🚀 go-pugleaf

sybertz@ketje.enet.dec.com writes:
>Believe it or not, but we have a lot of requests from customers for OSF/1
>Alpha. This means that we have a lot of work to answer all different aspects
>and we cannot do everything in one day ! We have to put some priorities ! 
>The mail you are speaking about has to be putted in this context : asking for
>some feedback to put a priority.

	I sympathise with the problem of lack of resources and being forced
to prioritize. I've heard that complaint many times, and I understand what
it feels like to be on the short end of "lack of resources".

	On the other hand, lack of resources is part of being a vendor. It's
part of being a *successful* vendor to know how to prioritize internally,
and to know how to keep lack of resources from hurting your business. Digital
seems to have no understanding of the basic fact:

	A vendor's customers don't care about lack of resources. They can
	-----------------------------------------------------------------
	buy from someone who doesn't have that problem.
	-----------------------------------------------

	Market analysts get paid big bux (probably much more than the folks
from DEC who read news in their spare time at 2:00am) to know what customers
want. A vendor that knows what customers want and is able to *anticipate*
those needs is what is called "in touch with the market." A vendor that is
constantly in a reactive mode because of lack of resources, where the
vendor's top technical staff (who often are in touch with the market) are
forced to beg for ammunition to help fight internal battles is "out of touch"
and often "out of luck" because by the time those battles are fought,
your competitor has stolen a march on you. This is called, in modern
buzz words, "being proactive." Boy scouts call it "being prepared." Some
people, myself included, take lack of preparedness as an indication of
lack of commitment. Vendors cannot afford this.

	I sympathise with Digital's problems, but if I were a customer of
Digital's, I would't *care* about them. There's a subtle distinction.

mjr.