[Info-vax] Building for Customers, Revenue

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote 2014-09-13 16:31:
> In article <lv1jr9$ecd$1 at dont-email.me>, Stephen Hoffman
> <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
>
>> Best case and assuming a massive budget for development, that's most of
>> a decade of very intensive work to bring the server features forward to
>> what will then be current, and probably twice that effort would need to
>> be invested to create a viable desktop and probably a desktop that
>> too few folks would want.
>
> How would the effort compare to the effort of porting to x86?
>

The difference is that a port to x86 is actualy asked for.
That is, there is a *market*. There isn't for "desktop VMS".
Never will be.


>
> I don't think that VSI should compete against "regular" desktops, but
> rather offer enough desktop support so that VMS folks don't have to run
> something else just for desktop stuff.

There will *never* be a VMS desktop that even comes close
to a current Windows/Apple PC/laptop. Heck, even Linux have
a hard time competeting even with the wast amount of effort
put into it.

This is not where I'd want *my* licens money to go.


>
>> There just aren't enough Phillip-like customers in the world.
>
> I don't know.  Just a few weeks ago, anyone who thought that there would
> be a viable port of VMS to x86, or even Poulson support, in the
> foreseeable future would have been deemed delusional.  :-)

Just a few weeks ago people was actualy asking for a Poulson
port (x86 was just unthinkable at that time).

Browser (and other "desktop" stuff) has been out of the
picture for decades.

>> Pretty much everybody already has a non-VMS desktop environment, Phillip.
>
> But even if they do, it is a pain to constantly transfer files between
> it and VMS.

Then don't do that! :-)

Besides, it is no major problem, I simply mail files from
VMS that I need on my Windows laptop, and also mail files
back to VMS. You can also setup a web server that serves
one or a few directories and you can simply download
directly from your desktop browser into your desktop.

>
> I do have some experience with other systems, desktop and otherwise, but
> at home do almost all desktop stuff from VMS.  It would be nice to be
> able to do it all.
>

Of course it depends on what *all* means, but for general, modern
desktop (Office-type) work, that will simply never happen.