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

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <i4qeso$ebq$00$1 at news.t-online.com>,
	Michael Kraemer <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> writes:
> JF Mezei schrieb:
>> Michael Kraemer wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>>says that in 1995 EV5's costed $2000 to $3000,
>>>with $500 being the pure manufacturing costs.
>> 
>> 
>> This is where leadership comes in.  Hudson had been built for large
>> volume. Palmer wanted to reserve capacity in case Alpha became high volume.
> 
> He/they tried at least three times to enter the high volume market,
> in the very beginning with the PCish alpha's,
> around 1995/96 with the Alpha PC (sp.?) and somewhere inbetween
> with he AXPvme stuff. None of that panned out.

And why do you think that was?  We had a Professor here who actually
bought one for a specific research project.  Imagine his surprise to
find out there was no software for it beyond the OS.  Well, there was
Linux, but not  much commercial to run on that.

> But for a consistent strategy one *had* to reserve
> fab capacities. Just imagine the noise if it had turned
> out the other way: Alpha boxes in high demand but cannot
> be delivered due to CPUs in short supply.

It's all about management.  In a pinch you get the chips fabbed by someone
else until you can ramp up your capabilities.

> 
>> You build low cost machines, you can increase your volume. The cost per
>> chip drops closer to the actual manufacturing cost.
>> 
>> 
>> Nobody is saying that Digital could price Alpha PCs the same or lower
>> then 8086s. But they could have been in the same ballpark, 
> 
> They tried to sell the second round of Alpha PCs
> via a large PC reseller over here. Of course the
> price was necessarily way higher than for a normal PC,
> but they had it on the display, and also on the usual flyers, iirc.
> Nobody wanted to buy.

Why?  My guess would have been no software!!

> 
>> and that MUST
>> include the cost of VMS and basic licenses for layered products
>> (decwrite, deccalc etc which back in early 1990s were still very much
>> current).
> 
> Mass market via VMS is just wishful thinking.
> I can't imagine typical PC customer falling in love
> with directories in square brackets.

Funny, that didn't slow down the rapid advance of Linux and BSD.  And,
remember, there was also Windows NT for the Alpha.  Not to mention that
by the time Alpha made the scene there already was a good GUI environment
for VMS.  The only things missing were software and marketing.
 
bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>