[Info-vax] VMS on a PC

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Jan 17, 5:43 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam... at vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote:
>
> >> 1. Ported VMS to the PC/Intel Server platform;
>
> > And lose out on hardware sales?
>
> my guess is that should VMS ever be ported to the 8086, it would require
> an EFI based  64 bit 8086 system. They already have EFI for VMS, and
> there are some EFI based 8086  systems around. Porting costs would be
> far less if they can re-use the EFI stuff (probably vastly unchanged)
> instead of supporting the primitive BIOS.
>
> And since VMS has very limited hardware support (video, no sound anymore
> etc), only a subset of 8086 based servers/computers would support VMS.
>
> Think of the cost savings and increased opportunities if HP got rid of
> that IA64 boat anchor and focused on 8086 based systems. Enterprise
> systems could be EFI based while consumer ones would continue to be BIOS
> based.
>
> There is however a big difference between having a proof of
> concept/midnight hack and having a productized version of VMS on 8086
> sold/supported by HP.  Until HP/Intel announce they are finally putting
> IA64 out of its misery and focusing on commodity industry standard
> architecture, HP isn't going to allow an 8086 based VMS to come out.

As already noted, EFI's coming anyway, even in the classic PC market.

Don't forget that if/when the much-touted Common System Interconnect/
Quickpath arrives on production hardware, eg both Integrity and
Proliant, there will be even less incentive for HP to maintain
multiple sets of competing parallel hardware development teams. In
principle it could also give the VMS (and HP/UX????) side of things a
boost in terms of pricing and time to market and general
competitiveness because they no longer have to develop their own
unique entry level servers from the ground up. When the next
generation of low-end Integrity comes along, will it be just a
Proliant with a different badge?

So would VMS on Proliant be a net loser for HP (because they lose the
margin which they currently get by selling HP-specific hardware at HP-
specific prices) or a net winner (because a segment of the market
which they can't currently profitably address, the "no Itanium here"
segment, becomes addressable once VMS runs on Proliant)?