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

To: Kelvin D. Nakamichi who wrote (33069)	9/17/1998 1:46:00 PM
From: Roy F	Respond to of 97611

Compaq and Oracle Release Oracle System Sizer 4.0;Simplifies Sizing Compaq ProLiant Servers for Oracle OLTP Applications September 17, 1998 01:40 PM HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 17, 1998--Compaq Computer Corporation CPQ today announced it has teamed with Oracle Corporation ORCL to make the Oracle System Sizer 4.0 available to customers. The Oracle System Sizer is an accurate and easy-to-use software tool that produces system sizing information for customers who are planning to install Oracle7 or Oracle8 OLTP applications on Compaq ProLiant servers running Microsoft Windows NT. This tool provides advanced functionality not available with competitors' tools including recommendations based on relative price, suggested initial tuning parameters, calculated performance numbers, Compaq part numbers for solutions and support for Compaq ProLiant servers, disks and controllers. This tool is available free-of-charge for immediate download from both the Compaq and the Oracle Web sites. For more details on this new sizer, please visit the Compaq Web site at: compaq.com Company Background: Founded in 1982, Compaq Computer Corporation is a Fortune Global 100 company. Compaq is the second largest computer company in the world and the largest global supplier of personal computers. For more corporate information, see: compaq.com. Compaq, Registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. For further editorial information, contact:

To: Kelvin D. Nakamichi who wrote (33069)	9/17/1998 1:50:00 PM
From: Night Writer	Respond to of 97611

Kelvin, I'm playing golf tomorrow. Keeps my mind and hands away from the computers and phones. I don't think we are going to see the 20s this week. Next week is a whole new ball game. NW

To: Kelvin D. Nakamichi who wrote (33069)	9/20/1998 1:17:00 PM
From: Kelvin D. Nakamichi	Respond to of 97611

Thread: Does anyone know if CPQs web sales numbers are available anywhere? We hear a lot about Dell's $6M/day, I wonder how CPQ's doing. This IS THE way to sell computers and CPQ should be exploiting it to the max. Are prices of web-ordered systems less than the channel's prices? If so, do their channels get pissed off by being undercut by CPQ? That may be one of the reasons behind the in-store kiosk idea which struck me as kind of 80's thinking when I first heard about it. It keeps the reseller in the loop but otherwise is kind of questionable. Why? First, it's only targetted at the consumer buyer. If the buyer is web-savvy, they will use the Internet. If they drive all the way downtown to the store, chances are they will be dealing with a salesperson. Sure, they may dicker around with configurations etc on the kiosk but the purchase will ultimately be made with a salesperson. So the salespersons time may be saved. Who cares? CPQ shouldn't. Second, the cost of kiosk hardware and ongoing maintenance can be substantial. Third, store sales staff don't care if the kiosk is down or malfunctioning which they do a lot cuz a lot of kids are banging it around. Also the negative perception of the Compaq kiosk being down is greater than say, the Wal-Mart Cosmetics kiosk being down. And this is right when the consumer is making a computer buying decision. On the plus side, the kiosks could steer buyers toward a CPQ system over a competitors. They'll give Compaq more "presence". The solution? Instead of kiosks, why not have some application that runs on CPQ demo machines in the stores that do the same thing as the kiosks do? They could a host gateway if required which would allow perpetual updating, remote sanity checks, etc. The sales staff would just plug in the phone line and initiate the application. This application would be easily uninstalled if desired of course. Picture rows of users in the store all using the "kiosks" on the very machine they may be evaluating for purchase. It eliminates hardware, support staff, saves the retailer floor space and keeps him in the sales loop. Sorry for ranting but I used to build kiosk systems in the 80's and early 90's so I'm familiar with the problems. Today, I would talk a client out of a kiosk-based system in favor of a web-based system. Kelvin