So what went wrong?

[lsegal]

Ava, "modify" works. Thanks

I don't recall what, if anything I had chosen as an Avatar, so I just picked "none" for now to get rid of the red-X.

[Paul Donaldson]

What went wrong?  Well, from the sales and marketing perspective one major problem was the fact that the sales folks were considered necessary evils in the Digital cultural firmament.  This sense originated at the top, IMHO, with KO himself.  Ken thought that if the company produced the best engineered products the market would beat a path to our door.  Sales people were suspect to Ken; remember, we didn't have a commission plan for a very long time.  He felt that a commissioned sales person might well try to sell expensive and unnecessary equipment to customers in order to "pad" their numbers at the expense of the customer's trust and faith in Digital when such was realized by that customer. Fool me once, shame on you and the customer would most likely not give that sales person a second chance to fool them!

In sales, we had a sense just about as quickly as any group in the company that the market was changing and changing quickly.  We also realized that the company was not even listening to what we had to say in terms of, "Hey, guys, we aren't being asked for _________; our customers want ___________" with the second _________ frequently being what became the PC.  KO's comment has been tauted as a sign that he was out of touch with the market and to an extent he really was. 

We, as a company, "drank our own bathwater" and believed we were pretty much infallible. Our products were the BEST engineered because KO said so, our engineers were the best because THEY said so (don't flame me, not ALL engineers felt this way but many truly did) and as a company we adopted a rather arrogant attitude that preceded our fall.

Add to the fact that we ceased being able to lead the market -- for so many reasons stated here and in others posts -- the fact that we were actually outrun -- and over run -- by market demand for products we simply did not have and would never have.  Our cost structure was consistently reduced after Robert Palmer (who, I will go to my grave believing, was an IBM-plant!) succeeded in his "palace coup" and began selling off business units (and the very Mill itself!) wholesale. 

Lastly, we were a company doing $14 billion in sales with a billion dollars cash on hand with 100,000 +/- employees and were a $14 billion business with slightly less than a billion dollars cash on hand with 65,000 employees.  That makes it pretty clear that, by the early '90s, Digital was fatally top heavy and burdened with an enormous fixed cost structure.  Other posts here describe that fact well from the engineering perspective. 

In job interviews years after Digital ceased to be I was asked why I had stayed at Digital for so long.  The implication was that Digital was "daycare for adults" and that those of us who worked for Digital were somehow suspect; we must have been lazy so-and-sos and part of the reason why the company failed in the end.  A point of personal pride, my ten year association with Digital, had been thrown back at me as a negative. I was shocked! 

In the end, IMHO, we were done in by our own arrogance and sense of inevitability. 

Remember the slogan we used -- tongue in cheek internally -- as a counterpoint to IBM's high brow, self congratulatory "We change the way the world thinks"? We used to say, "We're Digital, we Change" and meant by that the every 2 year cycle (Silly Season it was called in Channels Marketing/Sales if I recall correctly) of reorganizing virtually the totality of this or that business group.  Well, we DIDN'T change in the way and manner we went to market or with the products we brought to the market and that was the kiss of death for an otherwise superlative company.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Have a day.

Paul

   

[will_emerson]

"daycare for adults"

I do remember there being "managers" without any direct reports. Always wondered about that...

It uesd to infuriate me that I'd see TV ads for "It's Better Manual" but not for us...

In the end, IMHO, we were done in by our own arrogance and sense of inevitability. 

Remember the slogan we used -- tongue in cheek internally -- as a counterpoint to IBM's high brow, self congratulatory "We change the way the world thinks"? We used to say, "We're Digital, we Change" and meant by that the every 2 year cycle (Silly Season it was called in Channels Marketing/Sales if I recall correctly) of reorganizing virtually the totality of this or that business group.  Well, we DIDN'T change in the way and manner we went to market or with the products we brought to the market and that was the kiss of death for an otherwise superlative company.

Sad to say but, as is heard in many Grange halls in Maine at fundraising events: "BEANO!!! <BINGO!!! for those unfamiliar with The Pine Tree State>"....

[Paul Donaldson]

Off topic, Will, but I have to comment; when I was 9 years old my mom took me to a Beano game at the church on Peaks Island (which is where I grew up) and I actually won $87.  I was thrilled as only a 9 year old who thought a dollar was a LOT of money could be thrilled!

Sadly, however, the minister was appalled and wouldn't let me have the money; I was too young to have been allowed to play.  He was right, of course, and my mom should have collected the dough for me.  In the end my winnings were handed over to her and I figured I was "all set".  Wrong.  She gave me $5 and the rest of the money went into my savings account "for college".

Since that day I have refrained from going to any Beano (or Bingo for the flat landers from away among us) games.  BTW, the game was played using actual beans to cover the numbers not plastic chips or, as I'm told they do today, marker pens.

All the best, Paul

[will_emerson]

Paul, that brings back a lot of childhood memories!

BTW, the game was played using actual beans to cover the numbers not plastic chips or, as I'm told they do today, marker pens

Yup! REAL BEANS! i grew up (and still do) believ(e)ing  that "BINGO" was (is) a counterfeit of the real game!