[Info-vax] Should Oracle buy OpenVMS?

[JF Mezei]

Bob Koehler wrote:

>    But until recently HP behaved as if they did want VMS as a product,
>    even if a small market share.

Replace the word "want" with "tolerated" or "accepted" and I will agree.

"want" implies a desire.

When you look back since 2001, HP has done nothing to give VMS a new
breath of life. It has been maintained on life support.

The only value HP saw from a strategic point of view is that it allowed
them to add one more OS to the list of OS supported on that IA64 thing.

>From a financial point of view, as long as support revenus exceed the
cost of providing said support, then HP has no reason to stop supporting
it. But that doesn't mean that they "want" VMS, nor that they have any
plans to continue developping VMS or port it beyond IA64.

In the end, Stallard, for all the criticism he got for his May 7th 2002
memo admitting that HP expected VMS customer to eventuall migrate to
HP-UX but that HP would contine to support VMS until they were ready,
well Stallard has probably been the most honest of the gang by revealing
HP's true intentions.