[Info-vax] AXIS2/C, gSOAP

Sun Aug 1 08:11:58 EDT 2010

On Aug 1, 5:20 am, "Richard Maher" <maher... at hotspamnotmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi Neil,
>
> "Neil Rieck" <n.ri... at sympatico.ca> wrote in message
>
> news:cee700b5-7684-4523-bc8d-543c61fbbbec at w30g2000yqw.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Update:
>
> > I just received a note from the "Office of OpenVMS Programs" at HP.
> > They will be adding "AXIS2/c" to the next OpenVMS customer survey.
>
> - "On the next survey"?
> - "Evaluating customer requirements"?
> - "Awaiting customer feedback"?
>
> God help us!
>
> Have you not worked out their modus operandi by now?
>
> Oh well, maybe my parables, analogies, and metaphors just ain't cutting it.
>
> Let me try to come up with a hypathetical example product called gSPOT and
> imagine that there's a group within VMS, ostensibly with nothing else to do,
> that needs to stave off redundancy. Bolshevik European labour laws can't be
> relied upon forever and, with even the really productive core-VMS
> engineering teams being given the chop, all these under-employed
> roaming-consultants with their "be brilliant" briefs were starting to show
> up on the radar. Where can they find a budget to latch on to?
>
> Enter gSPOT. (Extending the Fagan freeware-franchise umbrella to those
> stupid enough to paint your fence for free will come much later.)
>
> So, your mate who's worked at countless VMS sites in 4 countries and half a
> dozen industries over 20 years has made a very convincing case against the
> alternative (Soap Hubris Integration Toolkit), and you've got all the VMS
> license-payer funded "personal development" time in the world to play around
> with such things, so what are you waiting for? Let's face it, with this
> freeware lark you don't have to be smart enough to come up with an original
> idea on your own and you don't even have to be a half-competent coder, so it
> should be right up your alley!
>
> Lesson 1: - "How to get a product approved"
>
> 1) Start about 7 years ago to allow enough time for your floundering
> 2) Use all the HP resources and equipment you like
> 3) Don't put it on your time-sheet (even if there's very little else)
> 4) Once you've got a first cut, start going through the confidential HP/VMS
> customer lists
> 5) Cold-call as many as you can (harang and harass where necessary)
> 6) Tell everyone else your doing it in your "spare" time but play on your HP
> credentials when dealing with customers. (Always use you HP email address
> with them and throw in some HP Copyright messages and branding in the docs
> for good measure)
> 7) Offer all sorts of free HP incentives and even suggest HP writes the POC
> for them
> 8) Hit up your mates for additional contacts such as Barclays Merchantile
> 9) Now collect anyone stupid enough to take up your offer and parade them
> before HP Middle Management as a spontaneous, populist, and avant garde
> uptake of an industry trend
> 10) Make sure to avoid and/or deny the obvious conclusion that gSPOT makes
> the Soap Hubris Integration Toolkit redundant, and that they are in reality
> competing technologies. (Tell all the filth from Bridgeworks and WSIT that
> their jobs are safe if they throw in with you.)
> 11) Make sure to ask a lot of customers about gSPOT at the next bootcamp.
> (Don't write down anything they say, you'll fill that in later)
> 12) Point out to HP management that they could take on official support for
> gSPOT with no additional expense. (It's not like your doing fuck all else is
> it?)
> 13) Bingo - your home!
>
> Lesson 2 - "How to see off competing products and other drains on the
> coffers"
>
> 1) Delay, delay, delay!!!
> 2) Tell them you're awaiting customer feedback
> 3) Tell them you're evaluating industry trends
> 4) Carry out a survey
> 5) Form a comittee
> 6) Delay, delay, delay!!!
> 7) Whenever someone asks for industry-standards, send the boys round and
> convince them that gSPOT can do everything they need
> 8) Make sure the officially HP-supported  alternative only gets half a slide
> a bootcamp while gSPOT is bigger than Ben Hur
> 9) Discredit anyone who doesn't worship at the gSPOT alter (pay lip-service
> to the S.H.I.T alternative)
> 10) Postpone any decisions
> 11) Delay, delay, delay
> 12) Spin those stinking pig customers the line about finite resources and ho
> w your ski chalets and boats are far more important than their piddly little
> requirements. Tell'em to go to Linux if they want industry-standards, the
> ungrateful twats!
> 13) If all else fails, play your ace. Remind HP management that this is
> about the sixth piece o' shit middleware product in a row that you got
> customers to commit their development budgets to, how there are not that
> many customers left to lose, and there's no turning back.
>
> * Just copy what was done with IPsec! It was supposed to ship with 7.3 for
> fuck sake :-(
>
> Alles klar?
>
>
>
> > Neil Rieck
>
> Cheers Richard Maher
>
> They're in the mon-ey! They're in the mon-ey! They gotta lotta what it takes
> to get along!

Richard,

I understand your frustration.

I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that "DEC is no
more". I was reminiscing the other day so started leafing through a
copy of "DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC" which was given to me by Sue
Skonetski about 5 years ago. How did a "Fortune 50" company go down
the tubes?

Under Compaq we (the OpenVMS community) saw some improvements: OpenVMS
support moving to the web; OpenVMS documentation moving to CD-ROM as
well as the web; eBusiness software being added to OpenVMS. On the
flip side, there was almost no OpenVMS marketing, very few road shows.
etc. And don't get me started about Alphacide which may have had more
to do with Compaq's suitor (HP + Carly) than Compaq.

So moving OpenVMS to HP was seen by many as a possible benefit to our
community. HP reinstated training programs; introduced technical
update days (TUD), and finished porting OpenVMS to Itanium. Meanwhile,
anyone who ever attempted to order an OpenVMS product realized that HP
was treating OpenVMS like the proverbial "red headed step child".
Watching the decimation of OpenVMS Engineering in North America made
everyone realize that HP was not any better a step father to OpenVMS
than Compaq.

After OpenVMS outsourced to India "I got the feeling" from the Asians
that they realize they are tied to OpenVMS, and if it goes down they
so do they. So it just might be possible that they will be willing to
add new products much faster than their predecessors. Only time will
tell.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/