[Info-vax] Current VMS Usage Survey

[JF Mezei]

On 13-12-02 04:24, Subcommandante XDelta wrote:

> If there are, putatively, "98,000" systems still running, that are not
> current paying customers of HP, how are they running? -As commercial
> policy did DEC, CPQ and HP sell non-terminating, immortal, licence PAKS?

Yes. License were generally non terminating.  But you generally needed
support contracts to get new versions.

At the time when there were about 400,000 systems left, I was informally
told that roughly half were still VAX. And most were still purchasing
software/hardware support contracts.

How that has changed in the last roughly 13 years, I have no idea. I
suspect very few VAX shops migrated to that IA64 contraption. (if they
hadn't upgraded to Alpha, the odds were high that they were boxes
forgotten in a closet that just ran, or higher profile boxes part of
large machinery (such as paper mill automation) that couldn't be changed.

However, the VAX population could only go down as shops upgrade stuff
over time or don't need whatever services the VAX provided.

Alphas/IA64 probably went down faster since 2002 because shops that
could upgrade to Alpha or IA64 are more nimble and can either recompile
tehir own software or their software supplier shifted platforms (such as
SWIFT funds transfer, Cerner for health care and so many others)