[Info-vax] BASIC compiler in the hobbyist distribution

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Friday, 29 May 2015 00:25:10 UTC+1, David Froble  wrote:
> seasoned_geek wrote:
> > On Thursday, May 28, 2015 at 1:50:52 PM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> > 
> >> That was my point.  Is Solaris even relevant in today's IT world?
> >> If I were VSI I would not waste time trying to determine how to
> >> "compete" with Solaris.  And AIX while still doing OK is really a
> >> very niche product and probably not really a competitor anymore.
> >>
> > 
> > Actually worth it, more so than chasing the "free" market at this point. The people in those particular niches, particularly AIX and AS/400, have real business needs and have been able to justify spending of significant cash to service those needs.
> > 
> > The "free" market has a habit of not paying anyone. I mean they think it is ok to have servers which have 4 hour outages each year, so, how is one going to sell them something which runs 24x7 for decades without down time?
> > 
> > A much easier sell to tell the AIX and AS/400 crowd, hey, your boxes were supposed to kill the VAX, it is still here. We have 24x7 up-time measured in decades with ongoing development and you're looking at End Of Life for your current platform, here is how you port...
> 
> I'm thinking that VSI knows who their customers are.  Check the map  :-)
> 
> Their best bet is to service their customers.  A really bad bet would be 
> to go after IBM, again, which is part of how we got to where we are now.

VSI know who yesterday's VMS customers were.

DEC knew a bit about who yesterday's customers were too. DEC didn't
know (or didn't properly think about) who their customers (not just
VMS customers) were going to be in (say) three years time. The HQ
message seemed to be 'same customers, bigger value sales' (added to
a bit of bravura about taking on IBM), ignoring the reality that
what was good enough for lots of people was getting cheaper each
year.

VSI have a bit more focus than DEC/CPQ/HQ. 

VSI still need to think about not just yesterday's customers, but
tomorrow's as well. Who those customers might be, and (as you
rightly point out) who they probably are not going to be.

Fingers crossed they're in a good position to do so.

ps
in a couple of years time it will be VMS's 40th birthday (taking
release date as birth date). VMS will be middle aged.

Some people seem to think new is inherently improved; that young
is hip and cool. After all, that tactic works so well for cheap
and cheerful consumer goods and for fashion victims, so much of
the IT market has adopted the same tactics.

On the other hand, in the field of real engineering, incremental
improvement over time is usually a *virtue*.

When civil engineers designing bridges (for example) move away from
incremental improvement and go radical for reasons of 'style' or
'innovation', as has happened from time to time, they end up with
things like London's Millenium Bridge [1]. Allegedly none of the
designers foresaw the problems. I'd be surprised if that were true.

I wouldn't be surprised if engineers who foresaw the problems were
afraid to speak out because it would have made them unpopular with
management who were looking for a 'modern' 'innovative' 'solution'. 

Attention to detail. Sometimes it matters. 

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Bridge,_London