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

To: Captain Jack who wrote (59767)	4/23/1999 9:17:00 PM
From: Andreas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Let's cut the crap!! MR ROSEN READ THIS, IF YOU PLEASE!! It should be obvious by now that cpq (i) lost market share and (ii) their profit margins went to hell in a hand basket. Rather than sitting around and discussing how inept former managment was let's start asking a few intelligent questions and try and determine the "why". Why did cpq lose market share? Why did business customers prefer to go elsewhere? What is it specifically about Q1 that caused buyers to shun cpq in some instances and go to ibm or dell or hwp or gtw? If Rosen is the cracker jack that some of you would have me and others believe then he is already looking at lost sales and demanding his sales direct-reports to provide a written report as to lost sales by customer, date of lost sale, volume of sales lost, and explanation as to why. Furthermore, Rosen will know that sales would have dropped even further without the massive cpq price cuts which killed profit margins. In a nutshell, all things being equal, customers bailed from cpq!!! Now, lets figure out why and address that issue!! Customers just didn't wake up one morning and decide, "i hate cpq and will therefore buy a competing product". Consumers are rational and will base their decisions on perceived value. I can give you one example. CPQ lost the EDS account!! Why? I have talked to the eds people close to the eds decision makers. Listen up Mr. Rosen! EDS dropped cpq because of a marked drop in support and a perceived arrogance on the part of cpq sales that said, "if you don't like it shove it, we're cpq" A long time relationship with eds, was seriously damaged by the sales people that handled the eds account in the last 12 months. Heads should role!! These inept, incompetent, cpq jack-ass sales people responsible for the eds account should be shown the door. And I have got to wonder how much other damage was done by certain segments of the cpq sales force. In a nutshell fellow cpq shareholders. Forget about a lot of round words about Pfeiffer and Mason. They are merely symptomatic of a deeper problem - a cultural problem - one of arrogance and apparent indifference to the needs of customers. Shareholders can't get through to IR and customers can't get their concerns answered. Somebody like Rosen needs to roll up his sleeves and get down and dirty. Rosen and the office of the CEO neeeds to get down into the facts, deep facts, specifics not generalities. My guess is that cpq has been treating their customers of late the way they treat their shareholders - With indiffence and arrogance. MR ROSEN!!!! GET INTO IT!! FIND OUT WHY YOU HAVE LOST CUSTOMERS AND WHY THE BIRDBRAINS IN SALES THOUGHT THE ANSWER WAS TO CUT PRICES AND ERODE MARGINS! CANVASS SOME OF CPQ'S CUSTOMERS!! I THINK YOU WILL FIND SOME OF THE ANSWERS ENLIGHTENING AND ULTIMATELY BENEFICIAL TO ALL OF US SHAREHOLDERS.