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1425 | 43 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
1425
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 14 2012 @ 02:10 PM EDT
[Stamp:
PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT
1425
Comes v. Microsoft
]

[Microsoft logo]

From bernardv Mon Sep 7 14:19:58 1992
To: jochenn umbertop
Cc: bernardv cwedell davidev lucar michell
Subject: RE: Vobis
Date: Tue Sep 10 10 18:53:48 PDT 1992

X-MSMaii-Message-ID; 1B54D6C3
X-MSMai1-Parent-message-ID: 2D3753BF
X-MSMail-Conversation-ID: FDDZOED7
X-MSMail-WiseRemark: Microsoft Mail Internal -- Final Release
From: Bernard Vergnes <bernardv@microsoft.com>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 92 14:10:02 PDT

Congratulations. Germany is also negotiating a deal with Vobis. It is
key to keep Lotus out of that customer but still maintain reasonable
profitability. Attached is a mail from Jochen describing the german
offer which I have approved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------

Proposal for a "White Box Bundle" with Vobis Microcomputer AG:
=======================================================
As many of you are aware, the relationship with Vobis has come along
way in the last 10 months. Vobis owns 15% of the PC market and is the
number one before IBM with 10%. Last week Billg and Lieven (GM) finally met
and a very successful meeting took place. Lieven wants to commit to a
Strategic Alliance with us and work exclusively with us as a partner.
He said he is willing to no longer offer DR-DOS or Network Lied, he
will commit to a contract for 25K WOW and do aggressive marketing promotions
with us and at no cost advertise MS products together with his machines
in his flyer "The Denkzettel" which has a distribution of up to 10
million copies. As you know, Lotus and Borland have been aggressively
approaching our OEMs, and Vobis is no exception. Lieven wants to partner
with someone to offer applications in the market and his first choice is
to work with us. If he commits to us and the above mentioned items, he
wants to be able to be given some type of exclusive offer as well.

Lotus pricing is DNA 80 for 1-2-3W or AmiPro White Box pricing.
Together it sells
for DNA 125. License offer to OEMs is DM 88 for both products. ($1 = DM
1.42)
Escom - market share 5% and monthly advertising with 4 Mio copies already
signed on with Lotus - we lost here the FG deal clearly on price.

I would like to be able to offer to Vobis the opportunity to bundle a few
of our application products as White Box along with their PC's. The
White Box will have a sleave on it that is customized with the Microsoft
and "Highscreen" names. Vobis is very interested in being able to
have
this opportunity in order to help sell more systems, especially with the
upcoming Christmas/end of year season. He would aggressively advertise
in his "Denkzettel" and it would be something that would help
differentiate
him from his competitors. If we can make an offer to him with the
following T&C's, he is ready to commit to us exclusively and to throw
DR-DOS and Novell out and also commit to 25K WFW. This White Box deal
would ave to be an exclusive deal to only Vobis and no other German
OEMs (atleast
for a minimum of 3 months-the length of the Christmas season). If we did
this type of deal, we would also need to estimate approx. DM 350K
($240K) for marketing costs from us to help support Vobis in getting
the product in their stores and for posters and collateral to help sell
the product. Vobis estimates that their costs will be approx. DM 1 million
for advertising and they are willing to push-it heavily.

Negative Reactions to such an offer to Vobis

- Pricing extremely aggressive for Market. The price for
full product to distribution for finished goods product
in Germany is DM 778 ($547). The distribution channel
will react negatively to this because they will not
be able to match the price offering from Vobis

- Distribution and DEC would react negatively.

Solution to counter these reactions:
- In order to help counter the negative reactions to
such pricing and to help us support such a decision
and give an explanation, we need to differentiate this
product offering. Proposal to do this is to put in
with these White Boxes of our apps a product that
Lieven sells with all computers called "WAYs 2.0".
This product is a "Windows Add-on" product. By placing

it together with Excel, WinWord and Office, we can
differentiate it from what distribution is offering. Vobis
has the
exclusive right to WAYS 2.0.


----------
From: Umberto Paolucci
To: Jochen Haink
Cc: Bernard Vergnes; Christian Wedell; Davide Vigano; Luca Rossotti;
Michel Lacombe; Stefanie Reichel; Umberto Paolucci
Subject: Vobis
Date: Friday, September 04, 1992 3:58PM


We have agreed this morning with the Italian GM of Vobis (Mr. Guerra)
on a 3 months bundle starting form Oct 1st (Smau show). It includes
Excel at Lit 240,000 ($225), Powerpoint at Lit 200,000 ($190) and
Office at Lit 545,000 ($511). First order to arrive next monday. Our
agreement has a clause by which it will conform to the T&Cs of the
International deal signed in Germany, if one will be signed during its
validity terms.
We had to go ahead and immediately close the deal to prevent Lotus
from firing back with Smartsuite. The agreement includes common PR to
announce our "strategic alliance", at no cost from our side. Our
products will be shown by Vobis in a theater in their Smau's booth.
It's a nice victory against Lotus, that wouldn't have been possible
without the excellent relationship that you have been able to establish
with Vobis. Thanks for this.

[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
- Excluded printed letterhead and footer
- Contains hand-written underlining and annotatations not included here]

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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