INQUIRER full of anti-Microsoft drivel

Why do I even bother to read the Inq anymore? Even discounting your anti-Microsoft feelings, the caliber of writing is low (note the typo-ridden articles throughout the site, it's like reading IRC), the breadth of reporting narrow, and the snide attempts at humor lost their charm ages ago. Oh, please, say "the Vole" again--it busts me up! Ha ha ha! Can't stop laughing at the deathless wit of Magee.

Perhaps, just perhaps your editorial slant is so pronounced that it drives away people looking for news without all the snide remarks. You end up with a Slashdot audience of geek conformists. Maybe that's why you and the Reg called the Microsoft antitrust trial and the European antitrust investigations so wrongly - you can no longer separate your analyses from wishful thinking.

I recall the Inq once having someone halfway compelled to stick up for the company, at least one got more than a single unified opinion. Magee just seems to be hiring people with little writing experience, marginal technical backgrounds (like helping granny change her inkjet cartridge), and a dependable sameness of viewpoint. And these opinion pieces are useless--I read better composed posts on Usenet all the time, what's more one can force the writer to back up his assertions there.

In short(?), your response does not impress me. Not well thought out, just the standard anti-Microsoft drivel that I am accustomed to seeing in the Inq and other like-minded venues.

Brian
Email address supplied

Great OpenVMS debate of 2003 rages on
If OpenVMS is profitable, where's the money going?

I think your point could be made more succinctly:

OpenVMS is making $800 million, HP is just not taking care of business.

It's pretty obvious that the suits at HP have followed the Compaq line and are just milking the cow even as the cow shrinks. They have no intention of putting any more cash into it whether for marketing or for R&D. Perhaps they should just open source the whole hting and return to pushing ink jet refill cartridges.

Rich Mycroft
Email address supplied

Hi,

Just a few quotes from Dominic Connor's letter and my comments on those quotes:

"The sad fact is that no ad campaign is going to make me, or any other IT manager seriously consider OpenVMS." Funny statement, considering the US military uses it. If HP advertised that fact more often, I'm sure it would get the attention of at least SOME managers - at least the ones that value stability and security above all else.

"Loadsamoney was put into creating the VMS family, and now it is paying off. " "Selling OpenVMS would not be rational for HP. There is almost no money to be made from selling VMS licences, the money being in services. " Dominic, did you ever buy a VMS licence? If you were HP, why would you want to cut off your revenue potential by NOT selling licences - licences that are very expensive I might add - bought 4 user licence a couple of years ago and it cost over CDN$2000 (US$1350).

US$1350 for printing a sheet of paper and allowing me an extra 4 logins sounds mighty profitable to me. Turning away that kind of markup is idiotic. And why not try to make money from the services AND licences? Oh, and you also can't make money servicing VMS users if you don't have any VMS user base. Selling licences goes hand in hand with selling services in the long run. If you have more licenced users, they you'll probably have more users to make service revenue off of.

"There is obviously a rational level of development to keep it ticking over, but only someone who thinks the media is the true reality could be so deluded as to think that an ad campaign will budge VMS from its genteel decline. "

One ad campaign probably won't do it. It has to be a sustained effort that shows that the company is 100% behind the product. Hell, just put an ad in Windows & .Net Magazine that reads something like "Why wait for an untested and unproven 64 bit Windows or Linux OS when there is a rock solid, tested and proven military grade OS and server combo available right now?"

HP should also keep its eyes and ears open for any company or organization that experienced a security breach or system failure - and then knock on their door and tell them about a military-grade operating system known as VMS and military grade hardware known as the Alpha (which, by the way, is still faster than the Itanium). And even if this doesn't stop the decline, so what? Whatever additional sales they get will have way more profit in it than any Intel-based hardware they're selling.

Regards,
Peter Stern
Email supplied

It is not surprising that HP is cynically treating OpenVMS as a cash cow. It reminds me of the way the Syracusan citizens condemned the survivors of the Athenian army that attacked them to work in their silver mines until they died from hunger and overwork.

From the Syracusans' point of view it was a no-lose proposition. They got some free labour, their enemies were killed in a suitable miserable way, and word got out - thus discouraging any other would-be aggressors.

When DEC owned OpenVMS, HP was enemy number 2 or 3 - after Sun and Microsoft. (DEC thought IBM was a competitor, but that relationship was more like a cow that absent-mindedly treads on a frog).

As for HP's ability to absorb the profits of OpenVMS, huge amorphous corporations resemble governments in their endless thirst for money. It's rather like watering the desert.

I was amused by another correspondent's view that no IT manager would buy OpenVMS "because it's old". Right, that's why nobody uses CICS or COBOL any more. Sadly, the industry is grossly distorted by the influence of fashion, but informed and sensible IT managers might well find OpenVMS attractive - but for HP's policies.

Tom Welsh
(DEC employee 1974-1993)
Email supplied

Thanks for the VMS article, whoever you are, and here's hoping I was not the only one to forward the link to Stallard, Marcello and Gorham.

Dave
Email supplied

Sounds like Mr. Conner has been memorizing and is now regurgitating the trade rags of yesteryear - the few that even acknowledged the existence of OpenVMS, that is. When he says it's "A nice bit of the past ... but not a thing to expand your business into", it's obvious he really didn't understand what he was dealing with during his "techie" experience with it.

OpenVMS, like any other product, stands or falls on the strength of many factors, advertising being a central one. If the world's largest soft drink beverage company quit advertising its signature product, in time it too would be "in genteel decline". As far as the merits of the product itself, there can be no question that it meets every requirement one could place on a modern business-oriented OS (aside from being somewhat limited in the fenestration department).

In fact, it's security is without equal in a general-purpose OS. It's major "failing" seems to be that it isn't [yet] available on Intel hardware (forget that it's native Alpha hardware was/is the fastest on the planet for a considerable time). Large acronym-encumbered organizations and international financial institutions still rely on its continued existence and support, and porting to new hardware - already accomplished once - can only make it even more attractive.

In short, the "decline" Mr. Conner sees is solely one of perception. True, perception rules much of our thinking and subsequent action, but this implies that changing the perception is the required "fix". Which is where we are now, with DEC/Compaq/HP fumbling about as they squeeze the goose for just one more golden egg whilst failing to provide for its continued livelihood. Perceptions aligned with reality make a powerful combination, and if the reality of OpenVMS as an OS capable of meeting the demands of today and the future could be aligned with a similar perception through an effective marketing strategy, OpenVMS could continue to provide a steady and broad revenue stream for many years to come.

R.L. Tate
Dreaming of OpenVMS on Opteron
Email address supplied

Bluetooth was a good king
Wicked viking ruler?

Harald Blåtand, (Harald Bluetooth, because his 2 front teeth was blue), was the king who gathered all Denmark under him and the first viking king to become a Christian. He rose 2 rune stones in Jelling in Jutland, where he and his parents are burried under 2 hills. One stone for his parents, his mother Thyra Danebod and his father Gorm the Old. And the stone he rose for him self is the greatest of all rune stones in Denmark, (and ind the north. It is also the only one with Jesus and the cross.

Jelling is a must see, if you visit DK.

And Harald was considered at good king, BUT his son Sven Tveskæg, well there you can talk about a hardcaser. He killed his father in battle, he belived in the old gods of the north, he conqured all England, sacked London and his son, Knud the great, became king of England.

Bad english, but hope you understand. You should know all this if you are from the area around York, (earlier called Danelagen).

Regards
Lars V. Jensen
Email address supplied