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To: JRI who wrote (54136)	7/26/1998 6:59:00 AM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 176387

John - OK - I'll bite. Ingram is not building 'white boxes' for CPQ - they are building CPQ boxes from CPQ components and designs. Ingram is not (at least in CPQ's case) developing any design capability by this process. So I don't see any real risk that CPQ is helping to build a competitor or weakening its brand. Coca-cola does not weaken its brand when someone else puts the coke in the bottle. CPQ has done some mfg outsourcing for a long time, at least since the 1991 reorg when EP took over. It is also a step in getting CPQ's own MFG smoothed out, since CPQ factories can run at or near capacity, with Ingram handling 'overflow' mfg. I think this is an intermediate step, since the costs don't really disappear and in some cases may be higher. This is a way for CPQ to test some different mfg and distribution methods. They clearly don't have the answer yet but are pursuing several different options to see what the real benefits will be.