[Info-vax] SMTP chunk sizes

[Rich Jordan]

On Monday, March 23, 2015 at 9:23:44 PM UTC-5, David Froble wrote:
> Rich Jordan wrote:
> > On Monday, March 23, 2015 at 5:48:05 PM UTC-5, David Froble wrote:
> >> Rich Jordan wrote:
> >>
> >>>      Process is out, for the same reason that PMDF, or an exchange server is out.  Zero budget.
> >> Question?  Is there any budget for a support contract?
> > 
> > That would be nice.  No.  They're not going to put one penny into the
> > VMS system (we have a systems and network maintenance contract with
> > them so we're on the hook to get things working).  Likely it will be
> > replaced by Q3 or Q4, depending on their budgeting.  We'd both just
> > like not to be tied up waiting for mail or on multi hour support
> > calls for the remaining time.  I do wish we could do PMDF, or even
> > Communigate, old though it is.  But no go.
> 
> I had a customer who was dead set against the VMS system.  Best and most 
> reliable system they had.  Didn't matter.  So, I took what was offered, 
> re-wrote the application in VB for weendoze, and we went our separate ways.
> 
> If your customer is not going to give VMS a chance to do their job, then 
> there's not much more you can do.  Get what you can, and move on.
> 
> However, if I thought the customer might be open to some improvements, 
> I'd go to Process and say, "I cannot buy a PMDF license, however, I can 
> give you at least a 1 year (or whatever) support contract".  If it was 
> me, I'd say "here's the license, usable in a commercial environment as 
> long as a support contract is in place", and I'd be ahead, since a 
> license purchase just won't happen.
> 
> I'd go even further, though it might not be a good idea.  I'd say, no 
> license required, and you own nothing, but you can use the product as 
> long as a support contract is in effect, and you remove the product from 
> your system if the support contract is terminated.  But I'm not sure 
> which budgets rent / lease and support might come from.
> 
> Basically, I think purchasing software licenses is becoming a thing of 
> the past.  Recurring income is better anyway.

Please don't misunderstand.  The company ran on VMS for 15+ years, using custom software (from my company mostly).  They made the decision to move to a packaged solution from another company that is farily dominant in their industry; the Alpha was retained for access to historic data (which is now no longer needed).  

When they ran into hard times they asked us to get email and a static website working, and the Alpha was just sitting there idling.  So we used it, and for a few years everything was fine.  It is recently (Outlook 2013, and now Office365) that problems are cropping up.  But the Alpha is not doing anything that VMS specifically is needed for any more.  It is old, off support, and they are not going to be moving off their 'industry standard' commercial software.  So there's no budget  It wouldn't make sense to spend money on even a support contract for software without also providing some coverage (even just spare equipment) for the hardware.

I think they'll be moving to Office 365.  Seems to be how they are leaning.  Then the Alpha will only be running their website until they decide to move that too.  Up to them.