[Info-vax] Building for Customers, Revenue (was: Re: Bliss was Re: Learning VMS application programming)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2014-09-13 16:20:08 +0000, Phillip Helbig---undress to reply said:

> Just yesterday, I bought a couple of 64-GB USB sticks.  (128 GB would 
> have been possible as well.)

There are now 512 GB SD cards available on the market.

>> Hoff: Good luck with resolving the compromises and the packaging 
>> differences that'd inherent in this wrist-to-cloud quest, too,
> 
> I'd be happy with desktop-to-datacenter.  :-|

Discounting that most folks expect far more from a desktop than you do, 
that's still no small development effort, given how far the laptops 
(which are increasingly now serving as desktops) and the servers have 
diverged.

>> Hoff: VMS is exceedingly ill-suited for home users.
> 
> Even I don't want to convert all home users to VMS.  (Well, I do, but I 
> realize that it is unrealistic.)  I'm thinking of people who like VMS.

At what cost?   You can get the VMS software here for free, but you're 
restricted with what you can do with it.  Some folks will want 
permanent licenses rather than annual renewals, too.

>From 2007 <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/3>, and the hardware and 
software has only progressed further along in the ensuing years, and 
the prices have dropped substantially.

> Let's have a poll: Who uses VMS exclusively for desktop stuff?

Licensing costs, hardware support, power and cooling and sound output 
requirements and battery life expectations, compatibility with common 
file formats and a host of other (missing) features can make VMS use on 
the desktop untenable.  This before discussing the viability 
(futility?) of head-on competition with Windows or OS X.

> Who uses it whenever possible, using other systems only when something 
> is not possible on VMS?

Nope.  See above.  Opening up an ssh session into VMS or maybe a remote 
X session is just easier, for the VMS-specific work.

> Who would like to do all their desktop stuff on VMS?

Um, call me back when VMS is close(r) to OS X or Windows in terms of 
applications and features and system hardware support, when the costs 
are known?   Then we'll chat.




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