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

[David Froble]

Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> 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.

DEC was basically suicidal.  They tried to embrace Windoz.  That was the competition 
(enemy) and MS sure didn't do a damn thing for DEC.  A bad one way street.  Bad management.

> I believe that:
> - keeping products like RDB inhouse

This might have been one of DEC's biggest mistakes.  As others have found out, when 
dealing with Larry you better watch your back and be wearing body armor.

A better and cheaper alternative to Oracle would have appealed to many customers.  They 
could have even ported RDB to other environments, and perhaps put some nails in Larry's 
coffin.

> - continue to invest in new features (successors to Spiralog,
>   Snapshot, Galaxy etc.)

That as far as I know hasn't happened elsewhere to this day.  I think some of that may 
have been not so good to waste money on.

> - 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.

What confidence would any customer have in a company that actually pushed replacements for 
their own products?  VMS is good at some things.  Not so good at others.  Thing is, VMS is 
good in areas that make some good profits.  DEC didn't seem to realize this.

> 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.

VMS already had lots of markets.  Process control.  Business.  No, these markets were not 
going to grow as the PC market did.  So what?  Do what you can.  Instead of reinforcing 
themselves where they were successful, they chased after what they could never have.

Sometimes people overlook what is right under their noses.  As one example, the rush to 
Alpha.  Our company's software continued to run on VAX long after the Alpha came out.  It 
was enough.  Codis has basically taken over a specific market, distributors in the small 
outdoor power equipment industry.  Even today, it could run on 32 bit VAX, if newer 
systems with enough speed were available.  As it is, only one of our larger (and frugal) 
customers is still running on Alpha.  Consider how old that system is.  I'm not saying 
that a computer architecture could have survived with only us as customers, nor so I think 
we're alone.  This is what DEC overlooked, those who could and would use their existing 
products, if only they had continued development and availability.