[Info-vax] Message from HP.

["Gérard Calliet (pia-sofer)"]

Le 08/12/2013 23:45, David Froble a écrit :
> So perhaps they will kick the 2020 date further down the line. But I
> just can't imagine there is enough real money in it and the cost of
> keeping up appearances, even if they are based in India, will just
> continue to rise.
This point is not so evident, and all the points about "costs".
1) selling itanium which are already producted, and with no more r&d to 
have new versions of itanium, it seems like selling a stock, and perhaps 
there is not revenue, but it is not "draining" ressources ; on the 
contrary it is a way of reducing losses
2) thousands of contracts of support versus 20 VMS ingeenier in Indiais 
the contrary of having some cost to keep appearances : on the contrary 
it is on of the reasons HP will not sell VMS. It is a point of juridic 
controversy : they keep VMS to get money from support... and there is 
quite no support.

In this subject we mix costs and profit : VMS is going to an end because 
it does not do profits with two numbers purcent in quick time, which is 
a sort of Nasdaq norm. But its costs are not only sustanaible, on the 
contrary parts VMS are yet "cash cow".

The business models which successes in mission critical, like IBM, make 
a difference between costs and profits, accept in parts little ratio of 
profits, do investment on no-for-profit actions (training, support of 
communities...),... anf keep going on the market.

The actual blindness of HP (which a majority here agree with) is not 
only EOL for VMS, but the announce of BCS EOL : as for other lines of 
industrial product (I don't remember the name, it was high quality 
industrial metering) HP is unable to keep on an industrial strategy.

The Nasdaq norm is tractable for google or tweeter, and so on. Thinking 
like that when you are HP is just suicide. Perhaps microsoft would 
succeed with his new tactile 8.hell line of products : billions of 
marketing, billion of potential users, it is dumb, but it can work. 
Thinking about Non-Stop or BCS like Bill Gates about laptop or google 
about internet is just madness.