[Info-vax] relaunch or legacy

[Gérard Calliet]

Le 30/01/2022 à 01:56, Dave Froble a écrit :
> On 1/29/2022 5:17 PM, Gérard Calliet wrote:
>> Le 28/01/2022 à 22:32, Dave Froble a écrit :
>>> On 1/28/2022 7:58 AM, Gérard Calliet wrote:
>>>> Le 28/01/2022 à 13:29, John Dallman a écrit :
>>>>> In article <j5i0m8Fs463U1 at mid.individual.net>,
>>>>> gerard.calliet at pia-sofer.fr (Gérard Calliet) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I apologize for the probably pretentiousness of this presentation.
>>>>>> If it can be an excuse, I consider that the respect due to an
>>>>>> audience as learned and experienced as c.o.v. implies to entrust
>>>>>> them with complex things.
>>>
>>> Frankly, I fail to understand just what you're trying to say.  Maybe 
>>> use fewer
>>> and smaller words?
>> My problem is quite simple: why the majority of customers we know in 
>> france
>> don't think about a real future for VMS, and don't do efforts to port 
>> to x86.
>> And also why VSI seems to be totaly deaf.
>>>
>>>>> Here we seem to have a difference in national etiquette. To Americans,
>>>>> and other English-speakers, especially engineers, a crisis is best
>>>>> explained in a few blunt words. Lengthy speeches remove the sense of
>>>>> urgency.
>>>
>>> Just what is your crisis?  Try fewer words.  Be specific.
>> Same words: no more business with VMS in the few next years. The ones 
>> who are
>> not quitting now do that against their will, so we understand.
>> If we are not the exception, it seems there is a crisis.
>>
>> VMS is more and more expensive, the subscription is totally badly 
>> received.
>>
>> In france we have not any real information about the adoption of x86 
>> elsewhere,
>> not serious information of the business results of VSI. The french pay to
>> another entity (teracloud) their bills. For a lot of the big customers 
>> it's a
>> problem: to deal with a little company a little bit unknowned.
>>
>> Changes in the key management is worrying: changes of ceo, arriving of 
>> persons
>> from the investor's past, and not any word about what is the 
>> signification on
>> strategy: who is the pilot, where he really wants to go?
>>
>> Alliance with sector7, and we heard from a VSI people about port of 
>> customers to
>> x86 "we'll [the service business unit of VSI] study your case, if we 
>> can help
>> you to go to x86 we'll help you, and otherwise we'll find solutions".
>> Consequence: do they themselves in VSI think x86 will succeed?
>>
>> You can think french are wrong on all that bad signals. We have the 
>> symitric
>> cultural default: when we hear a beautifull simple story, we suspect 
>> someones is
>> making fun of us. Pathological pessimism.
>>
>> And a dreadfull confession: even my french friends say my sentences 
>> are too long
>> and complicate. In french, as our big writer, Proust, it is possible 
>> to do very
>> long sentences, and sometimes the writer don't even understands 
>> himself what he
>> has writen. I'm not Proust, but I have this default, and, worst, I use a
>> automatic translator when I have no time (a very good one, it uses 
>> IA). I reread
>> quickly, and if I understand, I send. Big apologies :(
>>
>> Anyway, I understand I failed to explain my point. Perhaps one or two 
>> things
>> could be clear.
>>
>> I'm totaly convinced VSI would succeed only if they are strongly 
>> innovative,
>> because the issue of VMS revival is everything but trivial. And my 
>> analasys is
>> that from 2014 to today they have been strongly non innovative. So I 
>> try to
>> understand why, and how help thinking better.
>>
>> Example:
>> why HP killed VMS? Very simple: because not immediate profits, not 
>> good with the
>> standard analysis of big IT companies. It is not an error, it is just a
>> standard. And I remember that in 2013 everyone in c.o.v. was just 
>> saying the
>> same thing: no future for VMS, all the trends are against a success. 
>> Again, good
>> arguments.
>>
>> Not mine in these years. I thought there was in VMS an exception which 
>> could
>> match with the emerging tendancy of sustainibility. I was right, no?
>>
>> But the equation was: compatibility of the VMS exceptions with the 
>> emerging
>> tendancy.
>>
>> And as everyone knows, the business paradigms for sustainability are a 
>> very
>> complex issue, just emerging (for guys who live near MIT, please learn 
>> about
>> that). How to make profits with solutions which have very long lives (the
>> contrary of the Schumpeter "destructive creation" paradigm), which 
>> need an
>> agenda with very long times (the contrary of the grand majority of the 
>> markets).
>> Possible but not trivial at all. To cope with it in simple issues 
>> (doing green
>> technology, for example) is not simple.
>>
>> But with VMS we have to make a match between something which has had
>> similarities with the sustainability but is not quite from the same 
>> cultur. More
>> difficult.
>>
>> And VSI constructs a strategy as if VMS could be profitable in the same
>> paradigms that had killed it. Success is possible? No. I thought that 
>> in 2014.
>>
>> Now in France VMS cannot be sustainable. Look for the error.
>>
>> The idea is a little complex, but the sentences are shorter. I did my 
>> best.
>>
>> Other example:
>>
>> A question:
>>
>> Is VMS a legacy system? Or being on x86 one of the normal modern and 
>> attractive OS?
>>
>> If you hear VSI people, one day legacy, one day like all others. 
>> Perhaps they
>> don't know, and perhaps they don't care - and perhaps as all of us :), 
>> we don't
>> care.
>>
>> The question is what strategy to choose? And imagine that VMS could be 
>> the
>> opportunity to have a change in the concept of legacy, because it is 
>> just in the
>> middle of the road, and that it is this situation which can have a 
>> great future.
>> To succeed we need to know who we are.
>>
>> As you see: shorter sentences, more sentences needed.
>>
>> Just for fun, a little story.
>>
>> I founded about ten years ago a professional association for VMS (we 
>> had the
>> final banquet a month ago: too members retired). Whith it we could do 
>> some
>> interesting business. It was not so simple, but we succeed.
>>
>> I remember one of the member who explained to me how to do good 
>> business, being
>> understood by customers. The sentence is KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. 
>> I do say
>> he made my day with that. I was wandering saying that to Mr Turing, or 
>> Miss Ada
>> Lovelace, or the Lady of the Navy who contributed to Cobol and the 
>> Digital
>> history. I'm not comparing me with these geniuses.
>>
>> Only saying innovation is very, very complex and subtil new 
>> differences (between
>> relaunch and legacy, for example) are very difficult to define and 
>> expose. On
>> the other hand it is very simple to not innovate, because the totality 
>> of the
>> old good certitudes are here to give us the tranquility.
>>
>> Relaunch of VMS is innovative. The KISS method has been applied. Done.
>>
> 
> Ok, I'll try to keep this simple.
> 
> Start with, for the most part, humans are like lemmings.  A bunch say 
> "let's go run off the cliff, and not wanting to think for themselves, 
> and not wanting to be left behind, another bunch joins in the "running 
> off the cliff".
> 
> Now let's look at VMS and alternatives.
> 
> VMS is basically an OS developed by DEC to sell hardware.  Back in the 
> day that hardware was quite expensive, and the profits must have been 
> rather nice.  Part of that is that people took sides.  I like IBM.  I 
> like DEC.  I like HP.  I like Data General.  And all the rest.  So the 
> result is that those liking VMS will not be in the majority.  Perhaps a 
> decently large percentage, but less than 50%.  So, for the majority, if 
> their preferred brand is no longer available, they choose something 
> else, and Unix and Linux are not tied to one of the old brands, thus is 
> something they can grab onto without "joining the enemy".
> 
> Then there is the thing called WEENDOZE.  I've had former customers tell 
> me "we want to be a 100% windows shop".  I ask why, and they do not have 
> any reasons. Did I perhaps mention lemmings?
> 
> So, let's consider VMS.  If a user has an application that runs on VMS 
> and is meeting their needs, then VMS is most likely what they should 
> choose to continue to use.  If they can.  With the port to x86, such 
> customers can do so, or, they can become lemmings.  Some will do one, 
> some the other.  If they choose lemmings, there really isn't much one 
> can do about that.  They have made a command decision, and surely don't 
> want to hear what idiots they are.  Calling them idiots won't be 
> helpful.  But they have made a bad decision.  It happens. Get over it.
> 
> While the port to x86 is not complete, it is rather clear that VSI is 
> being successful, and will complete it.  Note that they really don't 
> have much time for anything else, so if you ask for anything else, you 
> will be disappointed.
> 
> The situation for ISVs is similar.  They may have applications that are 
> suitable for some tasks.  The key is whether customers believe those 
> applications, on VMS, are "right" for them.  Some will have heard the 
> call of the lemmings, and most likely there is nothing you can do to 
> convince them otherwise.  Just wave to them as they head for the cliff.
> 
> VSI's current customer base is those still on VMS, for whatever reason.  
> Some will continue, as long as VMS is available.  Some will hear the 
> call of the lemmings "it's gonna die, run while you can".  It's called a 
> "self fulfilling prophesy", and it happens all the time.  Companies blow 
> millions of dollars and go out of business all the time.  That will 
> continue to happen.
> 
> Remember the line in the song, "a man hears what he wants to hear and 
> disregards the rest".  If someone is not listening to you, move on to 
> those who might. That is about all you can do.
> 
I reread all the thread. There are a lot of interesting things. Our 
readers will do they honey.

On my side I'm not sure I can convince my customers. And, Dave, if all 
my customers go out, as you say, too bad for hem, don't care. But also 
too bad for me ):

About the lemmings. Perhaps my opinion is there are lemmings (the people 
who go out, because everyone goes out) and lemming and a half (the 
companies which do as every other companies, even in special 
situations). Or I'm a lemming and I don't know about it? :)

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