[Info-vax] Using VMS for a web server

[terry+googleblog at tmk.com]

On Friday, June 5, 2015 at 4:48:21 PM UTC-4, David Froble wrote:
> VMS is better at solving VMS problems than at solving Unix problems ..

Neither of which is particularly relevant to the business community. They have business problems*, not VMS or Unix problems. Most will want to solve their business problems for the smallest cost that accomplishes their goals of features / performance / security (probably in that priority). In many cases, that involves hiring or utilizing existing staff who are familiar with the tools used to solve that business problem. VMS is going to be difficult enough to sell to new customers (remember, on x86 it is competing with "free"**) without also telling those customers that they will need to find people with an obscure talent to not only manage the operating system, but the applications that support the business, instead of getting some of the widely available sysadmins / developers familiar with Unix-type systems.

* This is a particular point with me because as a fresh-out-of-school kid I interviewed with Data General for a software development position and completely flunked the "why are we here" part of the interview. It isn't to sell computers, or have the best product - it is to provide something that lets customers solve their problems in a more effective manner than if they bought from the competition. All else follows on from that.

** And who might buy software and support from VSI, but who might not want HP hardware for any one of a number of reasons. There's a famous quote from a school (not mine) from when DEC cancelled the Jupiter project: "We're switching to Unix because then we will have a huge choice of vendors to screw us."