[Info-vax] VMS Software needs to port VAX DIBOL to OpenVMS X86 platform

[Simon Clubley]

On 2020-12-14, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 12/14/2020 2:08 PM, ultr... at gmail.com wrote:
>> So Synergex as of now refuses to port their OpenVMS version of DIBOL to OpenVMS X86.
>
> That is not good.
>

It's more like a disaster if this is also happening with other ISVs.

VSI have just lost a good number of VMS users with this one decision.

What I would like to know is how the hell did VSI allow this to happen ???

Synergex is _exactly_ the kind of company VSI should have been in continuous
and close contact with and VSI should have been working closely with them
to help port Synergy to x86-64 VMS.

VSI should have also been making all the right public marketing and update
noises to reassure Synergex (and other companies) that x86-64 VMS was
happening and that it was going to be a viable platform.

I wonder if Synergex saw that nothing appeared to be happening with x86-64
VMS and hence decided to drop any plans for porting to x86-64 VMS ?

With this one decision, VSI has not only lost the x86-64 VMS sales from
developers who would have bought x86-64 VMS to develop Synergy applications
on, but have also lost all the x86-64 VMS sales to customers of those
developers to run those applications on. That latter number is a much
larger number.

I would hope that VSI are now in touch with Synergy to see if anything can
be done to fix this, but based on VSI's public performance so far, I don't
have a great deal of confidence in that.

It's also probably too late if the decision has been driven by Synergex's
customers also moving on from VMS because those customers may have gained
the impression that nothing appeared to be happening with x86-64 VMS.

That marketing and building public confidence in x86-64 VMS stuff that I
was talking about a few weeks ago ? This is _exactly_ why that kind of thing
is required and I hope at least some of you are now starting to see that.

>> This is a request for VMS software to port VAX DIBOL to the x86 OpenVMS environment.
>

That's not going to happen for two reasons:

1) It was already considered at the time of the VAX to Alpha migration and
rejected by DEC in favour of a partnership with Synergex. That's when there
were a lot more VMS users than there are now.

2) What VAX DIBOL offers is extremely limited compared to what Synergy offers.

Unless code written using Synergy was _very_ restricted in what language
features it used and didn't use Synergy specific features such as the UI
toolkit, there's no way you would get Synergy code to run under VAX DIBOL.

Simon.

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