Digital Equipment Corp’s big-name appointment to head its sales and marketing organisation turns out to be Ed Lucente nicknamed Neutron Eddie at IBM Corp after he was given the job of pushing administrative staff out of their offices and onto the road as sales and support personnel, so that the people were gone but the buildings still standing. Lucente quit IBM for the number two post at Northern Telecom Ltd, where he resigned last month. Analysts hope Lucente will shake up a DEC salesforce in need of a lift. Lucente, 53, takes the new position of worldwide sales and marketing vice-president at DEC. What this guy will do is get a demoralized sales organisation revitalised, hopefully at the same time that the company’s Alpha technology begins to roll out in volume, said John Jones, analyst at Salomon Brothers. DEC has not had a top sales executive since John Shields left the company in 1990 to take over the helm at doomed Prime Computer Inc.
