[Info-vax] Message from HP.

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <52a4f881$0$9677$c3e8da3$e408f015 at news.astraweb.com>,
	JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
> On 13-12-08 12:26, johnson.eric at gmail.com wrote:
> 
>>  end of regular customer support in 2020 is the only item that I could see them bringing forward.
> 
> If end of sale is in 2015, then HP will honour the industry practice
> selling support for 5 years after end of sales. 

Maybe....

>                                                   Whether they *provide*
> support is another question. They will scale the support team to match
> demand.
> 
> Consider how long they have supported VAX and Alpha.

Yes, but there was real demand for that.   I would lover to see real
numbers (butr know I never will) because i suspect there are probably
more VAX systems still in production use today than Itanium.

> 
> With stable software, VMS engineering can be scaled back to a part time
> consultant who has access to sources. 

Yes, but how hard will it be to get him off the golf course?

>                                       They will still keep some call
> centre people to asnwer queries. 

I didn't think they had call centre people able to do that for years.

>                                  And of course, continue to provide
> hardware support.
> 
> Why HP has lied about Itanium, it has been fairly truthful about VMS:
> we'll maintain VMS for the installed base until they migrate to
> something else. (Stallard's infamous memo from May 2002). And there is
> no reason to think they won't do that.

I would expect that they have long given up on anyone who failed to
see the writting on the wall and start their porting project years
ago.

> 
> Once the Itanium albatros is no longer a drain on money being sent to
> Intel, and once software engineering is down to bare minimum, BCS won't
> be a big drain on HP's finances and there won't be much reason to
> prematurely shutdown support.

And there won't be any reason to keep it around, either.

> 
> The one possibility however would be that HP will sell the VMS support
> contracts to another company (like DEC did for PDP11 software). 

They would have to find one.  And it wold have to be one with really deep
pockets as, if (and that is a very big if) HP were to attempt to sell VMS
the cost in lawyers fees straightening out just who owns what would be
more than the business is likely to be worth.

>                                                                  This
> could happen prior to 2020 if the remaining installed base has shrunk
> faster than expected.
 
If it were me, I wouldn't be waiting around planning on HP still playing
ball in 2020.

bill 

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>