[Info-vax] A possible platform for VMS?

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Sunday, 1 March 2015 18:12:40 UTC, Stephen Hoffman  wrote:
> On 2015-03-01 17:41:52 +0000, johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk said:
> 
> > Windows may well be acceptable for lots of outfits. VMS was in that 
> > position once, but times changed.
> 
> Windows solves the problems -- bugs and all -- that a whole lot of folks have.
> 
> Most folks buy computer systems to do work, and security is secondary 
> to that, after all.
> 
> > The same could happen to MS. Much
> 
> And already has, if you include mobile and tablet devices in the 
> population of client devices in use.
> 
> > as it happened to Apple (and then a miracle occured).
> 
> A whole lot of focus, a whole lot of work on products, and a whole lot of "no".
> 
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh_9Wwx43r4>.
> 
> More than a little of what's been discussed here in comp.os.vms will be 
> getting a "no" from VSI, too.
> 
> > At the risk of getting repetitive again, one size does not necessarily 
> > fit all (not in a sensible world anyway).
> 
> At the risk of being entirely too repetitive myself, please provide a 
> better alternative.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

Provide a better alternative for what requirements?

If someone starts from the mindset that the requirement is "Windows",
then Windows will inevitably be the best answer (and there can then be
a dialogue over which flavour is required, and maybe over why the answer
has to be Windows regardless of the underlying requirements).

This is the stereotypical legacy IT Department starting position:
whatever the question, the answer is Windows. It's been almost plausible
for a couple of decades; it's now looking less plausible as time goes by.

On the other hand, if someone comes up with a specific set of
requirements, without explicitly stating an OS, then a different
discussion hopefully arises. For example...

High end highly scalable high availability: not Windows. Might be Tandem,
might be VMS. Heck in some places it might even be mainframes (IBM and
others are still doing mainframe business, even if it's never in the
trade rags).

Low(ish) end embedded (e.g. set top box): not Windows. Likely Linux.
Probably not VMS. MS MediaRoom tried to get the set top market by
going the CEO-led route (if you can't win the debate engineer to
engineer, go CEO to CEO). It worked in BT in the UK. But now even BT
management have realised that Windows is not always the answer; the
newer boxes don't have Windows, they are iirc Linux based, and TVs
themselves seem to like ARM/Android at the moment. But not Windows.

A UNIX system to run specific corporate UNIX apps: Sun/Solaris? Linux?

Joe Public at home, surfing and email: traditionally Windows.
Increasingly Android or Mac or occasionally Linux. Not usually going
to be VMS (with a small number of locally well known honourable
exceptions).

In other areas: who knows? 

Volume rollout of corporate retail branch systems: now maybe we're
talking? Why 100% Windows? Convince the ePoS vendors and their larger
customers that VMS may make some of their nightmares less severe, and
there may be a dialogue to have. If they continue with 100% Windows,
there's no evidence that anything will get better. 

Industrial automation, SCADA, etc: see corporate retail. Different
vendors, similar considerations to think about (different details). 

Both of those two need pretty clients with limited intelligence, and
reasonably capable reasonably robust reasonably secure back ends that
have no overwhelming need to be the same as the user-visible systems.

There are doubtless other similar market sectors.

Fwiw, the "pick relevant players and work with them" tactic was what
took NT/Alpha rapidly from nowhere to a serious player in the print
sector; the speed was an advantage that outweighed the incompatibility.
NT/Alpha was a better fit to the requirements (speed, primarily) than
the NT/x86 of the day. And then just as quickly, Gates and Palmer took
NT/Alpha away again. Ho hum.

The answer depends on the requirements.