Re: Inquirer: HP's Alpha RetainTrust programme a complete bust

From: John Smith (a@nonymous.com)
Date: 04/10/03 

From: "John Smith" <a@nonymous.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 16:49:25 GMT

"Bill Todd" <billtodd@metrocast.net> wrote in message
news:IUOdnQdK-4sybQyjXTWc2Q@metrocast.net...
>
> "John Smith" <a@nonymous.com> wrote in message
> news:O3gka.79644$pNv.62566@news02.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> >
> > "Bob Koehler" <koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org> wrote in
> > message news:8lFVUM90oDKb@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> > > In article
> > <Bqija.37622$pNv.20975@news02.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>,
"John
> > Smith" <a@nonymous.com> writes:
> > > >
> > > > The cost of porting is being paid by Intel, so it's not HP's
money
> > > > that's being spent.
> > >
> > > Says who? (Reference, please).
> >
> >
> > Looking.
>
> Thanks - I'm curious myself. While Intel has made it clear that
it's
> willing to pay for ports to Itanic, and while it seems entirely
plausible
> that part of the Alphacide agreement involved paying for the VMS
port (if
> only because Compaq has shown so little interest in funding *any*
long-term
> VMS development - and given the expressed intention of keeping Alpha
> available for several years the actual need for a port definitely
qualifies
> as long-term), I don't know of any hard evidence to that effect
(aside from
> vague comments from Compaq honchos at the time of the Alphacide
about
> significant numbers of pieces of silver they were getting from Intel
for
> it).
>
> - bill

I have not found the 'smoking gun' but there is sufficient
circumstantial evidence....

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-268944.html?legacy=cnet&tag=ch_mh

"Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The companies said
the deal is a nonexclusive licensing agreement. Intel will hire the
majority of Alpha engineers, some of whom will remain at Compaq until
they complete AlphaServer projects now under way. No layoffs are
expected as a result of the deal, a Compaq executive said.

Compaq will transfer the majority of its Alpha development tools and
engineering resources to Intel, which also will be granted licenses to
use Alpha processor technology and compilers."

and

"Compaq also agreed to port its Tru64 Unix, OpenVMS and NonStop Kernel
operating systems to Itanium. At the same time, Compaq and Intel
agreed to jointly develop future high-end computing products.

Capellas rebuffed concerns that the deal could raise regulatory
issues. "We've obviously looked at it pretty carefully, and we don't
believe there are any regulatory roadblocks that may fall," he said.
"Quite frankly, this is nonexclusive, so we believe this is just an
extension of competition in the marketplace."

Interesting choice of words, 'Compaq will transfer the majority ....'
and 'Compaq also agreed to port ...'

Compaq and Intel exchanged commitments and assets (money for property
and intentions). To say that Compaq would have spent the money on
porting VMS to Itanic in absence of killing Alpha is unlikely. That
Intel sweetened the deal by coughing up additional money to make the
port 'cost free' to Compaq is highly probable. The assets Intel
acquired in the deal were considerable - both in technology, brain
power, lessened competition, increased sales potential for Itanic, and
bragging rights to have other 'enterprise' operating systems ported to
Itanic. Any half-assed prosecutor would be able to convince any jury
that the porting funding for VMS is 'proceeds of the crime'.

--------------

From: Andrew Harrison SUNUK Consultancy (andrew.nospam@uk.sun.com)
Subject: Re: The secret Alpha memo..
View: Complete Thread (99 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec, comp.os.vms
Date: 1999/07/06

"Paul DeMone wrote:

> Andrew Harrison SUNUK Consultancy wrote:
> >
> > OpenVMS is dead its official. Well not quite but the lack of a
mention
> > of OpenVMS or even NSK is rather revealing. Compaq are only to
> > happy to talk about increasing investment in Tru64, SCO, Linux
> > and NT but they don't even admit to owning OpenVMS.
>
> By the same logic SPARC is toast because Sun is spending *its*
> precious R&D dollars porting Solaris to IA-64. (Actually a smart
> move since the US-III will likely be one of the few flagship
> RISCs slower than Merced. ;-)
>

This is hardly news, Sun has been spending its precious R&D dollars
on porting Solaris to x86 for a lot longer than any IA-64 expenditure.

There is one huge difference though between Sun porting Solaris
to x86/IA64 and Compaq pumping $100 million into Tru64 marketing.

***Firstly Intel are providing funding for the IA-64 Solaris
port.....*** "

So Intel funds the Solaris port and not the VMS port? Seems to me that
Compaq/HP would require at least equal treatment from Intel.

-----------------

http://www.compaq.ch/exclude/winnercircle/abo_win_OVMS_Update.ppt

Slide #5 - "Intel and Compaq commit significant joint resources and
investments..."

--------------------------------------

Other goodies which may have influenced events....

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-204478.html?legacy=cnet&tag=rltdnws

October 21, 1997, 6:10 PM PT

If Digital Equipment and Intel settle their patent infringement cases
this week, the settlement could mark Digital's convergence with
Intel's 64-bit architecture, the foundation of Intel's next-generation
Merced chip.

Apparently, under the proposed terms of settlement, Intel will pay
Digital consideration worth $1.6 billion, with nearly half of the
total coming in the form of soft dollars, processor discounts, and
development and manufacturing assistance, a huge amount of nonmonetary
consideration that would make sense only if Digital were planning to
move away from its own Alpha architecture and toward Intel's 64-bit
Merced chip.

"It makes sense only if Digital was planning to convert to IA-64
[Intel's 64-bit architecture] in the future," said Linley Gwennap,
editor-in-chief of The Microprocessor Report. "It doesn't make sense
that Intel would be 'fabbing' [manufacturing] the main competitor to
Merced for an indefinite time.

--------------------------

Then we come to one of my favorite topics....marketing & advertising

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=2221

"Gartner assessment: The full porting will cost no more than $40
million over a three-year period, although the entire cost, including
e-business infrastructure, scaling, system management and other
modernizing capabilities, will run to about $200 million.

Compaq: Gartner has inflated the OpenVMS engineering cost for the port
by 500%, with the implication being that we will not do the port
because it is two costly. Our estimate is that the port will require
between 25 and 40 engineers to do over a three year period, with a
cost of $30 to $40 million."...later CPQ added "During the discussion,
the $200M investment was further clarified as the entire OpenVMS
business investment - not just that related to the Itanium efforts."

....

"Gartner assessment: "according to Compaq's records, [OpenVMS
installed base] stands at 400,000 systems although we believe active
production systems could be 30 percent to 40 percent lower, with a
large-enough maintenance revenue stream (estimated at more than $1
billion annually) that is too high to ignore.

Compaq: Gartner assessment the OpenVMS installed base is 30 - 40 lower
than the 411,000 systems and the $2 billion in service revenue that we
provided them.

In summary, we believe that the Gartner Group Research Note has over
estimated the cost of the port, under estimated the size and value of
the customer base, as well as the economic benefits of lower
development costs."

***[funny that...still no signs of marketing or advertising for such a
'valuable' and profitable asset]

....

"Second, the cost-savings that accrue to the OpenVMS P&L from not
having to fund long-term Alpha chip or hardware development is
significant, making the OpenVMS business even more profitable than it
was.

Given the profitability of the OpenVMS business (made more profitable
by the IPF decision) and the large and happy/loyal installed base
(411,000 systems), there is no business justification to abandon these
customers and cope with the ill will that will result."

echo...***[funny that...still no signs of marketing or advertising for
such a 'valuable' and profitable asset]

--------------------

http://www.hoise.com/primeur/02/articles/monthly/UH-PR-01-02-1.html

Here's an interesting bit about Tru64...with implications for
OpenVMS...

"The operating system issue challenging, as Tru64 Unix reached #4
market position, 7% share with possible growth to 10%. But is was
difficult to reach #1 or #2 position, greater than 30% share, in the
near future - primarily because of ISV portfolio."

So we have Tru64 which may have had a 7-10% market share, principally
due to lack of ISV applications relative to other unix offerings, yet
OpenVMS with a much smaller market share and even fewer ISV
applications is still alive...for how much longer?

and then there is this gem.....

"Compaq announced to deepen its communication with the customers and
integrate key customer program across Tru64 Unix and OpenVMS building
on best practices. They plan customer councils and forums as well as
partner communications and one on one marketing."

Howls of derisive laughter greet their efforts so far.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Intel prepares to kill off the Pentium 4
    ... wouldn't you think it would have been better to port to AMD to start ... Intel makes both the x86-64 and Itanium processors. ... you must pay for the OpenVMS port to x86-64". ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Intel prepares to kill off the Pentium 4
    ... wouldn't you think it would have been better to port to AMD to ... Intel makes both the x86-64 and Itanium processors. ... you must pay for the OpenVMS port to x86-64". ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Intel prepares to kill off the Pentium 4
    ... wouldn't you think it would have been better to port to AMD to ... Intel makes both the x86-64 and Itanium processors. ... you must pay for the OpenVMS port to x86-64". ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: The coming death of all RISC chips.
    ... designers to Intel to work on the Itanium. ... there was legitimate reason to doubt the ability of out-of-order processors in the enterprise space (and the x86 architecture in the PC space) to succeed in advancing performance at rates that might be achievable by other approaches, which was the basis for HP's investigation of an in-order architecture that might do better as well as Intel's investigation into an x86 successor. ... Compaq had just bought DEC, and CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer saw an opportunity to use Alpha's continuing performance dominance to Compaq's advantage - starting to market Alpha as already delivering what Itanic could only promise for some time in the not-so-near future. ...
    (comp.arch)
  • Re: Intel neuters Montvale, Itanic screams in alarm
    ... >>a port of vMS to the 8086 is inevitable. ... Intel is developing a common system infrastructure which will support ... chipset, ...
    (comp.os.vms)