[Info-vax] relaunch or legacy

[abrsvc]

On Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 2:57:09 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-01-27, Gérard Calliet <gerard.... at pia-sofer.fr> wrote: 
> > 
> > The current situation in France and the behavior of VSI lead me to 
> > seriously doubt my work. VSI rigorously ignores the work of our 
> > association - except for courteous answers without real content. The 
> > vast majority of French customers are very uncomfortable with VSI's 
> > commercial policy, I don't know any customer who is seriously 
> > considering a port to x86 and the general opinion of customers and 
> > consultants is that VMS will disappear in the short or medium term. 
> >
> I very much know that the main problem is what happens if VSI goes bust 
> and the production licences expire, but you seem to be implying that the 
> feelings within the community are even more negative than that. 
> 
> Is this just the case in France, or is this a general feeling elsewhere ? 
> We all know just how strongly negatively the new licencing policy has been 
> received in comp.os.vms, but is that true for the rest of the VMS community ? 
> 
> If VSI could offer guarantees around licences if VSI goes bust, would that 
> reverse the negative feelings or are there other issues as well showing 
> up in France ?
> > 
> > But the most serious thing, which was structurally foreseeable, is the 
> > impoverishment of the Boston center, a founding engineering in the 
> > imbalance with the new effective center of decision and profit in 
> > Europe. The Boston offices have disappeared, the data center has been 
> > outsourced, and most of the key managers are non-VMSians. The Boston 
> > center is a victim of the same trend that took place before 2013: very 
> > high quality poses immediate profitability problems, and the trend is to 
> > go offshore to reduce costs. It is easier to invest in integration, 
> > service, which will be reconvertible in case of failure into external 
> > porting services (alliance with Sector7). 
> >
> Based on what I have read so far, I don't agree with your analysis of 
> the closing of the original VSI offices. As far as I see, VSI in the US 
> have just undertaken a relocation and just moved their systems to a 
> dedicated data centre. That bit I don't really have a problem with unless 
> there's more to this than I am seeing. Is there more to the relocation 
> of VSI in the US that I am not seeing ?
> > There is the problem that Digital had encountered: complex balancing 
> > between decision centers in the world. What we are seeing is a gradual 
> > underground takeover from the European center, closer to the investor, 
> > both by reducing resources and by appointing people close to the 
> > investor to take charge. Seen from Europe, the billing goes through the 
> > Teracloud entity for an officially American company, whose choice of 
> > managers seems to come from Europe. Thus the so-called "VSI" entity is 
> > really difficult to define, let alone its real strategies. 
> >
> However, the first part of this I don't like the sound of if it is true. 
> 
> Is it true, or is it just your impression of what is going on ?
> > 
> > For the moment VSI is only organizing itself within the classic 
> > framework of operating a legacy system, which allows it to wait serenely 
> > for the end of VMS. One of the consequences of this situation is the 
> > inevitable reproduction of a conflict between old and new - nothing less 
> > innovative than the conflict between old and new -. This explains the 
> > chaotic competition between the Boston pole and the Melmo pole. 
> >
> I have not seen any reported examples of conflict going on here. Can you 
> give some specific examples ? 
> 
> Simon. 
> 
> -- 
> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP 
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

The "Boston" office is alive and well.  It was moved to a location that offered hotels etc. much closer than existed in Bolton Ma.  As far as outsourcing goes, I suspect that it was cheaper to house the machines in a datacenter rather than have a private center built.  These data centers have multiple power sources (2 separate feeds into the facility) as well as generator power and have multiple internet feeds as well (from multiple carriers).  Having to install and support such redundancy in your own facility gets real expensive really quickly.

Yes, some of management has changed, but some of the "old" VMS guys are retiring too.  Can't blame them.  As far as I know, the core VMS engineering folks are still there with additions to carry on the tradition.

Dan (not affiliated with VSI at all)