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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eddie Kim who wrote (15261)	1/27/1998 7:29:00 PM
From: Spots	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Eddie You've presented a lot of good points here and one very provocotive post (Digital Needs Big Shakeup) techweb.com Here's a quote from it: Digital's technological strength has historically been underexploited by its management, Pfeiffer said. "Digital has always been known for its rich technology, which was never fully utilized," he said. "We can take that much, much further." I could have made exactly the same comment about Tandem, up to a point. The point which it stopped is exemplified in another quote from the same article: The Compaq chief executive launched an attack on Ken Olsen, Digital's founder who resigned in 1992 after refusing to cut jobs and move away from proprietary technology. "Over time, there has been a strong Ken Olsen spirit -- 'not invented here' -- although that has changed over time." Tandem's founder, Jimmey Treybig, had the good sense to move on eventually. It took him awhile to realize it, but he did it. Olsen was ousted, Treybig saw the handwriting on the wall. Yes, Treybig was pressured by the board, but did it voluntarily (or nearly) in the end. For that I give him credit. After Treybig, Roel Pieper came in and reorganized the company and (I'm convinced, though can't prove) marketed it successfully to CPQ after putting it back on track. The parallel for DEC, and again I quote the above article, is: Digital lost its way in the early and mid-1990s because it took its eye off the ball, according to Pfeiffer. "You have to be very, very awake each day and watch what's happening around you in the industry," he said. "You must never be in denial and you must always evaluate and be prepared to change quickly," he said. "You constantly need to watch where the customers are really moving," Pfeiffer said. "Digital has not done that," he said. "They were stuck in their space, not willing to accept that the world was changing." To complete my comment, Trebig realized this to his credit and stepped aside. Pieper took big steps toward fixing it and farmed out the rest to CPQ, having gone as "fur as he could go". Will DEC work out as well for CPQ? I hope so, since I'm a big CPQ investor. But Olsen and successors didn't quite have Treybig's vision or (and Tandem folks reading this will laugh but it's true anyhow, at least up to a point) humility. Regards Spots