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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ian@SI who wrote (31370)	7/12/1999 11:22:00 AM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Respond to of 70976

>>Great companies continuously remove product cost through improved quality. Companies that are withering away tend to believe they can't afford to improve their products.<< Great companies look at results, not trendy buzzwords. Great companies recognize that there is a tradeoff between different measures of quality, for example between CD control in a piece of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and MTBF in that same piece of equipment, and ask their customers how to make that tradeoff. I don't know off the top of my head what AMAT's average MTBF is. I'm quite sure it's closer to 500 hours than 5000 hours, though. Would you describe AMAT as "withering away?" Have you adjusted your portfolio accordingly? I'd also like to know precisely what your expertise in product engineering is, since you seem so willing to declare typical design practice to be the product of a "sick culture." Katherine

To: Ian@SI who wrote (31370)	7/12/1999 11:49:00 AM
From: Math Junkie	Respond to of 70976

Well, so far you've gone from telling me the company I work for is no good, to accusing me of having a closed mind. When do we get to the part where you actually deal with the issues I raised? You tell me I'm closed minded, yet you haven't even tried to counter any of the specific points I made.