[Info-vax] IDC on Servers, Q3 2008

[John Smith (not the one @ HP)]

"Arne Vajhøj" <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote in message 
news:494f110f$0$90270$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk...
> JF Mezei wrote:
>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> What do you care about ink ????
>>
>> As long as ink is doing really well, we may become to be thankful of ink
>> because it will delay the day when HP announces that because VMS revenus
>> are declining over time, there is no point in continuing its development.
>>
>> I other words, ink profits will subsidize VMS and delay the decision to
>> "mature" VMS.
>>
>> Bad ink revenus would translate in wall streetcasino analysts expecting
>> HP to make cuts in unprofitable/declining product lines and VMS would be
>> a likely candidate since it is seen as a product with no future, no
>> growth potential.
>
> I don't think that is how a business works.
>
> If business unit X makes a profit it is kept - if it comes
> with a loss it gets killed.
>
> (profit/loss ~ subjective expectations for the future)
>
> Whether business unit Y makes a profit or a loss is
> not important.
>
> Arne


That's not always true, Arne.

There is something called 'hurdle rate on capital', which is essentially the 
return earned on the capital employed supporting a particular business line. 
If the return on capital for those products is less than other products, 
then it is quite common for products to get killed or sold off.


On another note, I recently stumbled upon an article relating the upgrade of 
UK nuclear submarines to "Windows for Submarines"  - or something like that. 
If I recall the gist of the article correctly, they machine translated 
Jovial to C, and are running the newer code on Pentium processors. Perhaps 
that's what all the embedded VMS machines can look forward to as upgrades 
are made to JSTARS and other systems.