[Info-vax] The real problem that needs solving to grow VMS

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2022-11-07 02:16, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> 
> We all know the "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM", "Nobody
> ever got fired for choosing Microsoft", "Nobody ever got fired for
> choosing Java".
> 
> And it is very funny. But it has very little to do with the real world.
> 
> For individual contributors it may be a safe choice to stay
> mainstream - everybody else is doing it so you can't fire me for
> bad performance.
> 
> But at the decision maker aka CIO level only results counts -
> excuses does not matter.
> 
> The CEO-CIO discussion would go like:
> 
> CEO: I am not happy that project X failed
> CIO: Not my fault I choose the same platform as everybody else
> CEO: I don't care - it failed and it does matter what everybody else do
> CEO: Out of curiosity - did it fail other places and you still picked it 
> or is everybody else except you able to get it working?
> CIO: I will go clean my desk

I think you're leaving out one important step here.

Someone at some point (should) always ask: Why did it fail.
And then there comes the analysis of the why, and in there will be the 
question of the choice of platform, and then it will be recognized that 
it was the same platform everyone else chose, so that was/is not the 
problem. Something else is.

If someone gets fired, it is in the end not because of the choice of 
platform in this case then.

However, if they picked VMS, and it fails for whatever reason, the 
retrospect will reach the point of the decision of platform, and 
everyone will recognized it was not the same platform as everyone else 
chose, and the digging will stop there, and the guy who made the call 
for VMS is let go.

Even if you think it should be otherwise.

   Johnny