[Info-vax] VMS Software, Inc. Acquires All OpenVMS Support Business from Hewlett Packard Enterprise

[Simon Clubley]

On 2019-10-24, Ian Miller <gxys at uk2.net> wrote:
> As part of its exiting the OpenVMS market, Hewlett Packard Enterprises
> (HPE) has sold the rights to all its support contract renewals to VMS
> Software, Inc. (VSI). Both HPE OpenVMS (V8.4 and earlier) and VSI OpenVMS
> (V8.4-1h1 and higher) contract renewals were sold to VSI.

Unless there's something which has not been reported, I don't see how
the above...

> When combined
> with news earlier this year that HPE had stopped selling all new VSI
> upgraded license products and new VSI support contracts, this means that
> HPE has divested the controlling rights of the OpenVMS operating system
> solely to VSI. 
>

...leads to this.

The term "controlling rights" has a very specific meaning and I don't
see how VSI can now be described to have the controlling rights to VMS
based purely on the transfer of all new contract renewal sales to VSI.

As far as I can see, VSI are now in a similar situation to Mentec, where
Mentec was able to make changes to the PDP-11 operating systems and
sell the PDP-11 operating systems, but they didn't actually legally own
the PDP-11 operating systems as HPE still owns them.

For a question to clarify this: VSI have made a point of saying that
they were not allowed to sell VAX/VMS and that they were only allowed
to sell Alpha VMS and above.

Are VSI now legally allowed to sell VAX/VMS licences or does the legal
agreement with HPE still stop VSI from selling VAX/VMS licences ?

If they are now allowed, that's great (from a legal freedom point of
view), but if VSI are still not allowed to sell VAX/VMS licences,
I don't see how VSI can be described as now holding the controlling
rights to VMS and if so, the above text comes across as misleading
and should be changed.

Perhaps a better term might be "exclusive marketing rights" or
"exclusive sales rights", assuming that is now the case.

Now for a more practical question. Will HPE Engineering still be
receiving a significant number of support calls for HPE VMS until
the end of 2020 or will _all_ levels of support now be handled mostly
by VSI because people will be forced onto VSI VMS as part of the
contract renewal ?

If the latter, that implies most of HPE VMS Engineering might be going
away sooner than the end of 2020 which makes me wonder when the HPE
hobbyist program might be ended.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.