> -----Original Message-----
> From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca]
> Sent: December 30, 2007 5:12 PM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: Samba Gains Legal Access to Microsoft Network File
> Protocols
>
> Main, Kerry wrote:
>
> > Well, pure personal opinion, but at some point I believe the industry
> is
> > going to realize that it can no longer afford these "industry
> standard"
> > OS's like Windows and Linux - especially for mission critical
> workloads.
>
> Consider that even today, VMS is rarely considered by the majority of
> IT
> shops. And by the time they realise Windows is costing them a lot more
> than other systems, VMS may no longer be available to new customers and
> its features will have lagged far more than now and will truly be only
> good enough for legacy apps.
>

[sky is falling and black helicopter stuff snipped..]

Like I (and others) have said before - nobody here is saying that
marketing and other areas (past and present) discussed at length in this
newsgroup could not have been done differently or be improved.

However, the blind doom-and-gloom you portray without any recognition
of some of the good things happening is also not beneficial to those
in this newsgroup.

Heck, getting Mark Hurd to do a personal video testimonial for a single
product (remember that HP is a $100B+ company & has hundreds of products)
was a major accomplishment by folks like Sue and others in BCS working
with her.

And here are some recent testimonial video'sall links are to HP site)

http://tinyurl.com/2qjog6
"See how Deutsche Börse, the largest financial exchange organization in
the world, uses HP OpenVMS running on HP Integrity servers to keep their
electronic markets up and running."

http://tinyurl.com/2mt3cp - Acision and OpenVMS Blades
"Acision uses HP OpenVMS running on HP Integrity servers & HP Blades to
help deliver more than half of the world's text & multimedia messages &
serve three quarters of all videomail users."

http://tinyurl.com/34886x - Australian Stock Exchange & OpenVMS Integrity
"Operating Australia's chief financial markets, the Australian Securities
Exchange relies on HP OpenVMS to deliver products and services that play a
major role in the economy down under."

So, yes there is still lots to do, but lets also not lose sight of some
Of the positive things happening as well.

Regards

Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

On Dec 30, 8:14 pm, "Main, Kerry" wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca]
> > Sent: December 30, 2007 5:12 PM
> > To: Info-...@Mvb.Saic.Com
> > Subject: Re: Samba Gains Legal Access to Microsoft Network File
> > Protocols
>
> > Main, Kerry wrote:
>
> > > Well, pure personal opinion, but at some point I believe the industry
> > is
> > > going to realize that it can no longer afford these "industry
> > standard"
> > > OS's like Windows and Linux - especially for mission critical
> > workloads.
>
> > Consider that even today, VMS is rarely considered by the majority of
> > IT
> > shops. And by the time they realise Windows is costing them a lot more
> > than other systems, VMS may no longer be available to new customers and
> > its features will have lagged far more than now and will truly be only
> > good enough for legacy apps.
>
> [sky is falling and black helicopter stuff snipped..]
>
> Like I (and others) have said before - nobody here is saying that
> marketing and other areas (past and present) discussed at length in this
> newsgroup could not have been done differently or be improved.
>
> However, the blind doom-and-gloom you portray without any recognition
> of some of the good things happening is also not beneficial to those
> in this newsgroup.

You're right. But what about your oft-repeated mantra of the industry
waking up to how expensive it is to run VMware with Windows and Linux
and employee counts and what not? How many years have you been telling
us this? At my company they've been trying to converge to one OS for
years. I never -- but wanted to -- ask them: Do you mean Windows,
Linux, or which flavor of Unix -- when of course they *really* mean
all three!!! And now there's a fourth: VMware. There's no sign of this
stopping at my company. So when is it going to kick in already? After
people like me become non-VMS workers and later retire?

>
> Heck, getting Mark Hurd to do a personal video testimonial for a single
> product (remember that HP is a $100B+ company & has hundreds of products)
> was a major accomplishment by folks like Sue and others in BCS working
> with her.

This was fantastic and I, for one, not only applauded it -- I jokingly
took credit for it!

>
> And here are some recent testimonial video'sall links are to HP site)
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2qjog6
> "See how Deutsche Börse, the largest financial exchange organization in
> the world, uses HP OpenVMS running on HP Integrity servers to keep their
> electronic markets up and running."
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2mt3cp- Acision and OpenVMS Blades
> "Acision uses HP OpenVMS running on HP Integrity servers & HP Blades to
> help deliver more than half of the world's text & multimedia messages &
> serve three quarters of all videomail users."
>
> http://tinyurl.com/34886x- Australian Stock Exchange & OpenVMS Integrity
> "Operating Australia's chief financial markets, the Australian Securities
> Exchange relies on HP OpenVMS to deliver products and services that play a
> major role in the economy down under."

These are nice, but we need more new customers.

> So, yes there is still lots to do, but lets also not lose sight of some
> Of the positive things happening as well.

OK.

[...]

AEF

Main, Kerry wrote:


> However, the blind doom-and-gloom you portray without any recognition
> of some of the good things happening is also not beneficial to those
> in this newsgroup.


HP knows exactly what it is doing when it prohibits the marketing of VMS
outside the installed base and codones statements from
Stallard/Livermore that confirm that they are only interested in the VMS
customer base.

And remember that statements from Stallard/Livermore made to the press
have far more credibility and weight than anything I say here. If you're
not happy with my statements, perhaps you shoudl be asking
Stallard/Livermore why they make such statements that essentially cnfirm
HP is only interested in moving VMS customers to other HP products ?
Perhaps you should be asking them why HP has a policy of prohibiting (or
making it very hard) to make any VMS marketing targetted outside the
installed base ?





And check out the roadmap. Once you remove changes made to accomodate
new HP hardware, licencing schemes and running VMS as an HP-UX
application, there really isn't much left for real improvements. So the
staff cuts made to VMS engineering are having quite an impact.




> Heck, getting Mark Hurd to do a personal video testimonial for a single
> product

Which is a great accomplishement by Sue. Just imagine if Sue were
allowed market VMS outside of the installed base. Sue is an extremely
valuable resource, but its clear now that HP doesn't really allow Sue's
full potential to be realised. Last year, there were still lots of hopes
of Hurd getting involved and allowing VMS to grow.



And that video is strategically important. This was a token action by
Hurd to prevent anyone from claiming Hurd doesn't do anything for VMS.
But the lack of a real press release to celebrate the 30th anniversary
is more telling. (especially sicne HP made one for its calculators
earlier this year).



(remember that HP is a $100B+ company & has hundreds of products)

And HP's slavery to Microsoft doesn't prevent HP from marketing
calculators, ink etc etc etc. VMS is unique in that it is not allowed
to use IT mainstream marketing.



> So, yes there is still lots to do, but lets also not lose sight of some
> Of the positive things happening as well.


Musicians playing the violin until the very end on Titanic was also a
very positive thing happening.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: AEF [mailto:spamsink2001@yahoo.com]
> Sent: December 30, 2007 10:16 PM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: Samba Gains Legal Access to Microsoft Network File
> Protocols
>
> On Dec 30, 8:14 pm, "Main, Kerry" wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca]
> > > Sent: December 30, 2007 5:12 PM
> > > To: Info-...@Mvb.Saic.Com
> > > Subject: Re: Samba Gains Legal Access to Microsoft Network File
> > > Protocols
> >
> > > Main, Kerry wrote:
> >
> > > > Well, pure personal opinion, but at some point I believe the
> industry
> > > is
> > > > going to realize that it can no longer afford these "industry
> > > standard"
> > > > OS's like Windows and Linux - especially for mission critical
> > > workloads.
> >
> > > Consider that even today, VMS is rarely considered by the majority
> of
> > > IT
> > > shops. And by the time they realise Windows is costing them a lot
> more
> > > than other systems, VMS may no longer be available to new customers
> and
> > > its features will have lagged far more than now and will truly be
> only
> > > good enough for legacy apps.
> >
> > [sky is falling and black helicopter stuff snipped..]
> >
> > Like I (and others) have said before - nobody here is saying that
> > marketing and other areas (past and present) discussed at length in
> this
> > newsgroup could not have been done differently or be improved.
> >
> > However, the blind doom-and-gloom you portray without any recognition
> > of some of the good things happening is also not beneficial to those
> > in this newsgroup.
>
> You're right. But what about your oft-repeated mantra of the industry
> waking up to how expensive it is to run VMware with Windows and Linux
> and employee counts and what not? How many years have you been telling
> us this? At my company they've been trying to converge to one OS for
> years. I never -- but wanted to -- ask them: Do you mean Windows,
> Linux, or which flavor of Unix -- when of course they *really* mean
> all three!!! And now there's a fourth: VMware. There's no sign of this
> stopping at my company. So when is it going to kick in already? After
> people like me become non-VMS workers and later retire?
>

Ok, simple scenario -

If you are like most companies now who have implemented VMware, you are
now running into the issue of how do we manage so many OS VM instances.
In addition, you have only been able to reduce about 10-15% of the IT
budget and that is due to some HW and DC related savings.

Once you are done with about as much VMware as you can (VMware and
virtualization in general is not for all environments), how will your CIO
respond to the CEO's request for an additional 20-30% cut in IT expenses?

As I stated before, to many companies are focusing on the "easy" way to
show progress in reducing IT expenses - the next wave of cuts is when
the real pain starts as you need to reduce the number of OS instances in
order to reduce IT staffing which is 60-70% of the IT budget.

And this means business Applic stacking or rationalization - both of which
are huge, huge political landmines in a one bus app, one OS culture.

[snip...]


Regards

Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

Main, Kerry wrote:

> And this means business Applic stacking or rationalization - both of which
> are huge, huge political landmines in a one bus app, one OS culture.

And what does this have to do with VMS ? When the above happens, then
customers will demand that their application be written so they can
co-exist with others in the same OS instance. If it can't be done on
Windows, they will switch to Linux, AIX or Solaris.

Since HP refuses to market VMS, and since the major applications are
leaving VMS, you can't seriously expect many customers to migrate to VMS.

So Mr Main, how to you spin to your customers the fact that HP got
Cerner to drop VMS and move to HP-UX ?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca]
> Sent: December 31, 2007 10:52 AM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: Samba Gains Legal Access to Microsoft Network File
> Protocols
>
> Main, Kerry wrote:
>
> > And this means business Applic stacking or rationalization - both of
> which
> > are huge, huge political landmines in a one bus app, one OS culture.
>
> And what does this have to do with VMS ? When the above happens, then
> customers will demand that their application be written so they can
> co-exist with others in the same OS instance. If it can't be done on
> Windows, they will switch to Linux, AIX or Solaris.
>
> Since HP refuses to market VMS, and since the major applications are
> leaving VMS, you can't seriously expect many customers to migrate to
> VMS.
>
> So Mr Main, how to you spin to your customers the fact that HP got
> Cerner to drop VMS and move to HP-UX ?

Like any company, some things we can talk about publically, others we
can not.

However, Customers are free to express whatever they want to both
Cerner and HP.

Regards

Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

Main, Kerry schrieb:

>
> Like any company, some things we can talk about publically, others we
> can not.

So VMS must be top secret within HP,
because, funnily enough, your posts never
mention anything about VMS, except your
meaningless sig.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Kraemer [mailto:M.Kraemer@gsi.de]
> Sent: December 31, 2007 12:21 PM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: Samba Gains Legal Access to Microsoft Network File
> Protocols
>
> Main, Kerry schrieb:
>
> >
> > Like any company, some things we can talk about publically, others we
> > can not.
>
> So VMS must be top secret within HP,
> because, funnily enough, your posts never
> mention anything about VMS, except your
> meaningless sig.

If you had actually read the post, you would have noticed my comment was
to JF's comments about Cerner.

Perhaps you feel free to talk about your companies confidential things in
public newsgroups, but in most companies, that is extremely bad news.

Geezz.. I did not think I would have to explain that bit of basic
newsgroup stuff.

Ah well...



Regards

Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

Main, Kerry wrote:

> If you had actually read the post, you would have noticed my comment was
> to JF's comments about Cerner.

A succesful OS vendor will have no problems bragging about all the wins
it is making in attracting new customers, applications and ISVs. A
succesful OS vendor wants to grow and will have no problems marketing
their OS. A succesful OS vendor won't go to a key ISV and tell them to
drop support for their platform.

Palmer did that for the SWIFT software, but he told SWIFT that VMS had
no future and that they should build their next generation software on
something else than VMS. DEC really did expect to retain those customers
by selling windows servers/support. They haven't.

Did Hurd/Livermore/Stallard tell Cerner exactly the same thing as Palmer
had told Swift ? (that would bring the "we'll continue the "plan of
record" to a an incredible level of compliance with the plan of record
set out by Palmer.)


With ST400 (SWIFT), VMS had a toe hold in big blue banks that would have
otherwise never considered VMS. That's gone now. At the time of that
loss, VMS still have the hospital and military business as well as some
portions of telecom, so the loss of banking wasn't mortal to VMS.

But when you are down to VMS's niche being restricted to the hospital
business and some remnant of older military contracts and some leftover
telecom business not yet ported to unix, then losing the hospital
business should be considered pretty serious.


You may have some perfectly legitimate explanation. But as long as you
or anyone else are prohibited from divulging that explanation, you need
to accept the fact that HP's actions are seen as being against VMS
because without that secret information, it is the only way we, the
people who still care about VMS, can interpret HP's moves.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca]
> Sent: December 31, 2007 2:10 PM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: Samba Gains Legal Access to Microsoft Network File
> Protocols
>
> Main, Kerry wrote:
>
> > If you had actually read the post, you would have noticed my comment
> was
> > to JF's comments about Cerner.
>
> A succesful OS vendor will have no problems bragging about all the wins
> it is making in attracting new customers, applications and ISVs. A
> succesful OS vendor wants to grow and will have no problems marketing
> their OS. A succesful OS vendor won't go to a key ISV and tell them to
> drop support for their platform.
>
> Palmer did that for the SWIFT software, but he told SWIFT that VMS had
> no future and that they should build their next generation software on
> something else than VMS. DEC really did expect to retain those
> customers
> by selling windows servers/support. They haven't.
>

[snip..]

JF - not that I am or ever was a fan of Palmer, but the SWIFT decision had
little to do with Digital and/or Palmer.

Remember that SWIFT cut AIX at the same time.

SWIFT (and in particular a couple of individuals) were into consolidating to
fewer OS's and at that time Solaris was viewed as the answer to world hunger.


Regards

Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

Main, Kerry wrote:

> Remember that SWIFT cut AIX at the same time.

Wrong. SWIFT Terminal Services (the software arm of SWIFT) had cut other
platforms for its "official" software package and had signed a deal with
Digital in early 1990s or late 1980s to have VMS as its one stragetic
platform.

Other vendors had SWIFT-approved software packages, but they were not
written nor supported by SWIFT. The SWIFT package was called ST400 and
was generally viewed has having more features since it supported all
message types and SWIFT garanteed that ST400 patches would be available
in time for any network changes (usually twice a year when new/change
message types would be put into production).

SWIFT Terminal Services also had a special agreement with Digital for
extra support/sales support (since those are considered mission critical
for banks).

When the time came to create SWIFT-II, SWIFT went to Digital and was
told to not count on VMS. ST400 was maintained until all its functions
were available on the new SWIFT-II platform. Most customers went to the
Solaris version instead of Windows due to better quality, more features
available and better support. In terms of disaster recovery, it was a
step down from VMS, but customers had no choice since VMS was no longer
supported by SWIFT.

Had Palmer told SWIFT that VMS had a bright future and that Digital
would start marketing it again etc etc, SWIFT might have stuck with VMS
because it offered much better mission critical features.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca]
> Sent: January 1, 2008 11:49 AM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: Samba Gains Legal Access to Microsoft Network File
> Protocols
>
> Main, Kerry wrote:
>
> > Remember that SWIFT cut AIX at the same time.
>
> Wrong. SWIFT Terminal Services (the software arm of SWIFT) had cut
> other
> platforms for its "official" software package and had signed a deal
> with
> Digital in early 1990s or late 1980s to have VMS as its one stragetic
> platform.
>

It would appear that we have different sources. My source stated that
the decision to move to Solaris was made by SWIFT and Digital had
little or no feedback on this - same as for IBM and AIX.

Btw, it looks like OpenVMS still has SWIFT presence - check out these
new job openings in London: (note SWIFT reference)

[typical caution applies here as I do not know this site. Perhaps
someone could validate this?]

http://tinyurl.com/2hjpo6
" VMS Applications Consultants x 5 - Central London / The City -
Investment Banking

Key skills OpenVMS VMS C or VMS COBOL
Environ. OpenVMS C COBOL INGRES ORACLE DCL OPENROAD VISUAK BASIC VB6
DECFORMS ACMSVBA CLEARCASE BEA WEBLOGIC SWIFT TIBCO Rendezvous
Our client's business is at the very heart of the London banking
community and is a stable member and well regarded institution within
city finance circles. Our client's IT systems help support the trading
of items such as derivatives swaps and fixed income products. Our client
wish to directly recruit 5 VMS Application Support Engineers.

Key skills VMS OpenVMS VMS C VMS COBOL


Regards

Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.


Regards