Digital Equipment Corp is failing on both sides of its business. Product revenue for the most recent quarter slumped 10.7% to $1.84bn, which suggests that Alpha sales, which were already going ex-growth in the first two quarters, are now in decline – but services, where almost everyone else is seeing at minimum significant growth, is also in decline, off 5.7% at $1.48bn. Unit sales of Alpha systems rose 6% in the third quarter over the second quarter as the company slashed prices to make the things less uncompetitive – customers demand a very big discount for the manifest risks in investing in equipment from DEC, but the sales rise meant only that Alpha revenue dipped 2%.
