Re: HP World Magazine: For Business Continuity...the answer may be OpenVMS

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_teksavvy.com)
Date: 05/11/04 

Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 03:13:47 GMT

Robert Deininger wrote:
> I don't know exactly _why_, but it is the case. Digital built good
> systems, but they were not very good at controlling costs.

Aren't Alpha systems such as DS10s (and I would assume DS15s) built from
industry standard parts ? They use industry standa<rd PCI bus, right ?
Industry standard power supply, drives, connectors, etc ?

While I understand that the original Microvax II in the large cabinet was
built like a tank with the steel alone probably costing more than your average
PC today. However, DS10s and DS15s are modern systems and under Compaq, their
production costs should have gone down simply due to greater purchasing power
of Compaq.

And in hindsight, it is clear that Compaq had no intentions of making Alpha
succeed and as a result, was more likely to leave them priced uncompetitively
and use accounting tricks to make their production costs look much worse than
they could have been. Had Compaq made Alpha competitive and had the Alpha
product line shown great growth, Compaq couldn't have done what it did on June
25 2001.

> I strongly suspect DS15 costs more to manufacture than the list selling
> price of rx1600.

OK, pray tell, from the system point of view, why would a low volume Alpha
machine cost more to produce than a low volume IA64 box ?

> The only way to profitably sell Alphas much cheaper would be to cut the
> cost to manufacture. That would require aggressively designing for low
> cost (not a Digital strength)

Both Compaq and HP are supposedly capable of producing low cost. When Compaq
inherited Digital, it mentioned amny times that due to the combined purchasing
power, it would be able to reduce parts costs for both DEC and Compaq
products. Now, HP is even bigger and should have even lower costs for parts.

Sorry, that excuse doesn't hold. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Digital ceased to exist in 1999. Both Compaq and HP had plenty of time modify
the DS10 and design the DS15 to change whatever resulted in higher production costs.

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