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

To: rudedog who wrote (61098)	5/11/1999 4:19:00 PM
From: fooledalot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

rudedog, Regarding John Rando: On the outside I have heard a number of positive comments, issues, etc. supporting the success that Rando had brought to the renewed life of DEC's--then CPQ's--Service Dept. Most of this has come from the media, so I have never really known the degree of accuracy involved. On the other hand, I have a neighbor that works within the Corp. Accounting Group at CPQ. The word I have gotten is that the integration of DEC--and even for Tandem, for that matter--has not necessarily progressed effectively. The basic problem, as I understand it, has been that a considerable percentage of upper level management had/has been retained from the old DEC organization and that the basic "modus operandi" at DEC had been to build several layers of bureaucratic middle management. With this, of course, the decision making process in general at Digital had come to a virtual halt. (This process had also permeated into Compaq Classic, which, I believe, this has now become apparent.) I guess this problem was even prevalent within the Services Div. Also, due to the nature of the Services business and its accounting specifics, there has been ample room to bury or cover certain problems/cost variances, etc. in the books so that the Group's performance has had potential to look much better than it actually is. If this theory has any truth, then keeping Rando would have, in effect, left his bureaucratic hierarchy in place and would have, IMHO, provided a potential environment for perpetuation of the allusion of a certain amount of success, when in fact, there may not have been(or be)as much as the "smoke & mirrors" may suggest. At the least, under such a structure, I would think making a serious threat to IBM's services market share would be highly difficult. From your perspective, what is your take on such a scenario? Can you corroborate or would you refute? Would appreciate your candid assessment and/or comments. f