[Info-vax] Should Oracle buy OpenVMS?

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Keith Parris wrote:
> JF Mezei wrote:
>> Bob Koehler wrote:
>>
>>>    Hard to justify Sun hardware or Solaris when PC hardware running
>>>    Linux meets the "UNIX is good enough" criteria.
>>
>> What about folks such as banks who chose Sun for their non-IBM mainframe
>> stuff back in .com era. Wouldn't they still be with Sun because of the
>> greater comfort factor about support/maintenance ?
> 
> Having worked as a consultant in a financial-services firm, about 8-10 
> years ago loyalty for Sun was outweighed by the 10X cost savings of 
> using Linux on commodity hardware. Web servers went to Linux in a flash; 
> Sybase database servers on Sun hung on, but they were a much smaller 
> number of machines.

Why does this sad tale remind me of Digital Equipment Corporation???

Maintenance?  How about if "maintenance" is dropping a dead machine in 
the garbage and plugging in a new one?  If a new machine is not yet 
cheaper than repairing an old one, things are headed in that general 
direction.