers have already invested in? We believe our single system
architecture and Digital as a single supplier is the optimum
solution. But we are aware that many customers have made major
investments in computer architectures from other vendors. That is
why an important part of our product strategy is the integration
of other computer architectures with our own. Otherwise, our dream
of integrating the total enterprise could not be accomplished in
many business situations.
Our current integration capabilities cover:
o MS-DOS (personal computers),
o IBM (for corporate data),
o Cray (supercomputers),
o Apple Macintosh (personal computers), and
o Unix/OSF (technical workstations).
Our competitive advantage, our value added, our
dream is a product strategy based on a vision of distributed
computing. This distributed computing is based on our system
architecture, which was designed from the beginning to meet our
customers’ needs for integrating the enterprise and to
accommodate, in an evolutionary way, the changes in computing
technology. Technologies can evolve independently, at different
layers of the architecture, and still play together.
This is a disciplined system architecture to
assure synergy and to maintain the past investments of our
customers.
Digital has the opportunity to become the
leading supplier of desktop computing solutions - the type of
computing most people will need during the 1990s. The desktop
market will make up over 40% of worldwide computer revenue in
1991. That’s almost $60 billion in revenue.
Our goal is to win the desktop because winning
the desktop is the key to winning in the entire enterprise. If you
have a winning approach to desktop computing, you will satisfy
your customers' needs. That’s because desktop computing can give
users dedicated resources available on their desks, and at the
same time, access to all other resources in the enterprise-wide
environment.
This integration of desktop computing into the
overall enterprise environment is possible through our advances in
software and hardware. And that’s our winning edge in the battle
for the desktop market of the 1990s.
Six months ago these capabilities were being
developed. Today they are ready to be delivered. Here is our
desktop strategy:
Digital provides desktop users with leadership
solutions on the desk and beyond, plus the ability to easily
expand these solutions, without jeopardizing their current
investments.
Digital provides these solutions for whatever
desktop style of computing the customer wants:
o For customers who do simple wordprocessing,
mail, and spreadsheets, we sell leadership terminals.
o For customers who require MS-DOS
industry-standard personal computers, we sell our new family of
Digital personal computers.
o For customers who want a fast, Unix
workstation, we sell our new RISC-based Unix workstation.
o For customers who want a VAX-based desktop
system, we sell an entire range of VAX- station systems.
o For customers who already have made
investments on the desk, we will integrate those other products
into the enterprise better than any of our competitors.
Digital provides a solution tuned to the
customer’s needs. Through local area networks and network
application support, we can link the user to the enterprise
information network anywhere, anytime. This desktop strategy
provides customers with the best computing tools to get their jobs
done.
For many customers, the terminal is still the
preferred desktop device. They want to do simple wordprocessing,
electronic mail and perhaps some spreadsheet work. For these
customers we offer the successful VT300 series of terminals. Last
year was our best year ever in terminals. VT300 series shipments
exceeded all forecasts: we shipped more than 500,000 terminals —
up more than 55% in one year.
Our customers have said that they want an
industry-standard MS-DOS machine from Digital. Now we offer a new
family of DECstation personal computers. These systems are the
result of our strategic alliance with Tandy. The DECstation 210,
316 and 320 systems are based on Intel 80286 and 80386 chips. They
are fully MS-DOS compatible and completely backed by Digital
services. And through DECwindows for MS-DOS, users have VAX
systems as a shared computing resource for interactive graphics
applications.
The DECstation PCs are for customers who want a
single-vendor Digital solution, or who want to add to the personal
computer base that they already have. Customers have also said
that they want to incorporate their existing PC base - including
Compaq. IBM. Tandy, Olivetti, Zenith and Macintosh systems t- into the larger
computing environment. Our PC integration products lead the way in
providing these capabilities.
We continue to be strong in workstations and
are getting even stronger. This year Digital became the
fastest-growing workstation vendor in the industry, surpassing the
growth rate of Sun Microsystems. We’re now number one in Europe.
We leaped over Apollo to become number two in the U.S. workstation
market. And we’re heading toward the number one position here.
We’ve sold more than 30,000 VAXstation 2000 systems. That’s quite
a record for the short time we’ve been in this market.
Now we’re turning up the heat even more with
the VAXstation 3100 systems, which you may have heard called “the
personal VAX" system. This aggressively priced, CMOS-based
workstation offers three times the price/performance of the
VAXstation 2000 system. It features compact, desktop packaging,
and a new generation of high-performance storage devices. This
system should exceed the sales record of the VAXstation 2000
system.
We also have a new higher end of the VAXstation
line — the VAXstation 3520 and 3540 systems, which you may have
heard called "Firefox." These new 2D and 3D graphics workstations
offer customers multiprocessing performance. And the graphics are
displayed on a new, higher-resolution monitor.
This year the great majority of all
workstations sold run Unix software. Ninety percent of the
VAXstation systems we’ve sold run VMS software. We became number
two in workstations by selling VAX/VMS workstations. Now we’re
ready to increase our share of the Unix workstation market.
Some customers have demanded very high
performance Unix-based, technical workstations. For those
customers, we’re offering the DECstation 3100 system, which you
may have heard referred to as the "P-MAX." This aggressively
priced, compact Unix workstation is based on the RISC technology
we’ve gained as part of our strategic alliance with MIPS Computer
Systems. This is a fast system. Our benchmarks show that it will
run up to 10 times faster than a VAX 11/780 computer. Right now,
the DECstation 3100 system offers the best price/performance of
any Unix desktop workstation in the marketplace. It runs ULTRIX
Version 3 software. This is the system that will compete directly
with Sun.
We want leading chip technology that will help
enhance our time-to-market goals dramatically. We made a business
decision that it would be better for us to buy technology instead
of making it ourselves right now. With MIPS we found leading chip
technology and highly optimized compilers. The combination of this
RISC technology, our ULTRIX operating system and the optimizing
compilers provides us with the leadership position.
What does this mean for our investment in VAX
computing? Securing RISC technology from MIPS means that we can
continue to focus our internal resources on substantially
enhancing the VAX hardware family.
Whether customers choose the VMS or ULTRIX
operating system, we will supply solutions over the full range of
computing - from the desktop to the data center. When our
customers need both ULTRIX and VMS software, they will get smooth
interaction between common components of our single system
architecture.
There’s one extremely important area that I
haven’t emphasized enough yet, the part that brings it all
together — software.
These are the components of our powerful
desktop software environment:
o DECwindows, desktop VMS and ULTRIX software,
o the Compound Document Architecture
o the Epic series of Enterprise applications,
o PC integration products,
o key applications from independent software
vendors, and
o VAXpc — a software MS-DOS emulator that runs
on any VAX computer.
These are all partners, working together to
create our winning desktop environment. The hardware without the
new software is limited. The software without the powerful new
desktop systems is limited. But together - we can offer our
customers something that is unique in the inaustry.
Users will work in a completely integrated
application environment. They can use applications under the
three most popular operating systems: VMS, Unix, and MS-DOS.
They’ll do this simultaneously, and they won’t need to know which
operating system they’re using.
This happens through DECwindows — the unifying
user interface that will make our desktop systems easier to use.
In the future, when you use a Digital desktop system, you will
only need to know the very simple DECwindows style of interaction.
The operating system will be transparent to the user.
In this new desktop computing environment,
resources on the network are exactly like resources at the
desktop. Users won’t even know what’s running locally and what’s
running remotely. The internal workings of computing happen out of
the users’ sight. The desktop system and the network help them
like silent partners.
Our portfolio of desktop devices now provides
our customers with competitively priced, high-performance systems,
and the best integration available today. Our systems share a
common look and feel. They support the DECwindows environment, and
they're based on the three most popular operating systems. — VMS,
Unix and MS-DOS. Our desktop systems will be the choice for
applications throughout the enterprise — from the front office to
the computer-aided engineering facility.
With this announcement, we also take the lead
as the only single-source vendor who can offer a complete range of
desktop solutions.
We now have the strategy and products so you
can sell the complete solution — both the desktop and the network.
We have four messages:
o When you sell a total solution, your
customers gain a complete solution from one vendor, and you
double your yield.
o All organizations have a mix of desktops, but
only Digital has the capability to support all those desktops in
a single coherent environment. Digital’s network application
support (NAS) is the key to achieving that. The desktop is part of
that complete solution, but it has to fit in the total network.
o If your customer has already made the desktop
decision, just say "yes." That gives you an opportunity to
integrate those desktops through our network applications support
strategy and to sell new desks that fit the customer’s strategy
wherever possible.
o If a customer has not made a decision, and is
looking to us for guidance, we have a series of questions — a
decision tree - to simplify the process.
Digital sells total solutions to solve business
problems. Solutions are built of hardware, networks, operating
systems, applications software and the services to bring it all
together. The desktop is a key piece, but it is only a part of our
total focus on complete solutions.
Digital is not in the business of selling
stand-alone desktop computers. We view the stand-alone desktop
computer as a lonely and pitiful thing. We believe every desktop
needs at least some computing, and some connection to the network.
Like the telephone, it seems hard to imagine a desk without a
network connection.
If an organization has $1 million to invest in
solving a business problem, on average about 50% of that
investment will be spent on the network, including the servers,
applications, services and support. The other half of that sale
is on the desktop, including the desktop hardware, desktop
software, connections from the desktop into the network, and
desktop support services.
In the past, Digital sales people would
typically generate a proposal that outlined the entire $1 million
solution, but would lose the desktop half of the solution to other
vendors. We got only half the total revenue even though we made
the sales effort to show the customer how the entire $1 million
solution worked.
That’s all changing now. With our new desktop
solutions, we can win the entire $1 million solution.
Our customers have three primary needs:
o to access the applications they need to get
the job done from the desktop;
o to communicate with people in their
department and across the entire organization; and o to share
information and resources with fellow workers, and workers in
other departments.
They need to be able to do all of these things
from any desktop system. When different workers have different
desktop systems, those workers must still be able to cooperate as
a team. And all of our large accounts already have a wide variety
of desktop system installed.
Digital’s Network Application Support (NAS)
strategy was developed to meet these needs. Built on a collection
of standards, the NAS strategy provides common applications
access, communications, and information and resource sharing
across multiple desktops, both Digital’s and other vendors'. This
strategy enables us to tie together terminals, personal computers
(those from Digital and other vendors), Macintoshes, VMS
workstations and Unix workstations into a unified whole. And these
devices are more than just connected to a network. They can work
together, sharing information, application-to-application and
worker-to-worker.
All of our customers have these needs, whether
they’ve made a desktop decision or not. If a customer has already
made a desktop decision, just say "yes," and sell NAS.
The customer may have selected a specific
desktop hardware system or may have standardized on a specific
desktop operating system or set of applications without specifying
a desktop device. Now none of these decisions is a "no" to
Digital.
If the decision has been made, we just say,
"yes," and provide the best way in the industry to integrate
their enterprise.
If the customer has standardized on a desktop
operating system or application set, we have the solution, too.
For instance, if they have just standardized on d-Base software,
we have a strong relationship with Ashton Tate. d-Base used to be
primarily an MS-DOS application, but that’s not true anymore.
We’ve just extended their range of capabilities making
applications like d Base compatible across multiple platforms.
Regardless of which desktop the customer standardizes on. we can
support it.
Our final opportunity is customers who want to
provide a broad range of capabilities to their employees, but who
don’t know which desktop solution to use to deliver it.
Before we make a recommendation, we need to:
o understand the users and their applications
needs,
o be able to match the appropriate desktop
solution to those needs, and
o and integrate the solution with the corporate
network through NAS.
That’s easier said than done.
There are two broad applications categories.
The first is simple applications, which generally involve text
and/or numbers. These applications require only a character cell
terminal device and black and white terminals. This is the
base-line in computing - every desk needs at least a terminal.
Examples of simple applications include data
entry or on-line transaction processing, data inquiry and
electronic mail. Data entry clerks use simple applications all day
long. Professionals and managers tend to log in a few times a day.
For these applications, our recommended choice is a video terminal
— our least expensive device. Digital offers an excellent line of
video terminals with the VT300 product family.
Some workers need more. They want sophisticated
applications that typically require heavy use of graphics in
addition to text and numbers. These applications require a bit-map
device for display and often require color. Sophisticated
applications include computer- aided software engineering (CASE),
expert systems for applications development, mechanical or
electrical computer-aided design (CAD), or sophisticated financial
applications and electronic publishing.
Those who use these applications are technical
professionals such as researchers, CAD designers and manufacturing
engineers, or business professionals, such as financial analysts,
marketing managers, and financial traders. Some secretaries also
must do a large volume of electronic publishing; so they need
sophisticated applications as well.
Digital now offers a range of products for
these sophisticated application needs. We can recommend a
DECstation 200 or 300, VAXstation3100, DECstation 3100,
orVAXstation3520or 3540 system.
Which personal computer or workstation is the
right one to offer for sophisticated applications? There are a
series of qualifying questions to help the customer select the
right device.
Is the predominant need MS-DOS applications or
is low price a key issue? If so, then recommend the DECstation 200
or 300 family. Some typical users in this category are
secretaries who have begun to use MS-DOS
electronic publishing packages, cost-center analysts who depend on
MS-DOS spreadsheets, or test engineers in a research environment.
The next questions are: "Do you need the power
of VMS? Do you need a complete computing environment built around
distributed applications with an identical capability from the
desktop to the data center? Do you need the best distributed
systems and network management in the industry? Do you need to be
able to run or access applications from multiple environments from
a single desktop?" If the answer to these questions is "yes," then
recommend a VAXstation 3100 system.
The next questions are: "Do you need a
specialized high-performance desktop systems? Or do you need to
have Unix as your primary operating system on the desktop?" If the
answers to these questions are "yes," recommend a DECstation 3100
system. These buyers will often include university research
scientists, since universities have often selected Unix as their
operating system. And it would include engineering simulation
applications, because these customers require very high
performance for their number-crunching.
The final set of questions is: "Do you need the
ability to do 3D modeling? Are you a professional, such as a
research scientist or a high-level CAD designer, who needs
extensive 3D modeling applications as a part of your job?" If so,
recommend a VAXstation 3520 or 3540 system.
All of our customers have difficult questions
to be answered. All have a mix of devices on their desktops. But
Digital’s commitment to standards in NAS gives us the capability
to integrate all of these different desktops into one environment
that works.
All the pieces are here, and the strategy is in
place to support your customers’ needs.
Digital has an opportunity to capture the
desktop market using service as the entry point.
We’ll use three new methods:
o We have formed a new service organization
dedicated to integrating and supporting desktop products. It will
become a trained extension of the sales force, contributing
directly to the bookings of sales people.
o We will provide a new approach to low-cost,
high-quality support for both Digital and non-Digital desktop
products.
o We will extend our network planning and
implementation capabilities to include specialized,
cost-effective services for the desktop.
All together, these three efforts will help put
the sales force in a position to capture the large desktop
opportunity.
It is estimated that there are about 15 million
personal computers today in American businesses, but less than 30%
of those personal computers work together. By the mid- 1990s, the
number of personal computers used worldwide in business will
triple and 80% of them will be connected. That creates tremendous
opportunities not just for tomorrow, but for today's sales.
Customers are searching for help right now. All
those desktop systems work well independently; but they’re not
sharing information, and end users are not as productive as they
could be.
Customers need to network those desktop systems
to capture their true power and connect the people in their
enterprise. But this networking needs services. It's critical that
end users receive support — the kind of value-added services that
help them become truly productive with their desktop systems.
Digital is in the best position to translate
those needs into reality. We’ve been gearing up for this for the
past 15 years. We have provided multi-vendor support for over five
years. We’ve connected general purpose and local area networks to
bring the enterprise together from the data center to the desktop.
And in the past year alone, we have project managed over 5000
network contracts.
We’re going to be aggressive. Field Service is
forming a new organization that, initially. will provide support
services for desktop products in the U.S. It will build on our
existing services portfolio and will focus on needs of the
workstation end user. These will be customized services driven by
customer needs.
This desktop service force will become an
extension of the sales force. They will be trained in sales
techniques and programs so they can give the sales force leads, or
even make some hardware sales that will be credited to the local
sales representative.
The new desktop service organization will be
managed by senior Field Sendee people and will focus on four areas
of support: o low cost, multi-vendor maintenance.
o applications support,
o advisory support,
o and Netplan support for the desktop,
providing interconnect services and support.
This full range of support services for the
desktop will be available immediately and easily to customers
through a central telephone hotline or through on-site support
representatives.
If desktop owners can look to one vendor for
high quality, cost-effective service, then we have the makings for
powerful long-term customer relationships.
Once Digital is the vendor of choice for
desktop services and support, our customers will look to us for
much more — in solutions, in application services and in planning
and growth support.
In the area of maintenance, we are introducing
highly competitive services for the vast majority of personal
computers, terminals and workstations used in business today,
including our own.
In short, we’re going to make it easy and
inexpensive for customers to have service for their desktop
devices. But we’ll keep the high Digital quality that customers
expect. And we'll provide this from a multi-vendor perspective.
We’ll service equipment from Digital, IBM, Apple, Compaq, Tandy,
Zenith, Olivetti and others.
But we’ll provide much more than maintenance
support. We’ll provide value-added, "handholding" support to the
end user, through a telephone hot-line for answers to all the
day-to-day questions. In addition to answering the easiest
questions like "How do I get my desktop system started?", we’ll
provide support on the most frequently used third party
applications, answering questions like, "How do 1 input my
Microsoft word file into Aldus Pagemaker?" We’ll provide answers
that will keep end users productive.
Through our advisory service, we’ll also
respond to broader applications needs, such as, "I have a token
ring network. Can I load Ethernet drivers into my IBM LAN server?"
We will be a planning partner with our customers.
We will also provide interconnect support with
Netplan services for the desktop. This will bring to the desktop
what we now provide for general purpose computing. And it will
answer the growing questions, "How do I make this all work
together?"
Our interconnect services give us our best
opportunity to make big inroads on the desktop.
There’s no other vendor out there — not even
IBM— who has said they will integrate and support your entire
enterprise across the full range of vendor products with a full
range of services that are competitively priced.
Today there are about 6 million personal
computers in Digital accounts. We anticipate that this will reach
11 million by 1991.
Our corporate goal is to win 2 million new
desktops over the next two years. We’re targeting departments of
all sizes in Digital accounts — large and small. But primarily,
we’ll go after connecting desktops of 50 or more. This will
include personal computers, workstations and terminals from
Digital, IBM, IBM clones, Compaq and Apple.
We’ll win because we’ll be competitively priced
with both national and international coverage. We'll win because
we’ll custom tailor support to meet our customers’ departmental
plans. Or we’U win because we can address a major program or
project opportunity at the corporate or enterprise level.
Our customers today are looking for total
solutions, not just products. They use their systems and networks
to keep ahead of their competitors, and they depend on us to keep
them competitive. We can do this by bringing our entire enterprise
services strategy to the desktop.
We work with information managers to plan,
design, implement and manage enterprise-wide computing strategies.
We combine the expertise of Field Service, Software Services and
Educational Services under the new systems integration umbrella.
Our services professionals are experts in
systems integration, with hundreds of successful projects to their
credit. With this expertise, we can win even the largest
integration projects, but especially those involving the desktop.
All of this will be further enhanced by our
educational services, which provide the critical link to our
customers’ success. We have hundreds of courses available in
multiple languages, using instructor-based or computer-based
training methods. We will train wherever it’s most convenient — at
their site or ours.
We enter into a partnership with our customers
to integrate their enterprise and to bring everything together
from the desktop to the data center. In short, we help craft the
right solution and make it all work.
Can we really deliver what we say we can? We
have a worldwide service organization of 39,000 top professionals
who deliver hardware, software and educational services from 450
service locations around the world. We’ve been providing
multi-vendor service since the early 1980s, and now support more
than 1000 products manufactured by 100 different vendors.
Our network service expertise is unrivaled in
the industry. We have more than 15 years experience designing,
implementing and managing customer networks around the world. Last
year our networks services business alone was as big as a Fortune
1000 company.
Over the last several years, we’ve invested
over $1 billion in our support resources, in customer support
centers and in technologies to provide the industry’s most
innovative and cost effective service.
And it’s paying off. For the past two years,
the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) annual customer survey
has ranked Digital number one in workstation service. (Last year
Hewlett-Packard ranked 4th and IBM 7th). So when we say we can
provide the services to capture the desktop — believe it.
This all translates into a quick and effective
entry into the desktop market. It means new orders for both
services and products. It means retaining customers and extending
our reach. It also means winning new customers.
Service will be there on the inside, gaining an
understanding first-hand of our customers’ business needs. The
service force will become an extension of the sales force.
Anything resulting from service's efforts will be credited to the
local sales representative. Now that we have the solutions that
customers need, Sales and Services, working together, can capture
the desktop.
Transaction processing means performing a
series of actions that together comprise the completion of a
business deal. It does not have to involve an exchange of money.
Sometimes it consists only of making an agreement, such as an
airline or hotel reservation.
But all activities that comprise a transaction
must be performed as a complete unit, or not at all. Imagine the
problems a shopper would have who was elbowed away from the
counter after paying but before getting his or her merchandise and
change.
A transaction is a series of activities that
must be carried through to completion. If this is not possible,
its participants must be able to return to their original state.
There is no half-way point.
Another way to look at transaction processing
is to compare modes of travel. The timesharing style of computing
is characterized by random start and end points, and random start
and end times. This is analogous to traveling by foot or by
automobile. You can start your trip where and when you like. And
mid-way. you can change your mind and proceed to a new
destination, anytime you like.
Transaction processing is more structured than
time-sharing, rather like plane or train travel, in which your
start and end locations are fixed. The time it takes to get from
your start to end point is what you try to optimize. For instance,
once airborne, the 200 passengers on a plane are committed to
flying to a single destination. They are not free to change their
minds in mid-flight, to each travel to 200 different places.
As a computing environment, transaction
processing exhibits a number of characteristics that differentiate
it from other types of computing. It plays an unusually critical
role in the businesses that use it. We call it the "you-bet-your
business" style of computing.
Imagine the importance of airline, hotel and
automobile reservation systems to travel agencies, for instance.
They essentially cannot operate without these systems.
Transaction processing systems also tend to
support large numbers of users - tens of thousands in many cases -
who are all accessing and modifying a large, shared database.
Every one of these users does transaction processing from a
desktop unit. That is the tie between transaction processing and
the desktop.
Transaction processing systems also must
provide extremely fast response time — while the customers wait.
Even small delays in response time can quickly deteriorate their
customer’s satisfaction.
Finally, each transaction executed by the
system — a credit card transaction, for instance — must be
executed with absolute integrity. Your credit card charges are
executed irrespective of other people’s charges. Each transaction
constitutes a separate business contract between participants.
In its most basic form, a transaction
processing (TP) system is very simple, consisting of a user
interface, an application and database management. A complete TP
system can run very efficiently on a single desktop. More often,
TP systems are accessed by many desktop users, or by groups of
users hooked into MicroVAX computers, networked to mid-range or
large Digital processors.
Transaction processing systems often experience
tremendous and unpredictable growth, requiring the ability to add
many desktop resources quickly and inexpensively.
This brings up the first of several distinctive
TP needs that Digital is particularly able to satisfy. At the
heart of a modem transaction processing system is a transaction
processing monitor. All the rest of the hardware, software and
networking required for TP involves products that are used in
other kinds of computing environments. The hardware is
desktop-intensive, quite often involving thousands of terminals or
thousands of workstations. The monitor is layered software that
connects the customer's application to the database, the hardware
and the operating system. The monitor coordinates a number of key
system functions, acting as a traffic cop.
Digital offers two TP monitors to meet
customers’ needs — DECintact and ACMS — both of which run on VMS
software. We provide that choice because, today, transaction
processing application development is performed in two very
different environments.
The DECintact monitor was purchased from a
third-party software vendor to give us instant access to banks and
the financial community. It provides an IBM style of programming.
This style provides flexibility and an inexpensive learning curve.
We bought the best base technology available and added Digital
quality. Our success with it was immediate.
The ACMS monitor offers high productivity,
fourth-generation language development tools and programming
techniques. This style provides program structure and low
application maintenance costs. This high quality product has
achieved particular success in manufacturing enterprises, among
others.
In the next two years, we will incrementally
merge DECintact and ACMS into a single monitor, with combined
functionality, while maintaining the two different interface
personalities. TP applications developed today will run on
Digital’s monitors of the future.
We’ve achieved major wins in some very large
accounts with these products. Our competitive advantages include
price/performance leadership, rapid application development,
scalability from the desktop to the data center, networked
transaction processing, and interoperability.
Before last July, Digital was not even
considered a player in the TP arena. IBM’s "RAMP C" benchmark was
the standard for transaction processing performance comparisons.
In July, we announced our price/performance leadership in
transaction processing, with a 3-to-l Debit-Credit
price/performance benchmark advantage over IBM. Today, less than
five months later, we are recognized as being a key player in the
game and have gained major "mind share" in this arena.
IBM is responding to the challenge on our
debit-credit benchmark terms. They recently joined the Transaction
Processing Council — the standards body for the Debit-Credit
benchmark, after initially ignoring it. That change underscores
their concern.
It’s very difficult to decisively win a
benchmark war. Price/performance metrics vary widely, according to
the application being tested and even the way the application is
run. Nevertheless, in many transaction processing environments, we
have significant price/performance leadership over our
competition.
Transaction processing is used by everyone from
universities to the U.S. Army, from major manufacturers to
telecommunication giants. We do sell to banks, but just as in the
case of airline reservation systems, transactions being processed
do not always involve exchanging money.
Transaction processing can be used by just
about every organization in a manufacturing enterprise — from
sales to field service, from marketing to manufacturing, from
engineering to finance, to personnel. The number of applications
that can benefit from transaction processing has barely been
tapped.
That is why this area is growing extremely fast
— 66% faster than computer industry as a whole. It is expected to
grow from a $26 billion business area today to over $50 billion by
1992. This is an opportunity that Digital cannot afford to miss.
Our desktop capabilities and strategy make a
powerful story. But the key to our success in this area is
networking.
Digital’s networking vision is very simple — we
will connect anything to anywhere at any time. In other words, as
end users and their MIS support make greater and greater demands
on their systems, Digital will already have in place the
networking capabilities to meet those demands.
We will do this by providing an unparalleled
combination of connectivity (meaning hardware) and
interoperability, distributed applications and network
manageability (meaning software).
Customers today find themselves with a wide
variety of systems sitting on the desktop because they have tended
to build desktops driven by application needs. Some picked desktop
systems for electronic publishing applications, others picked
workstations, like the VAXstation 2000 system, for engineering
applications. Now, customers want these desktop systems to be
connected. We can do that.
No one connects as many desktop systems as
Digital. If you've got it. we'll connect it.
Using the Ethernet industry standard, we can
connect all the Digital desktop systems from
terminals to Tandys, including Digital’s array
of personal computers and workstations. In addition, we offer
superb connectivity to the IBM 3270 and IBM-PC compatible world,
including ATs, XTs and PS/2s, as well as Compaq. Olivetti,
Zeniths, and Apple computers.
Customers also have an existing investment in a
wide variety of transmission media, and the costs in terms of
disruption of changing that media are very high. That is why we
offer the best choice for desktop connectivity — Ethernet — over
the widest variety of media, including unshielded twisted-pair,
twisted-pair, fiber optics, traditional coaxial cable, and
ThinWire coaxial cable, even microwave over our Metrowave Bridge.
The major Digital difference on the desktop,
and something the competition in Local Area Networks cannot
provide the end user, is "scalability." This means that if your
customers want three or five or seven desktop systems hooked
together to share files or share printers, we can do that now.
Then if someday this group wants to link to another department, or
division or another pail of the world, we’ll handle that, too. And
our customers won't have to replicate costly databases or get rid
of what they’ve purchased. We’ll allow customers to extend what
they've already done right out to a global, enterprise-wide level.
Scalability is the distinctive competence
Digital brings to the network. In short, it’s why we can say to
customers "start as small as you want; grow as large as you need."
Connectivity is easy. It’s not hard to create
physical links between systems. But the end user needs to make
those connections meaningful and useful. That requires
"interoperability." It is interoperability that enables all
system elements to seamlessly exchange information between
networked desktop systems, regardless of the vendor, their
operating system, or their location. This brings a lot of power to
the desktop.
No one empowers the desktop user more than
Digital. With Digital, there is a huge range of systems across
which applications are interoperable. Using our recently enhanced
IBM Interconnect products, applications can communicate across IBM
desktop systems as well as IBM compatibles from such companies as
Compaq, Olivetti, Zenith and Tandy. Applications can communicate
across VMS, ULTRIX, MS-DOS, OS/2 and Apple Macintosh operating
systems, and can all join a network. That’s the high level of
interoperability customers want.
End users need to integrate information found
outside their desktop. Using their personal computers or
workstations as terminals, they want to access host resources like
applications or files and transfer them back to their desks
without having to spend a lot of time doing it. We can do that.
Users also want the information and resource
sharing that comes when their desktop systems are integrated. For
example, they want the ability to use centralized printers or
high- cost disks not located at their desks.
More sophisticated customers are demanding the
advantages of application sharing. This occurs when users not only
share resources, but also centralized applications, which
individual users can then access. This provides significant
benefit to application maintenance, control and manageability.
Many companies are trying to meet these user
needs. But the key Digital difference is that from the end user’s
perspective, we’ll make these capabilities completely
transparent, completely seamless to the user. Users can do their
functions and not have to worry about navigating the network.
Digital also provides horizontal integration
capability for such tasks as sharing files and printers on
personal computer local area networks (PC LANs).
But perhaps more important, we can provide the
vertical integration capability that enables personal computers
to access widely dispersed and remote resources and allows
applications to talk to each other across the network.
We can do this because Digital’s network
architecture was designed from the beginning as a peer-to-peer
architecture, meaning that every node on the network, whether
personal computer or mainframe, has equivalent access
capabilities. This is what allows any desktop system user to grab
information from any system anywhere, any time it is appropriate.
No one offers the integration capabilities that
Digital does. Also, no one allows access to as many applications
from the desktop as Digital.
For example, Digital’s MAILbus product allows
customers to upgrade their electronic mail into a distributed
worldwide information environment. It integrates fully with VMS
and ULTRIX software across a Unix gateway. It supports
international messaging standards and connects through gateways to
X.400-compliant mail systems and public mail services, like MCI,
ITT and AT&T services. And it connects to mail systems of
vendors that don’t subscribe to international standards, like IBM
with PROS and DISOSS.
This is what Network Application Support (NAS)
can do. Based on our enterprise-wide networking capabilities, it
allows Digital to reach down from the enterprise to the desktop
easily.
No one allows access to enterprise-wide
computing resources as easily as Digital. Companies integrating
personal computers (PCs) on local area networks (LANs) cannot
easily integrate upward in corporate-wide networks. But Digital
allows users on LANs to easily incorporate the desktop into
enterprise-wide networks running distributed applications.
This means desktop users have direct access to
distributed applications, such as electronic mail, and services
such as videotext and electronic conferencing.
As enterprise-wide networks become the key to
integration of all those desktop systems, customers are going to
want their backbone networks to operate as cleanly, simply and
efficiently as an electric utility or telephone. And network
managers want the choice of where to manage the network.
One way to do that is to have centralized
management that can reach down and integrate LANs into an
enterprise network management scheme. With DECnet System Services
(DSS), Digital can do that and more.
DECnet System Services is a set of Digital
software products layered on top of DECnet. DSS makes it possible
to combine multiple VAX computing systems into a
highly-integrated, distributed computing environment.
With DSS, users can access remote files and
printers as though they were local to their own system. They can
eliminate system redundancy by storing one application centrally,
such as Lotus 1-2-3, and then accessing it when necessary with no
loss of performance. DSS truly makes the interoperability
seamless.
The DSS products also make system management
easier by providing tools for installing software and backup files
across the network. This capability is essential in environments
where desktop workstations are being used by workers who choose
not to manage their own systems. A single system manager can
provide services to a network of distributed client systems across
both VMS and ULTR1X based systems, bringing down the cost of
system management staff. Managers of local networks have a simple,
central focal point for backing up and restoring disks, loading
software and providing client administrative services like
directories, transparently to the desktop. In other words, these
products can help customers realize the full potential of
Digital’s desktop systems and Digital’s distributed computing
environment.
With the introduction of our new Enterprise
Management Architecture, an enterprise management system now can
extend the comprehensive network management products and services
we currently provide for Digital networks to multi-vendor
environments — to other vendors, other networks, other
technologies, and to the desktop.
When it comes to integrating desktops, there
are only a few simple things to remember: o No one connects to as
many desktop systems as Digital.
o No one connects to as many media as Digital.
o No one offers the scalability that Digital
does.
o No one empowers the desktop user more than
Digital.
o No one offers greater integration
capabilities than Digital.
o No one allows access to as many applications
from the desktop as Digital.
o And no one offers the simplified distributed
network management for the desktop that Digital does.
It is the unique combination of connectivity,
interoperability, distributed applications and network management
capabilities that allow Digital’s networking to provide the
winning edge on the desktop.
We won’t take the back seat to anybody. Digital
will provide users with what they want and need: the best desktop
systems and an environment that opens the entire resources of the
information system to the desktop.
In a recent Fortune magazine article, experts
predict a slowdown in the growth rate of sales of mainframes,
minicomputers and stand-alone personal computers. At the same
time, they predict a very sharp increase in the growth of "network
computers," which are workstations, personal computers and
distributed systems that are tied together.
This fundamental shift in the computer
marketplace is very good news for Digital. It means growth is
coming in an area where Digital does better than anyone else —
tying heterogeneous computing networks and systems together.
Much has been written about Digital’s false
starts in the desktop market. Our history in personal computers
has been much analyzed. You can expect that everything we do in
the desktop arena will be second-guessed, third-guessed and
compared to everybody else’s personal computers and workstations.
But in the end, what’s going to matter is what the customers say.
Beware of people who declare themselves winners
at the bottom of the second inning. Some of our competitors,
especially in the workstation business, have a two-inning game
plan. At the bottom of the second they were ahead two runs, and
they called the game over. Now we’re in the bottom of the third,
and we’re coming up with the top of our batting order.
Already, we’re growing a lot faster than the
markets that we’re in. And I predict that by the end of the game,
we’re going to be much higher in the standings.
Our strategy is "no-compromise computing." Our
customers get what they want in terms of power, price/performance.
operating systems, languages, applications, networks and sup
port. There is no need to trade off important
features or benefits. If customers want to do things differently
than what we’re used to doing, we can go with the flow. Whatever
they decide to do, we have an answer that matches.
Our theme is: "just say yes." We sell them what
they need. We sell them what they want.
The sales force makes the connection between
the customer and the products. The sales representative, unit
manager, district manager, corporate account manager, industry
sales manager and area sales vice-president all have roles in
supporting that connection, to find a fit, to make the match, to
make the deal, and to keep it.
Customers demand value in the short term —
measurable functionality, performance, capability and
applications. They want things that work. Typically, they also
have some price in mind either for the individual desktop element
or for the whole project. Customers compare what we offer with
everybody else is offering. Then they make a decision — hopefully
in favor of our systems.
Keeping customers is a whole different
bailgame. Now customers put a premium on protecting the
investments they’ve made. They need to see the system adapt to
changing business conditions, support evolving standards and deal
with growth. They want to be sure that whatever they’ve spent
money for - products, hardware, software, training, database
creation, application software - is treated with respect and is
valued and is adaptable. The quality has to be high enough so it
works most of the time. And when it doesn't work, they don't want
arguments about whose problem it is. You have to come in and fix
the problem, keep the systems running, and keep them current.
From the point of view of the sales force,
these are two different sets of considerations. To get customers,
it’s important to be there and to know what you’re talking about.
You have to be responsive and attentive. And in this competitive
world, you have to be tenacious.
Keeping customers puts a different set of
requirements on the sales force. You have to stay with the
customer through thick and thin, not just be there to pick up the
order. You should be there when the equipment gets installed. When
problems occur, you solve them. You chase the missing cables, or
get somebody to do it for you. You’re honest. You give straight
answers about scheduled deliveries. And you follow through on your
commitments.
You’re vigilant because, these days, everybody
with a two-car garage is in the desktop computer business. The
Digital sales person is challenged every day to come up against
people with a better niche or point solution.
Let’s consider how products and the sales force
combine to tip the scales in our favor.
Most of the time when we take IBM on
head-to-head, we win because our much stronger product story
offsets the fact that they have a much larger sales force.
On the other hand, if a customer has made a
decision to use Unix workstations, we have had problems. In these
cases, when we take Sun on head-to-head, they have had a better
product answer. As with Digital vs. IBM, an edge in product
strength overcomes a big discrepancy in the size of the sales
force.
I contend that our desktop announcements are
going to give us tremendous leverage and have an enormous impact
on our sales efforts in this market.
As we learn about the new desktop products,
remember the investments we’ve made in other areas — especially in
networking. Networking is essential to winning and keeping major
desktop projects. It is the capability that separates us the most
from the competition.
Our corporate architect, Bill Strecker, who
directs engineering spending among countless alternatives,
believes, "There is no limit to the market for innovation that
really solves people’s computing problems. But there is no market
for innovation that doesn’t solve problems." He coined the term
"vanity innovation." We don’t do vanity microprocessors or vanity
operating systems. If there’s no real added value, we're not going
to spend money on it.
We’ve made a lot of changes quickly. For a
company the size of Sun to make the kind of moves that we’ve made
in the past year would be remarkable. (And we do in a month as
much business as Sun does in a year.) The fact that we made these
kinds of changes and added them to an already winning strategy is
phenomenal. We challenge the conventional thinking.
In fact, I would characterize Digital as either
the world’s largest startup or the world’s most aggressive Fortune
50 company. That is how different we are from everyone else.
People respond to leadership. Customers like to
be led by sales people who know what they’re talking about. And
sales people like to be led by managers that know what they’re
talking about.
Our "no-compromise" strategy gives us
leadership at the product level and at the sales force level.
We’re going to win with leadership.
Over the course of the education and training
sessions, Ken Olsen, president, responded to a variety of
questions regarding Digital’s desktop products and strategy. The
following is a summary of a few of those questions and answers.
Why did
we decide to sell personal computers made by Tandy?
We had no justification for designing our own
personal computer. There are so many people in the personal
computer business already. There’s nothing left for us to
contribute in that area, and there are so many other places where
we want to contribute. So, we looked for a vendor who makes a very
high quality computer and who would be easy to work with and whom
we could trust. Tandy meets all our standards.
When we went into the personal computer
business ourselves in 1982, we decided to start with the highest
quality and eventually lower the price. Tandy, like many others,
started off with a low price and increased the quality as
customers demanded it. Today Tandy’s quality is at the point where
we want it. They have a high quality production capability in
Texas, and they need to sell more units. In particular, they do
not have a way into the office. Most offices do not want to have a
Tandy or Radio Shack on the label in the office, regardless of the
quality. So they need us to get legitimacy in the office. We need
them because they have the product and the price and quality are
right. Together we make a good combination.
How do
we deal with customers who are working with clones of Digital’s
new RISC workstation?
The processor does not completely define the
workstation. There’s a lot more in the design of it than what’s on
the chip. The fact that another company uses the same chip from
MIPS Computer Systems does not mean their workstation is a clone
of ours. If more people use the MIPS chip, it will be easier to
transfer software applications from one to another. So we
encourage others to use it even though that makes their products
in some ways closer to ours. We will win by adding features,
having quality, having a better sales, service, software support
and education organizations. We will win because of the rest of
the products Digital offers: the network and the large computers
to back it up and everything you need for doing computing around
the world and the whole enterprise.
Are
these alliances a significant new trend?
We always have had alliances and always have
been dependent on others. Our strategy from the very start of the
company was to never build what we can buy. Sometimes we drifted
away from that, but we want to use our resources, our energy,
enthusiasm and capital to do those things where we can make a
unique contribution. When we can buy from someone else, we’ll buy
from someone else. If you build something yourself and it costs
more than it would if someone else built it, you haven't added
value — you've added cost.
We want to continue to use alliances whenever
it’s wise. Some of them are particularly good. The alliance that
we have with Allen Bradley is a beautiful match. We look forward
tn more such alliances
With
cost of computing going down, cost of memory going down, cost of
disks going down, what happens to our business?
We used to write very concise software that
took very little memory, because that was all the memory that was
available. Little by little, we’ve gotten enormous memory and
enormous computing capabilities. Now we use these capabilities
for doing things much more quickly and doing much more complicated
things.
I think that trend will go on indefinitely —
we’ll need memories with millions and tens of millions of bytes. I
think computation speed will go up almost forever, and we’ll find
plenty of things to do, because there are so many things that
still aren’t done efficiently-
What’s
going to happen to us with standards?
Standards are good. The press worries that if
everybody has the same products, cost will be the only thing that
differentiates them. I don’t think that will happen.
Some computer companies, which have gotten
behind in proprietary software, are hoping that a standard
Unix-type system will mean they can generate hardware and won’t
have to develop a software system. Our point of view is that once
you have the standards, that’s just the start of the work.
In our version of Unix, our ULTRIX software,
we’re committed to offer the robustness, the quality and the
testing that we offer in our VMS software, plus the computer-aided
software engineering (CASE) tools and all the other things that
make VMS software work. We’re committed to make a Unix software
system that you really can trust. That is going to be expensive.
It’s going to take time. But it’s going to set us apart from all
the other people who don’t have it.
Why are
we so interested in standards?
The Open Systems Foundation (OSF) standards
include a whole list of things that come after the operating
system: the protocols, the human interface, the data base access,
the documents and so forth. If everybody meets those standards,
they can transfer data around the world, and everybody can work
together like we do today with our VAX and VMS products. The many
companies that already have a variety of different machines want
to get their whole enterprise working together. If we get
everybody to use those standards, they’ll probably be able to work
together around the world. That is the most important
contribution of the OSF standards. The second contribution is to
make software easy to transport.
We are interested in Unix because customers
want it. We are also interested because it will enable us to take
applications written for IBM and other companies and easily
transport them to our systems.
Theoretically, if you wrote the software in a
language, carefully following all the rules, it should be
transportable anywhere. Undisciplined languages and software
systems use all kinds of different features that are not common
between different versions; and; therefore, nothing is
compatible. But if there’s a list of things that you are allowed
to use, of calls that you can make on the operating system, then
if you follow the standards, it’s easy to make things
transportable. We look forward to that day because we want all
those applications written for IBM’s and anybody else’s equipment,
to work on ours.
Why do
we "undermarket" our products?
I don't want to undermarket, but if you assume
you have to err on one side or the other, I'd rather err on the
side of not promising things. I’d rather be able to deliver more
than we promised rather than less. That’s not just being overly
honest, (which I want to be), but it’s also good business.
The expensive part of selling is taking care of
those customers who are in trouble. Either they did something
wrong or we promised more than we can deliver. We want the
reputation and the trouble-free life of not promising more than we
can deliver.