Seems that incoming president Robert Palmer intends to instigate sweeping changes at Digital Equipment Corp as soon as he takes over tomorrow, and according to internal memos seen by PC Week, plans to cut costs by $1,000m and shake up sclerotic procedures in an effort to speed product development and delivery. The changes were outlined in a 14-point initiative distributed to top employees according to the industry paper. As well as cutting costs by $1,000m, substantial further divestments are planned to reduce assets by another $1,000m. He wants to combine the company’s hardware engineering groups into a single unit; put the separate networking products into one network communications group; and follow the IBM Corp model by creating individual business units that have more autonomy. DEC confirmed existence of the memos, but would not provide copies of them or give additional information. Our products are difficult to understand and sell, the New York Times quotes Palmer as writing: It is difficult for customers to do business with us. Overall, our business practices, processes, services and products are not competitive and are not satisfying our customers’ requirements.
