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Technology Stocks : DSS: DLT finally open for trading -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Z Analyzer who wrote (124)	10/29/1999 3:29:00 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 488

A report from the field: Well, I finally got ahold of a former boss and still friend who I haven't spoken with for probably 4 or 5 years yesterday who is now a VP in IS for a national firm (about $700m in annual revenue) that is primarily a heavy VAX and UNIX user. I asked him about what his experiences with DLT, AIT, and Mammouth have been, and if he had any interest in LTO at all. When he first hired me in the early 80s, the first thing he told me (I was VERY raw at the time as far as computers went, and knew nothing about the PDP11/70s that I was hired to help manage) was that the 3 most important rules in managing any computer operation are, "(1) Backup, (2) Backup, and (3) Backup some more", so I figured he would be a good person to touch base with on these issues. He is, I should add, at this point a step or two removed from operations, but still hears about problems with equipment. He has, he thinks, about 6 or 7 DLT7000s, a couple of AIT drives, and has recently received 3 DLT8000s, which are scattered around several different sites in the US and Canada. He loves the 7000s ("They're just DEC's old tape drives done right," he says), and he is not aware of any media or transport problems. He has had some driver problems with the AITs, and neither he nor his people like them as much as DLT. Mammoth isn't on his radar screen at all, and he doesn't even know anyone who uses it. He hasn't yet gotten a full evaluation of the 8000s, except that they didn't work when they first got them because the drives were too fast for the -----[something, but I forget what widget he said here, sorry], but once whatever it was was replaced with a more appropriate widget, it ran smoothly in its first workouts. He expects he'll hear more sometime in the next month or two, but doesn't really know when, it's not the kind of issue that he would get heavily involved in unless it has serious problems, so no news is good news on that score. While he has heard a little about LTO, and he has used Magstar in the past, he hasn't heard anything that makes him eager to see it, and it doesn't really exist yet for him or his people. His philosophy is, if you've got a good backup system that serves your foreseeable needs, you don't mess with it. Which I think is another way of saying that installed base matters, though execution of timely delivery of SDLT will still be crucial to maintain that top dog advantage. I bought back the the DSS today that I sold a month or so ago at 18 1/2. It wasn't that much, but then I'm overweighted in the stock. I feel a lot more comfortable with my position after my conversation than I did beforehand, and think that if they give a good demo at Comdex next month, the stock will get a nice lift.