[Info-vax] blast from the past

Sat Apr 9 14:54:27 EDT 2022

Found this while looking for something else:

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From:	HSVAX1::ST2F304      "Phillip Helbig" 22-FEB-1997 18:54:48.81
To:	ST2F304
CC:	
Subj:	The Official Digital VMS Position

Path: news.uni-hamburg.de!cs.tu-berlin.de!unlisys!fu-berlin.de!news.mathworks.com!mvb.saic.com!info-vax
From: "Dan Oreilly" <Dan.Oreilly at MCI.Com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: The Official Digital VMS Position
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19970221212005.00936494 at pop3.mail.mci.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 14:20:05 -0700
Organization: Info-Vax<==>Comp.Os.Vms Gateway
Lines: 111

This is rather fascinating reading.  Wes Melling is the Digital VP
who owns both VMS and WNT.  When Wes says something, believe it.  He's
definately a man of his word, and commands a whole lot of respect 
within all levels of Digital.  As I understand it, this statement
was developed very recently by Wes; it's not old stuff.

******************OpenVMS Futures Directions*****************
               from the office of Wes Melling, V.P.

The OpenVMS operating system environment holds a special place in the 
computer industry.  It was the centerpiece of the minicomputer 
revolution, the first operating system to prove that scaling from 
desktop to data center was practical, and the first to demonstrate 
that clustered systems could achieve levels of availability well 
beyond mainframes or "fault tolerant" systems.  It was, and continues 
to be, a huge market success.  

As we come to the turn of the millennium, we are pleased to see that 
OpenVMS is retaining its place in the industry as a viable, profitable 
business for Digital.  Much of the OpenVMS stability comes from the 
fact that its technology was so advanced that it has been easy to keep 
it in a leadership position.  OpenVMS was the first operating system 
to offer DCE, the first with a CORBA-compliant object broker, and the 
first to have three-tier client/server computing as a mainstream 
paradigm (OpenVMS has over 12,000 three-tier production systems today, 
while most operating systems are still working on their first 100).  
OpenVMS is still the fastest operating system environment in the 
world, as recent TPC-C benchmarks prove, and it is still the most 
highly available system on the market, as the recent fire at Credit 
Lyonnais demonstrated.  Because of OpenVMS' high reliability, it sells 
strongly not only into the Digital customer base, but off-base as 
well.  Of the first 1,000 Turbolasers (8400/8200) shipped,  480 ran 
OpenVMS, and 120 of these went to customers who had never bought from 
Digital before.  Their reason for purchase was almost exclusively 
reliability.  (It is an interesting note that the vast majority of the 
world's computer chips, including Intel, Intel clones and Power PCs, 
are built on fabrication lines that are run by OpenVMS.)

In March of 1995, we announced an architecture which enables the 
integration of both OpenVMS and Windows NT in a three-tier 
application. The architecture leverages the known affinity between the 
two operating systems (they had the same architect and are so similar 
in concept and operation that learning, using and managing both is 
simple).  The synergy offers the application base of WindowsNT with 
the scaling, integrity, security and availability of OpenVMS.  As part 
of the architectural announcement, we re-positioned OpenVMS as the 
ultimate high end for Windows NT. Response has been enthusiastic, so 
much so that sales of new OpenVMS systems are stable (in a market 
segment that contains MVS, OS/400 and Tandem Guardian and is generally 
declining).  Because of clustering, OpenVMS customers tend to displace 
less than they install, which means that stable new sales actually 
grow the accumulated base, with a healthy impact on our add-on, 
upgrade and service businesses.

In short, we have a thriving, multi-billion dollar business which, as 
a percentage, is one of the most profitable systems businesses in the 
industry.  We intend to invest to nurture it for our own benefit, and 
that same investment protects our customers' investments and their 
relationship with us.  

   1.  First, we will continue to invest to make OpenVMS the ultimate 
       high end for Windows NT. To that end, we have announced full 
       64-bit capability for OpenVMS as part of the Version 7.0 
       release in January 1995, the largest single increment in 
       functionality in OpenVMS history, and we have added a panoply 
       of middleware and application development tools to support the 
       three-tier, heterogeneous environment. A strong list of 
       sophisticated new applications is flowing to this environment.  

   2.  Second, we are extending OpenVMS into the Internet market.  All 
       our future systems will ship Web-ready, and we have provided 
       the software to retro-fit our customers' installed systems.  
       The architecture we have used for Windows NT integration is 
       fully compatible with Oracle's Network Computing Architecture, 
       and we will be among the first to offer web servers, mail 
       systems and commerce systems in that architecture.  We have 
       also announced for the OpenVMS and Windows NT environments the 
       only solution currently available for carrying full 
       transactional integrity across the public Internet, and that 
       facility is an easy extension for our ACMS customers. 

   3.  Finally, we are investing to raise the bar in availability, 
       since we see a dramatic increase in the number of systems being 
       developed which will demand 24x365 and disaster-tolerant 
       production platforms.  We believe we can sustain the leadership 
       OpenVMS currently enjoys in this arena.

We anticipate strong demand for new systems well into the next decade.  
Beyond that, it's hard to predict anything in this industry, but one 
thing is clear.  Even if we ignore new systems business, software 
maintenance is in itself a profitable activity for us.  With the 
number of new mission-critical systems being installed this year on 
OpenVMS, it would be reasonable to expect that we would still have 
substantial software maintenance revenues ten years from now and 
beyond.  While Digital's standard software maintenance commitments are 
for a relatively short term, reflecting the rate of change in the 
industry, broad market and sales trends have always been a better 
predictor of an operating system's longevity.  The size (and loyalty) 
of the OpenVMS installed base, combined with its observable resilience 
in adapting to new markets, are, in my judgment a strong foundation 
for continuing investment on both your part and mine.

--
Dan O'Reilly
MCI Telcommunications
Systems Engineering/BT NIP
MS 1183/117
2424 Garden of the Gods Rd
Colorado Springs, CO  80919
719-535-1418