Open by Rod Canion

Author:Rod Canion [Canion, Rod]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781936661923
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.

The Deskpro 386 event was a high point for Compaq. Every part of the company had contributed to its success, and many dedicated people had worked long hours in the summer months leading up to it. Afterward, there was little time to rest and reflect, however. The job of convincing the market that the Deskpro 386 wouldn’t be instantly obsolete when IBM introduced its 386 product had just started. We knew there would be many skeptics, so we planned an intensive publicity and advertising campaign for the weeks immediately following the announcement.

Two days after the launch, we ran an eight-page pull-out advertisement in the first section of the Wall Street Journal. The cost was astronomical, but it was part of the price of moving out in front of IBM. Every page contained a bold headline and addressed a key point. The advertisement reflected the same thoroughness we had exhibited in the announcement.

Initial media coverage in the major business publications was generally complimentary of the Deskpro 386, but many contained quotes from analysts, who pointed out the uncertainty of what IBM’s response might be and how it might affect Compaq.

My focus during the announcement on why that wouldn’t be a problem for us had gone a long way toward softening the analysts’ concerns, but they were far from eliminated. The one key point that did sink in was that likely, it would be six to twelve months before IBM would respond. They mostly agreed that our product would see strong demand during the interim.

The media coverage in the trade publications was more effusive with praise of the Deskpro 386. Every article recommended the product for applications that needed more power than the current 286-based products could deliver. Some of the articles went into a detailed analysis of applications where the 386 would make sense.

Media coverage aside, our customers and dealers went crazy over the Deskpro 386. We were already in production at the time of the announcement, but for a while afterward were limited by the number of 80386 chips available from Intel. The supply that was available was due to the “risk wafers” we had paid Intel to start. Our sales team worked with our dealers to make sure that as many 386 machines as possible went to companies evaluating the product. We wanted to be certain that the demand would be there when Intel’s chip supply ramped up in the first quarter of 1987.

The immediate success of the Deskpro 386 was partly due to its ability to run all the existing PC software, plug-in boards, and peripherals. We had established a reputation with the Deskpro 286 for being able to do that, and thus had begun the process of educating the market on the value of backward compatibility. The Deskpro 386 raised awareness of the value of backward compatibility by an order of magnitude because it was such a vivid demonstration of its power. We proved that a company other than IBM could successfully introduce a new, advanced microprocessor as long as the product maintained complete backward compatibility.

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