[Info-vax] Comment on the future of OpenVMS

[Neil Rieck]

On Oct 25, 10:03 pm, Arne Vajhøj <a... at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> Neil Rieck wrote:
> > This week I e-attended the 2-day Oracle-RDB in Nashua, NH. I just
> > wanted to pass on a few quotes from the presentation which can also be
> > found in the presentation material.
>
> >http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/rdb/tech_forums/index.html
>
> > 1) Oracle on OpenVMS continues because Oracle Database & Oracle Rdb
> > business is healthy & valuable
>
> Oracle is good at making money.
>
> > 2) Cooperation between Oracle & HP development teams means better
> > performance and manageability for you
>
> > 3) 150,000+ combined customers…
> > – 41% of Oracle customers run HP servers
> > – 70% mid-range HP-UX servers & 90% of Superdomes run Oracle
> > – 90+% HP OpenVMS database servers use Oracle (either DB or RDB)
>
> There are not many alternatives!
>
>
>
> > The following two points were presented verbally (so are not in the
> > presentation material)
>
> > 4) Itanium blades (running OpenVMS) are making new inroads into
> > semiconductor manufacturing.
>
> > 5) Itanium blades will soon appear with 32 and 64 cores
>
> > Here are two comments of my own:
>
> > 1) In the porting presentation we were all told how Oracle-DB (not
> > RBD) was ported from VMS to Solaris and then developed from there. As
> > time passed it became more difficult to port back to VMS. VMS changes
> > when morphing into OpenVMS, as well as ODS-5, made back-porting for
> > them somewhat easier. Back-porting got even easier with the "UNIX
> > portability initiative" which they contributed to.
>
> > 2) In all this I sensed some enthusiasm from all participants (both
> > Oracle and HP) which I haven't sensed from HP-only gatherings for 3 or
> > 4 years. I kept on thinking that if HP really did something really
> > stupid to OpenVMS, that Oracle would be there (with deep pockets) to
> > pick up the pieces. After all, 150,000 combined customers is nothing
> > to ignore.
>
> I don't think it will happen.
>
> But Oracle is fundamentally a software company and most of their
> business is in reliable systems, so VMS would probably fit better
> than with a company which makes most of its money from
> printers and PC's.
>
> Arne

You may be correct. I have been accused of viewing the world through
the prism of optimism. That said, Oracle's track record as a company
is better than most. If I could travel 10-years back in time to tell
myself that "Oracle bought Sun" I would have been skeptical. While it
is unlikely that Oracle could ever buy HP, I think Oracle would buy
the OpenVMS division of HP "if HP lost interest in OpenVMS". But this
is all conjecture.

NSR