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To: Mary Cluney who wrote (68517)	11/13/1998 10:21:00 AM
From: Joseph Pareti	Respond to of 186894

>You get some techies to come up with some >innovations and the right marketing guys >to come along and exploit >the hell out the product This is basically what Ken Olsen did if you are old timer enough to know what I mean. A real manager. A man with vision and charisma. Then came the new generation of DIGITAL suckers ... Great products and marketing flops. At least Eckard is much more of a manager than those guys.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (68517)	11/13/1998 11:59:00 AM
From: Tony Viola	Respond to of 186894

Mary, >>>Compaq is managed by marketing people. I have no doubt they are very hard working and very intelligent. But for them to go from a successful market niche in making boxes to becoming a high tech company is a real stretch. It usually works the other way around. You get some techies to come up with some innovations and the right marketing guys to come along and exploit the hell out the product - and finally killing it by squeezing everything out of it.<<< You went a lot further with the Tandem/Compaq thing than I did. One always has to stay discreet when using company resources (HW plus logon). But, it sounds like what you have been brewing in your mind about Compaq is much what I did hear last week. >>>I can't imagine CPQ Eckhardt Pfeiffer sitting down with his engineers and explain his "vision" for the company. As for their management - I was just watching Michael Dell on Squawk Box and compared his interview with Pfeiffer's the other night on CNBC - I'm tempted to short CPQ.<<< Would be tempting, although Compaq stock "looks" cheap (low dollars). Also, CPQ is kind of a "darling", I think, like an AMAT. A lot of people seem to want to own it, no matter what. I saw Michael Dell on Squawkbox also. I think that if you look up charisma in the dictionary, you'll find Dell's picture next to the description. OTOH, I also heard Pfeiffer's "they cannot keep up with us in pricing", or something, earlier this week. Reminded me of Kruschev's "we will bury you" type of utterances in the 60's. Charisma, or lack of it, can be important, like it or not. Tony

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (68517)	11/13/1998 1:07:00 PM
From: Tony Viola	Respond to of 186894

Mary, also about Michael Dell on Squawkbox today, he sang a little from the same choirbook as Andy Grove (no surprise there). He mentioned that there are something like 325 million networked PCs today, and predicted 1.4 billion within ten years. Another thing about Dell, he said, is that 90% of their customer base (in terms of revenue, I think) is business and industry. That makes for another clear reason to me why they stay with Intel only: Quality, Reliability and Availability of products in whatever quantities it takes. My PC vendor (not a Dell but not a Mom and Pop either) repeated to us two weeks ago that they don't feel confident in using AMD in PCs they build for us. The reasons are Q, R and A. Tony

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (68517)	11/13/1998 1:44:00 PM
From: Scumbria	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Mary, I can't imagine CPQ Eckhardt Pfeiffer sitting down with his engineers and explain his "vision" for the company. I have a little anecdote which gives some insight into Pfeiffer's view of engineering. One of the first things he did as CEO was send out a memo to the engineering staff, offering them the opportunity to work in the "phone support" department. Needless to say, Compaq lost a lot of top talent after Rod Canion's demise. Scumbria