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To: Pigboy who wrote (47021)	2/3/1998 9:39:00 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 186894

Pigboy,>>>I have a small fear that Compaq wants to use Alpha against Intel<<< Eckhard Pfeiffer has an insatiable appetite. I doubt he will be satisfied being number three or even number two for that matter. Compaq will be all things to all in the computer industry. Pfeiffer has stated as much. Any business that IBM is currently in, Compaq will also be there within 5 years - chips and all. I just hope Andy has enough paranoia left in him - Intel survival is at stake - again. Mary

To: Pigboy who wrote (47021)	2/3/1998 12:27:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

pigboy - Re: '. Is it obvious that Alpha is going the way of amd or cyrix?" Yes - to everybody - DEC, Compaq and Intel. Both DEC and Compaq as well as about 35 major hardware and software vendors have lined up behind Intel's Merced. Merced will be the future. However, getting to the future is another story. DEC's ALPHA is a good server CPU and I recollect DEC ships about 275,000 +/- Alphas each year in Servers & Workstations. The Alpha Server is a real high end machine - big bucks. By purchasing DEC, Compaq gets these Alpha accounts. By supporting these customers with new Alpha chips/servers/support over the next year or two, Compaq can count on them as being real potential customers for Compaq's new servers and systems, circa 1999 and 2000. To this end, Compaq will have an extended customer base with (by then) a two year business relationship. They will be prime customers for Compaq's Merced Enterprise Systems. Moreover, the sales and support systems that DEC has for Alpha will also come along to bolster Compaq's workforce and customer relationships. DEC has excellent UNIX and NT experience and a key Microsoft relationship in the NT arena. The old VAX experience will look good in company history books. In esssence - Compaq is buying present and future customers. The Alpha chip is incidental - it happens to be the "magnet" that has pulled the customers into the DEC/Alpha camp and will eventually pull these same customers into the Compaq camp, from which they can be uopgraded to Industry Standard Hardware - translated, that means INTEL-Based machines. In this manner, COMPAQ will grow their sales in a step-function mode - tacking on DEC's revenue stream to Compaq's revenue stream. Assuming Compaq can manage expenses, i.e., pare down DEC's unnecessary "personnel", Compaq can grow their earnings as well. With growth, the economies of scale come into play and can ultimately (if managed correctly) reduce the corporate costs of the combined DEC-Compaq corporation. In summary, Compaq gets a step function in revenue, high-end customer accounts and a trained (but bloated) support workforce and sales team. This positions Compaq for continued sales and growth and gives them a ready-made customer base for high end Merced Enterprise Servers in a year or two when they become available. Paul