[Info-vax] IPSec - Dear God in heaven NO!

[Richard B. Gilbert]

David J Dachtera wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> David J Dachtera wrote:
>>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> JF Mezei wrote:
>>>>> It is not polite to ask this question. HP has strict policies imposed on
>>>>> employees with regards to what they can or cannot say.
>>>> Most big companies has explicit or implicit rules about
>>>> what employees can say about the company - at least about
>>>> business.
>>>>
>>>> For good reasons. Doing so could cause lots of legal
>>>> problems.
>>> ...or could cause bad (or no) marketing to be circumvented, and so could
>>> save the vendor from their own mistakes.
>> I don't think the "I decide what is best for the company so I follow
>> my own rules instead of the company rules" way is a good way to run
>> a company.
> 
> Lambs to the slaughter, eh? ...or lemmings to the cliff? Hope you don't
> depend on your job for your livelihood if you trust your bosses that
> blindly.
> 
>> I don't even think it would be good for VMS. Why would it be good to
>> have 10 HP employees going around and tell about all the great
>> plans they have for VMS and 10000 HP employees going around and
>> say that VMS is dead.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Well, let's see now - that should be a self answering question, but
> since it appears to have been missed, let's explore that.
> 
> "plans for VMS"? Well, not sure where that came from, but as long as the
> plan includes promotion and continued maintainance, on-going income from
> support contracts is possible. One benefit (big plus for the
> share-holders, as well) among many.
> 
> Actually, I think the reverse is a better reflection of what actually
> happened. A select group of HP folks went out to the major ISVs and
> preached IA64 and (not VMS). The ISVS read (not VMS) as "VMS is dead".
> So, in actuality, a select few went out to spread the word that "VMS is
> dead" while the VMS organization went about its everyday business
> supporting its customers, coding new features and bug fixes, and so on.
> (We know this from "testimony" provided by those same major ISVs. This
> is NOT "conspiracy theories", or anything else - it's witness from the
> field. I have the e-mails to prove it. I cannot publish them, of
> course.)
> 
> There may only be 10 HP employees with enough sense to not "drink the
> kool-aid". Sad to think...
> 
> D.J.D.

I'd find your argument more persuasive if not for the people pounding 
the "VMS is dead!" drum since 1995 or so.  Does anyone remember the name 
of the Vice President who announced at the DECUS General session in (I 
think Spring 1995) that VMS was no longer the wave of the future but, 
instead, Unix would be?  ISTR it was an Italian sounding name.

The roots go back even further, to the late 1980s and DEC's failure 
and/or refusal to compete in the workstation market.  DEC wanted a piece 
of IBM's mainframe market.  They also, having witnessed the howling 
success of machines with an "open" bus; e.g. UNIBUS and Q-Bus, decided 
that they didn't want to share the wealth with anyone else and 
introduced the BI bus, a proprietary bus!  DEC would have the entire 
peripherals market for themselves.  Third parties couldn't become 
players without that all important BI interface chip!

Some genius realized that they could get BI chips on memory boards 
traded in for larger boards.  So the BI chips traded in on the first 
order went out the door the next day on brand new boards.  DEC succeeded 
in looking silly and not much else.