[Info-vax] Current VMS Usage Survey

[JF Mezei]

On 13-12-03 08:55, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:

> I know of 2 LARGE sites with many Alpha systems that *might* have migrated
> to Integrity had HP not belied their faith by dismantling VMS engineering
> and outsourcing it to India.  I also lost a few support opportunities when
> clients moved to Integrity because HP tossed them a bone of three years of
> support with the purchase.  Those 2 LARGE sites might now be on HP support
> had HP not repeatedly stabbed VMS in the back and given the knife a twist.  

HP placed its bets on that IA64 contraption. And it refused to change it
in the face of not only delays, but also piss poor performance.

If Digital engineers could produce a report showing why IA64 was
technically not going to beat tradictional CPUs, then Intel surely had
similar repport internally and HP too since at the time HP still had
chip engineers.  So there woudl have been some other reasons for HP to
stick to that IA64 thing instead of cutting its losses.

HP had the perfect opportunity to ditch IA64 and go Alpha when it bought
Digital/Compaq. Imagine if the amount of resources HP/Intel poured into
IA64 had been put into Alpha ?


The various announcements in 2004 made it clear IA64 wasn't going to
succeed and it was the 8086 that was gonna make it.  By 2007, HP was
already paying Intel to keep producing those chips and developing a few
more itenarions on a slow schedule.  It was roughly at that time that HP
investigated porting BCS to x86 and decided against it. This is when
Livermore, LaCarly and others started to state unequivoquely that BCS
operating systems would not be ported beyond IA64.

>From that point onwards, knowing IA64 was on its last legs, and that BCS
operating systems were dead-ended on IA64, there was no point in HP
continuing to spend megabucks in developoping VMS and HP-UX. So the
dismantlement of VMS engineering was a logical path in executing their plan.

What was dead wrong of HP is the LIES they made about it. Lying to
enterprise customer about the future of a platform is dead wrong. HP
knew very well VMS was dead, as was IA64 yet, it would deny it and keep
on painting blue sky over the future of VMS and IA64.