[Info-vax] Out with Hurd, in with OpenVMS

[Michael Kraemer]

John Wallace schrieb:

> The story that DEC prices were uncompetitive is oft repeated. Whilst
> it may well have been true for the product examples quoted above in
> that particular era, and for many others, lessons were eventually
> learned (at least by some people) and prices were eventually quite
> competitive, especially between Alpha boxes and "competitive" RISC
> boxes. 

But the era of "uncompetitiveness", in particular of VAXen
vs contemporary RISCs until Alpha arrived, was way to long.
Things improved under Palmer,
but Alpha's (and associated software) arrived about three years
too late and thus always played catch up.

> 1) Qualification and support
> 
> If DEC said it was supported, it was supported. So when a cheapskate
> system builder phones up to say his mixed-vendor setup was having
> (e.g.) disk issues, and it turns out he's using non-RZ SCSI drives,
> what does he expect his supplier to do except say "do you get the same
> problem with a supported drive"? And of course they usually didn't.
> There was a reason for that. SCSI disks are just one example.

The competitors had similar procedures,
so no extra disadvantage for DEC here.