[Info-vax] Maybe a bit OT, maybe not.. in any case an interesting article

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 5/13/2012 4:51 PM, David Froble wrote:
> Did everybody that used VMS back in the "day" really need everything VMS
> did for them? No, and some were always going to move to smaller and
> cheaper systems. Word processing and spreadsheets and such were never a
> good fit for VMS. But there were many good fits for VMS. Could VMS have
> retained more market share than they did? I for one think they could
> have, if they would have changed with the times and market. DEC couldn't
> and didn't and is no longer with us. Compaq was never an option. HP
> ended up with VMS, but not because they wanted it.

One thing is the changes in technology.

But adopting to those changes can be made elegant or clumsy.

I think DEC/CPQ/HP could have done a lot better.

I believe that:
- keeping products like RDB inhouse
- continue to invest in new features (successors to Spiralog,
   Snapshot, Galaxy etc.)
- spend some marketing dollars
- not have tried so hard making customers migrate
   (ALLIN1 sales->Exchange seats maintenance, VMS only
   being for database tier, Tru64 push and other disasters)
could have made DEC/CPQ/HP more money than their chosen
strategy.

It would not make miracles. But looking at something like
i aka OS/400 sales, then it seems realistic that VMS with
little extra investment could have made significant money
for a decade more.

Arne