The margins were because of a lucky circumstance. Selling to the gov't
is highly regulated with very specific margins. Great way to limit your
growth. Because the oil companies decided to start doing shot analysis
in the field instead of recording and bringing back to the office they
needed a ruggedized field computer. They bought them like Pez!
Because ROLM could prove that more than 50% of sales was not to the
Gov't we could set our own prices and the Gov't had to buy list. And
the oil companies were rocking and rolling so the price was high.
ROLM was descended from a group at GTE that did a lot of military
radio comms projects and so had good military roots. They didn't start
with doing the PBX's that actually came about 5 years later. They saw
that Mil-spec was limited in growth and term ( they understood that
processors would come to dominate, very sharp engineers ).
You pretty much nailed ROLM ( GREAT PLACE TO WORK, company slogan )
except that the PBX's weren't an original thought. I was there from
82-85 when the IBM and acquisition and then the Loral spin off of the
mil-spec systems happened. We were on the moon when IBM bought and in
the dumps when the DOJ said IBM had to sell us.
One of the best times was working with Red Force where I got to go up to
the snake river canyon and watch B-52's fly by below us up the canyon
from the rim where our Red Force radars ( run by ROLM computers ) were
the bad actors for the BUFFS to decoy and jam. Yes we got off the cliff
when they lit the jammers up, you could cook chicken with the as close
as they were. Went there three times with new code and one time they
flew the snake in fog. That was totally awesome! I also worked
extensively on GLCM and SLCM projects..
Oh Ken Oshman was a great CEO and Dennis Pabojian (sp?) was a
computer savant.. even though he didn't like UNIX.
On 05/09/2019 09:50 AM, Bill Prince wrote:
Rolm was an interesting beast.
They started out selling ruggedized DG gear (Rugged Nova was one of
their first products). They took a basic DG minicomputer, and put it
into a mil-spec package. None of the components actually came from DG,
they built it ground up to take a beating at incredible temperature and
vibration extremes. They also sold it at incredible margins. It was a
cash cow.
But the CEO said from the beginning that the military-grade computer
systems were only a means to build cash in order to bootstrap the Rolm
PBX system. At the time it came to market, it was the Cadillac of PBX
systems. I lost track of them after that.
--
bp
part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com
On Thu, May 9, 2019 at 9:44 AM <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
ROLM, have not thought about them for a very long time. They had ISDN
stuff, right?
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Andrews
Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2019 10:31 AM
To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT tis the season
They say success kills more businesses... I say it is getting the $$
from people that does. I know of about 5 people who set up businesses,
had fairly good success selling and totally failed at collecting. I
used to work in sales engineering at some big companies ( IBM, ROLM )
and I couldn't believe the number of salesdroids that absolutely had no
sense of making a sale except giving away the product. The customers
saw them coming a mile away ( basically the first phone call ).. These
sales would drag the district results in the toilet for the 6 months to
a year to get rid of the non-sales person and impact results for
years... Usually a 4 to one ratio of salesdroit tries to success..
And these were for products that almost sold themselves... Two
absolute needs in business, the ability to collect ( and twist and arm )
and the ability to fire..
On 05/09/2019 08:15 AM, [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
> No longer Avon. We were first married. She used to lug her
stuff around
> the small town where I was the “phone man”. I knew absolutely every
> person in that town, every dwelling, every dog. I gave her a
nice list so
> she wasn’t totally cold calling. She enjoyed it until it came
time to
> collect from some of those wonderful people...
> *From:* Ken Hohhof
> *Sent:* Thursday, May 9, 2019 9:11 AM
> *To:* 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group'
> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] OT tis the season
>
> No longer married, or no longer an Avon lady?
>
> (OK, now that is reminding me of the lame old joke that starts
“it won’t
> be long until we’re married”.)
>
> *From:*AF <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> *On Behalf Of *[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
> *Sent:* Thursday, May 9, 2019 9:57 AM
> *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] OT tis the season
>
> I used to be married to one.
>
> *From:*Daniel White
>
> *Sent:*Thursday, May 9, 2019 8:19 AM
>
> *To:*AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group
>
> *Subject:*Re: [AFMUG] OT tis the season
>
> They call it out right in the description too:
>
>
https://www.avon.com/product/skin-so-soft-bug-guard-plus-ir3535-expedition-spf-30-family-size-pump-spray-47861?rrec=false
>
> Find yourself an Avon lady Chuck :-)
>
> Image removed by sender. <https://atheral.com/>
>
>
>
> *Daniel White***
>
> Co-Founder - Business Development & Operations
>
> direct: +1 (702) 470-2766
>
> Image removed by sender. Facebook icon
> <https://www.facebook.com/getatheral> Image removed by sender.
LinkedIn
> icon <https://www.linkedin.com/company/atheral/> Image removed by
sender.
> Youtbue icon
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpPZv-EsGCj8LXfzylwCrjQ>
>
> Lewis Bergman wrote on 5/8/19 19:58:
>
> Avon skin so soft. No idea if they still sell it but when I
was in
> the USMC it repelled everything from jungles, swamps, and
dessert.
>
> On Wed, May 8, 2019, 7:32 PM Chuck McCown <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> Every year, the biting midge flies come out. Miserable to be
> outside my shop during certain hours of the day. I got some
> mosquito nets that are to be worn over the hat. The bugs get
> through.
>
> Nothing we have tried seems to work. DEET seems to
attract them.
>
> We have had a wet spring and there are wetlands next to my
> shop. Perfect breeding grounds.
>
> Anyone have suggestions other than tyvec full hazmat suit?
>
> I pine for a bag of DDT wetable powder.
>
> --
> AF mailing list
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
>
>
>
>
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