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Dave Froble
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Jul 2005
Posts: 1172
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 Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 11:55 pm Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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John Smith wrote:
| Quote: | Tom Linden wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:17:34 +0000 (UTC), <david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk
wrote:
Also how long would it take to port Tandem NSK to PA-RISC ?
How close was the port to Alpha to completion when the decision to
move to IA64
was made ?
Maybe the question that should be asked, is how long would it take to
provide migration tools from NSK to VMS? Or alternatively, to whom
can we sell Non-Stop business unit?
I would give odds that HP will start shedding business units.
IBM would probably snap up NSK in a heartbeat.
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style.
Just curious, if they'd be so interested in it now, why didn't they |
'snap it up' prior to Compaq doing so? |
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Tom Linden
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 841
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| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 11:57 pm Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 15:52:14 -0500, Dave Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | Tom Linden wrote:
On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:59:23 -0500, JF Mezei
jfmezei.spamnot@teksavvy.com> wrote:
Tom Linden wrote:
The real
value in the Digital component of HP is VMS, Alpha has lost all its
value.
There is one aspect of Alpha: installed base and available software,
much of which is no longer developped and thus not be available on
Alpha's successor. Continuing the Alpha processor ratins that software
whereas moving to a new platform requires VMS start from scratch with
software availability.
This is an argument for Alpha, and VAX. It's a limited argument.
Note that this is also a reason HP-UX customers are still buying PaRisc
based machines instead of that unwanted IA64 thing. But VMS is in a
much
worse shape than HP-UX in terms of application ecosystem.
Face it Alpha is dead. To make VMS a viable business it _will_ need
to use a supplier for its chips such as Power /and/or Opteron.
Much as I hate to, I have to admit that Alpha is most likely history. To
what purpose should HP spend the considerable money it would take, and
for what, just another "me too".
There are 2 issues, near term, and far future. In the near term,
continuing to sell Alphas, with whatever enhancements can be done for
EV7, is one solution. Using the itanic when it's a fit is also
reasonable. For far term, I can see a costly and tremendous effort to
pull Alpha back to the front of the pack, just to see that new advances
have made all today's techniques obsolete. All dressed up, with nowhere
to go.
The cost argument, BTW, also applies to Itanic, its ongoing development |
costs
can not be amortised over a large run, as had been envisaged and was indeed
part of the reason for embarking on the program, at least that is how I
interpreted it.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ |
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Tom Linden
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 841
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:00 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:12:40 -0500, John Smith <a@nonymous.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Tom Linden wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:17:34 +0000 (UTC), <david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk
wrote:
Also how long would it take to port Tandem NSK to PA-RISC ?
How close was the port to Alpha to completion when the decision to
move to IA64
was made ?
Maybe the question that should be asked, is how long would it take to
provide migration tools from NSK to VMS? Or alternatively, to whom
can we sell Non-Stop business unit?
I would give odds that HP will start shedding business units.
IBM would probably snap up NSK in a heartbeat.
Probably not for the product, but the customer. BTW, what are their |
revenues?
| Quote: |
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style.
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--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ |
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Dave Froble
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Jul 2005
Posts: 1172
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:10 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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JF Mezei wrote:
| Quote: | Dave Froble wrote:
Much as I hate to, I have to admit that Alpha is most likely history.
To what purpose should HP spend the considerable money it would take,
and for what, just another "me too".
Competitive advantage.
HP has learned that there is no money to be made in commodity. IBM knew
that a long time ago and has already taken action.
So if HP is to succeed, will it turn itself into a low cost Dell
competitor, or will it try to find some true technological edge to
differentiate itself from the others ?
Alpha may have been asleep for a couple of years, but so has PaRisc.
Nevertheless, resurecting Alpha would still be far easier and cheaper
and less troublesome for customers than going to a totally new platform.
|
The itanic, whether you and I and anyone else likes it, is here and
running VMS.
How long do you think it would take to put together a project to again
work on Alpha? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? The last option listed
is most likely. That's before they start to do anything. It's not just
the group(s) working on 'real' stuff, DEC had plenty of research going
on. You may have noticed my commenting on 'EV10'? That was pure
research into an idea, not anything that would be a product. Compaq did
a real good job of slashing both R&D, with emphysis on the 'R'.
So, Ok, you do get both some R and some D going again. How long before
you get anything out of 'D'? How long before 'D' even decides what it's
going to be working on? Don't even ask about timing for the 'R' part.
The real issue in all this is what's going to come out of all the 'R'
some others were smart enough to keep doing? A week ago many had no
knowledge of what IBM, Sony, and Toshiba were up to. It's too early to
tell if they're on to something, but, some new technologies are going to
emerge. Blowing money on the last century's technology isn't a real
good idea.
Dave |
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Bill Gunshannon
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Jul 2005
Posts: 1019
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:12 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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In article <5vWdnXURA-ko1ZDfRVn-qg@metrocastcablevision.com>,
Bill Todd <billtodd@metrocast.net> writes:
| Quote: | JF Mezei wrote:
Dave Froble wrote:
Much as I hate to, I have to admit that Alpha is most likely history.
To what purpose should HP spend the considerable money it would take,
and for what, just another "me too".
Competitive advantage.
I've made repeated suggestions that the only way any competitive
advantage would accrue to a resurrected Alpha platform would be for it
to incorporate something superior to the competition, and so far no one
(including you) has come up with any such feature.
|
It does have a competitive advantage. It can run VMS.
bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h> |
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Bill Todd
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 24 Jul 2005
Posts: 408
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:33 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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Tom Linden wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:12:40 -0500, John Smith <a@nonymous.com> wrote:
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....
| Quote: | IBM would probably snap up NSK in a heartbeat.
Probably not for the product, but the customer. BTW, what are their
revenues?
|
The same Compaq slide that stated VMS annual system revenues as $4
billion and Tru64's as $3 billion in March, 2001, pegged NSK's at $2
billion. And in rather marked contrast to VMS's and Tru64's, NSK's were
reported as holding approximately steady the following fall.
Which may say nothing about what they are now, of course.
- bill |
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JF Mezei
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Jul 2005
Posts: 2556
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:33 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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Bill Todd wrote:
| Quote: | Alpha *would have* led in SMT technology had EV8 been completed, but by
the time any SMT Alpha could get out now that technology will be old hat
|
Yes. But the point is that a project started today would go beyond SMT,
just like other chip makers are already looking beyond SMT. There are
parts of EV7 and EV8 that are still usable, and there is experience and
inspiration from Power and Sparc and perhasp even the 8086 that can be
used to start a new Alpha today aleready ahead of where it was at the
time Compaq slowed and then stopped work on Alpha.
| Quote: | HP has learned that there is no money to be made in commodity.
You mean like in printers?
|
Printers are far from commodity. They are highly proprietary with much
done to prevent one from even refilling ink genuine cartridges. Heck HP
even now prevents ink from one continent from being used on printers
from other continents.
| Quote: | The question, of course, is where to look for that edge, given limited
resources. And since any such edge absolutely *requires* a lot of
system-level work, adding anything else that isn't absolutely necessary
would dilute it (it's not as if HP was so healthy that it could throw
cash around that it didn't really need to).
|
Consider the 3 billion they threw at Intel for no specific return. Seems
to me that HP has had plenty of ink money to throw at Carly's pet projects.
| Quote: | Having HP go out of business trying to resurrect them would be even more
troublesome for customers, I suspect. HP should continue to sell the
platforms as long as customers want them, but (one more time, absent
some wonderful idea that would lead to a significantly superior product)
should look elsewhere for their longer-term future.
|
When you look at HP's enterprise business, what is more important ? The
ecosystem of the installed base and exsiting software, or switching chip
in the hopes to that the new chip will be better ?
| Quote: | Intel and HP wasted vast amounts of cash and resources developing a
product with no clear advantage over its competition
|
Yes. But the problem with IA64 was its original mamdate which lead to
too radical a change as well as too may requirements which resulted in
IA64 being a failure because it tried to be everything to everyone.
Just because IA64 is a commercial failure doesn't mean that with a
leaner and meaner chip such as Alpha, HP couldn't be succesful.
| Quote: | represents gross incompetence. But so does trying to resurrect it later
when you have no real reason to think it can regain that leadership.
|
So, the minute you agree that IA64 is a goner, what should HP replace it
with ? Is it only option the 8086 ?
If Intel and AMD can scale the 8086 to match Power and Sparc's
enterprise capabilities, then it may work. But that may take more time
than ramping Alpha or PaRisc back up. |
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Bill Todd
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 24 Jul 2005
Posts: 408
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:35 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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Bill Todd wrote:
....
| Quote: | The same Compaq slide that stated VMS annual system revenues as $4
billion and Tru64's as $3 billion in March, 2001, pegged NSK's at $2
billion. And in rather marked contrast to VMS's and Tru64's, NSK's were
reported as holding approximately steady the following fall.
Which may say nothing about what they are now, of course.
- bill
|
Whoops - I'm really not sure whether the above figure applied solely to
NSK or to all Tandem-related revenue, which may still have included
their 'Integrity' Unix servers back then (nor have I any idea what the
latter may have amounted to).
- bill |
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John Smith
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 561
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:53 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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Bill Gunshannon wrote:
| Quote: | In article <5vWdnXURA-ko1ZDfRVn-qg@metrocastcablevision.com>,
Bill Todd <billtodd@metrocast.net> writes:
JF Mezei wrote:
Dave Froble wrote:
Much as I hate to, I have to admit that Alpha is most likely
history. To what purpose should HP spend the considerable money it
would take, and for what, just another "me too".
Competitive advantage.
I've made repeated suggestions that the only way any competitive
advantage would accrue to a resurrected Alpha platform would be for
it to incorporate something superior to the competition, and so far
no one (including you) has come up with any such feature.
It does have a competitive advantage. It can run VMS.
bill
|
So what whomever winds up with VMS (not necessarily HP after the new CEO is
brought in) ought to do is port VMS to everything and then let SI's and
VAR's sell it on whatever they want and have a 1st level/2nd-level support
arrangement - SI/VAR handles 1st level and can sell a 2nd level support
contract direct with VMS Engineering.
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style. |
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John Smith
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 561
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:57 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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Dave Froble wrote:
| Quote: | John Smith wrote:
Tom Linden wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:17:34 +0000 (UTC), <david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk
wrote:
Also how long would it take to port Tandem NSK to PA-RISC ?
How close was the port to Alpha to completion when the decision to
move to IA64
was made ?
Maybe the question that should be asked, is how long would it take
to provide migration tools from NSK to VMS? Or alternatively, to
whom can we sell Non-Stop business unit?
I would give odds that HP will start shedding business units.
IBM would probably snap up NSK in a heartbeat.
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style.
Just curious, if they'd be so interested in it now, why didn't they
'snap it up' prior to Compaq doing so?
|
They would have had to buy the whole company.
Now at HP, the Board is having second/third/fourth thoughts about whether
they should just be a printing company. With that, everything else is
potentially for sale and probably piecemeal if they thought it would get
them more money.
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style. |
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John Smith
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 561
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:01 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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Bill Todd wrote:
| Quote: | Tom Linden wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:12:40 -0500, John Smith <a@nonymous.com
wrote:
...
IBM would probably snap up NSK in a heartbeat.
Probably not for the product, but the customer. BTW, what are their
revenues?
The same Compaq slide that stated VMS annual system revenues as $4
billion and Tru64's as $3 billion in March, 2001, pegged NSK's at $2
billion. And in rather marked contrast to VMS's and Tru64's, NSK's
were reported as holding approximately steady the following fall.
Which may say nothing about what they are now, of course.
- bill
|
NSK, while not a big line item in the HP sales forecast, has loyal
customers....not too many NSK installations are switching to Windows for
it's reliability, nor to Linux for its transaction processing. Those
platforms are not perceived to be threats to NSK, either in reality or in
perception.
HP has done nothing to position VMS in the same light even though in almost
every way it is as robust as NSK when properly configured, and under certain
circumstance more robust.
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style. |
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Tom Linden
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 841
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:29 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:01:10 -0500, John Smith <a@nonymous.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Bill Todd wrote:
Tom Linden wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:12:40 -0500, John Smith <a@nonymous.com
wrote:
...
IBM would probably snap up NSK in a heartbeat.
Probably not for the product, but the customer. BTW, what are their
revenues?
The same Compaq slide that stated VMS annual system revenues as $4
billion and Tru64's as $3 billion in March, 2001, pegged NSK's at $2
billion. And in rather marked contrast to VMS's and Tru64's, NSK's
were reported as holding approximately steady the following fall.
Which may say nothing about what they are now, of course.
- bill
NSK, while not a big line item in the HP sales forecast, has loyal
customers....not too many NSK installations are switching to Windows for
it's reliability, nor to Linux for its transaction processing. Those
platforms are not perceived to be threats to NSK, either in reality or in
perception.
Stratus has done a fault-tolerant version for Windows, so that may change. |
But, how many 9's can you get from a VMS cluster?
| Quote: |
HP has done nothing to position VMS in the same light even though in
almost
every way it is as robust as NSK when properly configured, and under
certain
circumstance more robust.
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style.
|
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ |
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John Smith
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 561
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:11 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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JF Mezei wrote:
| Quote: | Dave Froble wrote:
Just curious, if they'd be so interested in it now, why didn't they
'snap it up' prior to Compaq doing so?
Bob Palmer started negotiations with Pfeiffer 3 years prior to the
actual transaction. That would put it in a 1995/1996 time frame. IBM
was
just recovering from its near bankrupcy at that time and Gerstner's
was
just starting to see success in reshaping mentality and corporate
culture at IBM. Gerstner was not found of takeovers. Integrating
Digital into IBM at the time would not have been good for IBM and IBM
shareholders.
IBM was later offered to buy Compaq and when Gerstner looked at the
numbers, he immediatly dismissed the idea laughing at the investment
bankers who were selling this as the next best thing since sliced
bear.
Such a transaction would have obliterated IBM,s profits with 50
billion
over 5 years and put IBM i serious loss situation.
History books will call it the curse of VMS. Digital went down because
of it. Compaq went down because it. HP is going down.
|
Wrong. DEC and Compaq when down because of what they didn't do with it -
create demand for it.
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style. |
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Dave Froble
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Jul 2005
Posts: 1172
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:12 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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Tom Linden wrote:
| Quote: | The cost argument, BTW, also applies to Itanic, its ongoing development
costs
can not be amortised over a large run, as had been envisaged and was indeed
part of the reason for embarking on the program, at least that is how I
interpreted it.
|
Yeah, but that's Intel's problem. They wanted it. Now they got it. As
long as they make then, why not use them?
Dave |
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John Smith
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 561
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:15 am Post subject:
Re: HP should....
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Tom Linden wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:01:10 -0500, John Smith <a@nonymous.com> wrote:
Bill Todd wrote:
Tom Linden wrote:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:12:40 -0500, John Smith <a@nonymous.com
wrote:
...
IBM would probably snap up NSK in a heartbeat.
Probably not for the product, but the customer. BTW, what are
their revenues?
The same Compaq slide that stated VMS annual system revenues as $4
billion and Tru64's as $3 billion in March, 2001, pegged NSK's at $2
billion. And in rather marked contrast to VMS's and Tru64's, NSK's
were reported as holding approximately steady the following fall.
Which may say nothing about what they are now, of course.
- bill
NSK, while not a big line item in the HP sales forecast, has loyal
customers....not too many NSK installations are switching to Windows
for it's reliability, nor to Linux for its transaction processing.
Those platforms are not perceived to be threats to NSK, either in
reality or in perception.
Stratus has done a fault-tolerant version for Windows, so that may
change. But, how many 9's can you get from a VMS cluster?
|
How many 9's do you want?
The military has 'Dial-a-Yield' for their nukes.
Just don't forget that the number of real 9's also depends on a lot of other
factors outside the buildings.
--
OpenVMS - The classics never go out of style. |
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