[Info-vax] rx2800i2 sales/support window changes

[David Froble]

JF Mezei wrote:
> On 14-02-13 02:54, Michael Kraemer wrote:
> 
>> I'd say that any organization which still relies heavily
>> on VMS (without Plan B),
>> more than two decades after VMS' visible and inevitable demise began,
>> is incredible stupid and deserves to die.
> 
> While at the management level, you are correct, I think there are many
> situations where reliance of VMS-specific features that are not
> available on other platforms has made moving off VMS too hard and not
> cost effective even if you know the platform has limited lifetime ahead
> of it.
> 
> 
> I'll give a road example. In montréal, there is the Turcot interchange.
> It is critical to traffic flows because it links east-west and
> north-south highways. The thing is crumbling. They have nets around the
> structures to catch falling concrete pieces to prevent falling on
> cars/trucks.
> 
> The thing is that despite having plans for a new simpler interchange
> they have no idea how to get from old design to new design without
> shutting down the city for 2 years. Hard to build the new interchange
> below the old one with the new roads going through the pillars that
> support the old one above.
> 
> 
> I think many VMS shops are still on VMS because of a similar situation
> where they have something that works, and moving to a new architecture
> would represent major disruption so they have kept postponing this
> despite knowing that VMS had a finite lifetime ahead.
> 
> And it would not surprise me to see some VMS shops continue well beyond
> 2015 with their existing VMS system with no real plans to port what is
> left on it because it still works. And what is left on VMS for them is
> stable and doesn't require much patching.
> 
> 

Yep!

And because there are Alpha emulators that appear to work, and x86 
platforms do seem to have a long future, perhaps some of those 
"incredible stupid" organizations will refuse to die.