[Info-vax] Should Oracle buy OpenVMS?

[Richard B. Gilbert]

JF Mezei wrote:
> 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.

If the same resources could earn more by employing them to do something 
else, it makes more sense to have them do it!  I believe that, if you 
look carefully, that is exactly what's happening!

Let's face it.  VMS has been on life support since 1995 or, perhaps, 
even earlier than that.  Most people are making do with some flavor of 
Unix, Linux, Novell, Windows, or some combination thereof!  I think 
their Total Cost of Ownership is less than it would be with VMS.

Would your boss buy a VMS License for $2000 U.S. if Linux would do the 
job for "free"??  If Solaris could also do it for free??

I loved working with VMS but love pays no bills!  We paid an arm and a 
leg for the systems in the first place and the other arm and leg went 
for hardware and software support.

Everything we did with VMS could have been done with Novell at far less 
cost.  When the company was acquired, the new owners did just that!