[Info-vax] Whither VMS?
Michael Kraemer
M.Kraemer at gsi.de
Sat Sep 12 18:23:29 EDT 2009
Neil Rieck schrieb:
>
> These points are correct but you must agree that execs at most Western
> companies are more interested in making money rather than producing a
> technically superior product. For some companies like GM, this started
> in 1970 when the financial people stopped the wrench-heads from
> running the company every other year. For computer companies like DEC
> and Apple, this started when they got rid of their technical founders
> (remember when a Pepsi-guy was running things at Apple? Remember how
> everyone thought getting rid of Ken Olsen would make DEC better?). Is
> is just my imagination or had Microsoft stubbed its toe a few times
> since Gates finally stepped down and stepped away? Apple and Oracle
> are currently doing really well while their technically-oriented
> founders are occupying the top job.
I think it's a popular myth that companies only prosper as long
as the techies are on top and go under as soon as the "bean counters"
take over. DEC being a good counterexample, IMHO.
The techie's (non)decisions under Olsen ruined the company
a decade later, not Palmer (anyway, IIRC he was a tech guy himself).
Had the bean counters entered
earlier, they made have brought more economic common sense
to DEC's megalomaniac projects of the late 1980s / early 1990s.
And OTOH it was a Nabisco-guy called Gerstner, a non-techie, who
helped saving IBM.
People say that under Gate's reign M$ nearly missed the Internet wave.
But, unlike DEC's techies, he corrected his mistake early enough.
I wouldn't even think of Gates as being a "techie", his and M$'s
strength is their absolute will to power.
> In the open-source world a considerable amount of software development
> is being done by the community (IBM is the biggest contributor to
> Linux which makes me wonder how they account for this activity;
> Microsoft recently donated >20k lines to assist with future
> virtualization issues). I don't need to tell anyone here that OpenVMS
> is not open-source and won't be anytime soon, so how can HP keep
> OpenVMS (barely) alive while still competing with open-source? ANSWER:
> move OpenVMS code maintenance to India.
Moving to India is a common cost-cutting measure these days.
HP-UX and AIX are already there, AFAIK.
> Now "IF" the Asian maintainers of OpenVMS are quietly tasked to do a
> port to x86-64, then we will unanimously declare that HP exec were
> business geniuses. On the flip side, if the move to India was nothing
> more than putting OpenVMS on temporary life support, we will all think
> HP execs were just money-motivated greedy bastards.
Well, that's what they call "capitalism".
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