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- BUSINESS, Page 53Business NotesCOMPUTERSDEC's Profits Hit the Deck
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- Digital Equipment Corp. used to be the computer industry's
- most invincible number cruncher. For nearly three decades, the
- Massachusetts-based manufacturer enjoyed uninterrupted growth
- as its potent line of VAX midrange computers muscled sales away
- from IBM by offering comparable computing power at cut-rate
- prices. But DEC has proved to be vulnerable after all. Caught
- in an industry-wide slowdown, the company will pare its work
- force by 9,000, or about 7%, by year's end. Last week DEC
- posted a quarterly loss of $257 million, the first red ink in
- its 32-year history and a stunning blow for founder and
- chairman Kenneth Olsen. Ironically, DEC is now threatened by
- a shift to less expensive but powerful desktop computers. While
- DEC's size (1989 sales: $12.9 billion) gives it the resources
- to develop new products, the company will have to move fast to
- keep up with the market's changing needs.
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