DEC LARGE SYSTEMS PRODUCT STRATEGY

This document is a "Red Book" presentation dated October 30, 1978, detailing the product strategy for DEC's large mainframe systems.

Key points include:

• Strategic Focus: DEC's strategy centered on leveraging its success in interactive computing to maintain leadership in large-scale data processing. The focus was on "superior cost performance" for mainframe systems optimized for communication-based data processing under a unified operating system.
• Core Objectives: Key goals included ease of use, transparent distributed data processing, high system availability, and providing migration tools for the installed DEC-10 base to transition to TOPS-20 based systems.
• Product Roadmaps: The document outlines the evolution of DEC mainframe families, including the DECSYSTEM-10 and DECSYSTEM-20, and introduces future development projects such as "Minnow" and "Dolphin."
• Operating Systems: The plan prioritized the evolution of TOPS-20, signaled a move to "minimize" investment in TOPS-10 to satisfy the existing base, and discussed the development of VMS for new engines.
• Competition: The document identifies IBM as the primary competitor, noting the industry shift toward IBM's 370 architecture and software standards. DEC planned to compete by emphasizing interactive connectivity and superior cost-performance.
• Investment & Projection: It includes detailed tables regarding development investment (in millions of dollars) through fiscal year 1983 and projected system shipment revenue, highlighting the transition of the installed base.