[Info-vax] Ann's "Toxic Customers"

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Richard Maher wrote:
> Hi Arne,
> 
> "Arne Vajhøj" <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote in message
> news:49c6da94$0$90276$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk...
>> Neil Rieck wrote:
>>> Needless to say our databases are still based upon RMS but I'm sure
>>> we'll get there some day. Oracle-RDB is the Cadillac solution. (if
>>> OpenVMS is ever ported to x86-64 then I'm sure this technology
>>> (OpenVMS-RDB) would attain critical mass)
>> I doubt that.
>>
>> I don't think the price difference Itanium - x86-64 and uncertainty
>> about Itanium are the only reasons holding back VMS.
>>
>> The market wants Linux.
> 
> Maybe there's only one Stall set out in Arne's market (or only one Stock),
> but where I come from there are one or two people in the fruit & veg section
> that are paying handsomely for Windows .NET and SQL Server. Must be it's an
> Australian thing? I guess it just depends which barrow the barrow-boy of the
> day is pushing I suppose. (What's the percentage of IIS or SQL Server or
> .NET you imagine on Windows as opposed to the "free" Apache or MySQL or
> WAMP?)
> 
> I happen to think computing is a broader church than what you imply and I'm
> am extremely proud of what VMS has achieved and the market it has held on
> to, given the woefully incompetent "leadership" that it has been subjected
> to over the years. But it appears, at least to me, that Ann MacQuaid and her
> lackys have deemed the VMS installed base to be a toxic-asset that has to be
> removed from the balance-sheet. Once they're gone then she can achieve her
> ultimate goal of the worst-performing, out-of date, and most-expensive,
> [L/V]AMP server on the market.
> 
> Ol' Baldrick MacQuaid appears to have a cunning-plan alright, she's turning
> VMS into the biggest turnip the world has ever seen! Stunned into absolute
> incredulity by how long the tenacious VMS customer-base is willing to hang
> on when faced with a barage of nothing but green-screens and FTP, she will
> now oversee the total anihilation of VMS engineering while promoting those
> arse-wipes that gave us BridgeWorks, WSIT, and "The Grand PoohBah of
> Stategic Freeware and Busy-Work".
> 
> I say "The market wants VMS!". Sure it may only ever be a niche market, but
> a viable and profitable market nonetheless, and I certainly wouldn't be
> embarassed about taking the money from it. How many Stock Exchanges are
> running VMS and choosing it again AND AGAIN.
> 
<snip>

It would be a lot more impressive if the NYSE were using VMS in a major 
and visible way.  I'm not certain that it's the world's biggest but it's 
certainly up there in the top three or four.