[Info-vax] newVMS, was: Re: [OT] Abbreviations, was: Re: Desperately Seeking OpenVMS ecosystem

[David Froble]

johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> On Sunday, 8 December 2013 17:33:43 UTC, Simon Clubley  wrote:
>> On 2013-12-08, G�rard Calliet (pia-sofer) <gerard.calliet at pia-sofer.fr> wrote:
>>
>>> What about existing systems in industry and other places which actually 
>>> use VMS ?
>>
>>
>> Then over the next few years, they have some decisions to make.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Do you think I'm not aware of that the real time has changed ? Or that 
>>> VMS has never been able of addressing all the problems ? Do you think I 
>>> don't know about lesser and lesser competences at HP ?
>>
>>
>> Given some comments in c.o.v recently, I think those are reasonable
>>
>> things for me to have pointed out.
>>
>>
>>
>>> I only try to do my job. There are lot of existing VMS system doing 
>>> importants things. For them a port represents real risks. Keep it in 
>>> mind, Simon.
>>
>>
>> Yes, and if you move them to some new modernised newVMS, they will also
>>
>> see similar risks. It's the same reason why some sites didn't want to
>>
>> disrupt their operations by moving some of their VAX systems to Alpha.
>>
>>
>>
>> However, those sites don't provide enough income to continue with VMS
>>
>> in it's current form else HP would not carrying it's current actions,
>>
>> and most new potential VMS users will want a operating system with
>>
>> comparable capabilities to current operating systems as a minimum.
>>
>>
>>
>> That's just the required baseline even before you come up with something
>>
>> to make them consider your nice modern newVMS platform. If you don't
>>
>> have a unique selling point to make potential new users interested, then
>>
>> they are not going to try out newVMS and will stick with proven solutions.
>>
>>
>>
>> So let's bottom line this: what unique selling point will you offer on
>>
>> a newVMS platform which will make existing users of other platforms
>>
>> even look at newVMS ?
>>
>>
>>
>> You need to be able to answer that question before you waste time talking
>>
>> about all the other things.
>>
>>
>>
>> Simon.
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
>>
>> Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
> 
> Good stuff.
> 
> "However, those sites don't provide enough income to continue with VMS
> in it's current form else HP would not carrying it's current actions"
> 
> Spoken like someone who understands numbers and logic and stuff like that.
> 
> When did you last see any significant evidence that HP HQ understands numbers 
> and logic and stuff like that, corporately? Plenty of very public evidence 
> that they haven't recently (meaning several years) understood much at that 
> level.
> 
> "If you don't have a unique selling point to make potential new users 
> interested, then they are not going to try out newVMS and will stick with 
> proven solutions."
> 
> Again correct. But, in 2013, is a "proven solution" the same as it might have 
> been five or ten years ago?
> 
> E.g. Vista was a bit of a hiccup for MS, and Windows 8 seems to be headed the 
> same way. Windows 7 hasn't exactly taken the world by storm. OK those are 
> client/desktop products, but desktops make a lot of money for the MS world 
> (which is much broader than just MS). Just how proven is a five-year-out 
> bet-the-business gamble on MS? And who can answer questions like that anyway?
> 
> In some ways the same goes for Dell. Until recently they were a safe bet for 
> Wintel kit (they had to be, they have little else to sell), but Dell's 
> investors have lost so much confidence that Mr Dell has taken the company 
> private again. (Feels odd agreeing with "the markets", but...).
> 
> So, suppose perhaps, that things have happened in the last year or five that 
> made existing VMS customers think twice about their default plans for moving 
> off VMS to something else. Suppose e.g. "Affinity" now looks even more like 
> BS than it historically has done.
> 
> Sensible people will be thinking carefully in the next few months about 
> whether it's a good idea to bet the business on where MS (and probably HP) 
> will be in (say) five years time. (Based on your postings, I assume you've 
> already been through that, others may not have done so yet).
> 
> Folk in that position probably won't be posting their thoughts here, but some 
> of them *may* want to be able to share their thoughts with others in similar 
> positions, or with others who have some knowledge of the factors involved - 
> whether or not VMS plays much of a part in the chosen way forward. 
> 
> AMD64 is probably a safeish bet, though I'm wondering if prices of enterprise 
> boxes will rise as ARM-based clients start to reduce the legacy-x86 economies 
> of scale. IA64 prices ? Who knows. Software costs? Support costs? Does anyone ever talk about "TCO" these days?
> 
> Added to all that, HP HQ statements about the future are worth what, exactly, 
> these days? "IA64 is the way of the future", "IA64 is safe", "Autonomy is 
> worth every penny", "we're getting out of PCs". 
> 
> tl;dr ? =>
> Predictions are hard, especially predicting the future.
> 
> Have a lot of fun.

Some supplemental thoughts.

I've read many times here about the supposed reasons HP isn't marketing 
VMS.  Ok, OpenVMS if you wish.

To me it's pretty simple.  And there is some supporting data.  When HP 
took over Compaq, there was no interest in that VMS thingy, and the 
decision, if it was even a decision and not just a refusal, was to milk 
the cash cow, as long as it produced cash, but not to feed it beyond a 
starvation diet.  One supporting piece of data was Stallard's mention 
that they expected VMS users to move to HP-UX.

Ok, what about that expectation?  To make such a statement, Stallard (or 
whoever above him made that decision) has to have had no clue about VMS. 
  The two are so different that for many users, you don't move to a Unix 
type of system, you throw out the bathwater and baby and start over.

HP had no clue what to do with VMS

HP didn't want to have such clues

HP didn't want VMS

That's the real problem.  If VMS has any future, it won't be at HP. 
That's a really big "IF".